Excelsior Grange at 446 Harris Hill Road in Poland will have an open house on May 20, Noon to 2 pm. Lunch will be served at noon and is free to all. Rick Grotton, membership director of the Maine State Grange, will be the guest speaker.
Excelsior Grange is entering its 150th year of continuous operation in Poland, and we would like to introduce friends and neighbors to the opportunities available to them through Grange membership. The Grange today is not only for farmers, even though agriculture is still very important to the Grange. Membership is open to all who are over the age of 13, with social and service activities of interest to all. If you like working with others for the common good, the Grange is for you. Seeds for the Grange-sponsored 2023 Pumpkin Growing Contest, for youth ages 5-12, will be available that day.
For more information and/or rsvp for lunch, please call 998-2301.
Mill Stream Grange member Lisa Goucher (r) receives the Vienna, Maine Spirit of America Award. It was presented to her at a recent Grange meeting by Secretary Jill Sampson on behalf of the Vienna Selectmen. Lisa’s hard work helping elderly community members, and any neighbor in need, was recognized and praised by the Spirit of America Foundation. Thank you, Lisa, for your selfless, generous, and kind help to friends, family, and organizations in the area!
Grange Heirlooms are snippets from the lessons of the Grange as taught in the Rituals and Declaration of Purposes.
Use the icons below to share this Grange Heirloom on social media and help others understand what the Grange stands for! If this heirloom has a particular meaning for you, click the “leave a comment” link at the left and share your comment with us!
For additional information and resources regarding the Heirloom Program, visit the Heirloom Resource Page on the Maine State Grange Website.
A group of folks interested in reorganizing the Grange in Franklin Grange is meeting at the Franklin Library! Anyone in the area who is curious or interested is invited! For more information or to express your interest, email FranklinMEGrange@gmail.com!
a “webatorial” by MSG Communications Director Walter Boomsma
Seth Godin recently wrote an interesting post suggesting that when people move away, cards and cake should read, “You’ll miss us” instead of “We’ll miss you.” He points out that the community remains.
One of the more powerful sentences in the short post was, “When a marketer serves a community, they create the conditions where they’d be missed–because the ideas or products or services they bring are important, not simply tolerated.“
With apologies to Seth, I changed a word or two. “When a Grange serves a community, they create the conditions where they’d be missed–because the ideas or services they bring are important, not simply tolerated.“
My revision raises a question for Granges. Would your communities miss you if you were gone? Would they even notice? Are you important or simply tolerated?
One of the challenges we face as an organization is relevance in communities that are loosely defined and increasingly diverse. If our vision is narrow and our goals are limited, we will be missed an ever-diminishing number of people. For example, not everyone likes potluck suppers.
Seth’s short message is that marketers should see that as a worthwhile goal, creating ideas, products, or services that the community would miss.
Maybe it’s time for Granges to figure out what they can create and offer that their communities would miss.
By Walter Boomsma, MSG Communications Director 207 343-1842
Communication Shorts are brief (short) but important items posted for your information and use. Send us your ideas and thoughts!
May Bulletin
The deadline for the May Bulletin is May 14, 2023. Remember, you can always find recent issues of the Bulletin on the Program Books and Information Page.
Submitting Events and News
We’ve recently been receiving requests to post information with a reference to Facebook. While we are anxious to support Granges, this is not practical–primarily because it requires additional steps and time to find, copy, and process information from Facebook. Please email your news and events or use the submission tab on the website. We will, of course, be happy to include a link to the Facebook post “for more information” as long as you provide that link with your submission.
Once your event or news is posted, it’s quite easy to post it to Facebook by using the share links at the bottom of the post! Or you can copy the link (right-click on the title or headline) and simply paste it into Facebook.
Also, when submitting events, please plan ahead! Posting events at the last minute is not good stewardship. For one thing, it can take 24-48 hours for it to be posted, then another 24 hours for the post to be sent to subscribers. You should plan to have your event submitted at least one week prior to it happening!
Grange Month Happiness
Don’t forget to tell us what happiness you experienced during Grange Month at your Grange. Use the Submissions Tab or send an email!
Ideas for Granges
The Freedom, NH, Public Library recently hosted a Fun Friday event that included After-School Activities (3:45-4:45 PM – Students are welcome to come directly after school for crafting with perler beads), Pizza Time (4:45-5:15 PM), and Family Movie Night (5:15-7:00 PM – showing Puss In Boots: The Last Wish).
Thought for You…
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.”
The ODD Directory features all state officers, directors, and deputies with contact information.
The Directory of Granges features all Granges in the state with a contact person. Please make sure your listing is correct!
Do You Have FOMO?
“FOMO” is, of course, a Fear Of Missing Out. One strongly recommended treatment is to subscribe to the Maine State Grange Website. We’ll send you a daily summary whenever news and columns are posted, and we won’t share your email address with anyone!
Guests at Sagadahoc Pomona Fifth degree, April 26, 2023. Mr. and Mrs. Gerry Simmons from Minuteman Pomona in Massachusetts, Henry and Sharon Morton, and Rick Grotton from Lincoln Pomona in Maine. They were a great help to us filling in as Guest Master, Assistant Steward, Lecturer, and Spector. We had no candidates but new Graces who need the experience, so we did the Degree anyway. Everyone needs a reminder of what Pomona is all about including our secretary, who filled in as our acting candidate.
