Patrons of Husbandry – a website dedicated to the Granges located in Maine
On Monday, May 20, Mill Stream Grange members met to place Memorial Day flags at the Franklin Cemetery in Vienna and two other cemeteries on Tower Road. While at the Franklin Cemetery, they also raised the U.S. Flag and POW/MIA on the new flag pole donated by Gordon Webber.
Notes from National are gleaned from an email provided by Phil Vonada, National Grange Communications Director.
Articles in this edition include:
Click the button below to read and/or subscribe to the Patrons Chain!
Note that all recent issues are available on the National Grange Website. Occasionally, a weekly issue isn’t sent. For example, the last Friday of the month is usually a View from the Hill week, so the fact that one hasn’t been posted on the MSG website doesn’t necessarily mean we skipped it! You can double-check using the link (Read the Current Issue) above. Effective 2024, we will only maintain one year of issues on the MSG website.
By Melissa Baldwin, Maine State Grange Lecturer
207 324-4661
Time is running out to get those registrations for the Northeast Lecturers’ Conference in Norwich CT. The good news is the early bird registration for the conference and hotel has been extended to May 30, 2024. After that, the conference price will be increased by $15 from $30.00 to $45.00 for just the conference. There are meal options that are extra. The hotel is $139.00 per night until May 30, 2024. Then it will increase significantly.
For those who have already registered I will be contacting you soon with additional information for Maine’s portion of the fun.
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!
The May Bulletin is complete and available. You can find recent issues of the Bulletin on the Program Books and Information Page.
National Grange has announced a goal of increasing overall member satisfaction by 20% within the next year, as measured by an annual member feedback survey. They are asking members to complete a survey (about ten minutes of your time) regarding current feelings and attitudes toward the Grange. Please take the survey by June 30.
Registration for the 158th Annual National Grange Convention is now available. Register and submit your payment by July 31 and save $5 on registration.
We are getting reports of brief outages of the Maine State Grange Website. These usually only last a minute or two and are caused by the host server. We are monitoring their frequency and will request action if the situation doesn’t improve soon.
Raise money on your anniversary? If you’re having an anniversary celebration, could you do a fundraiser and raise money based on the number of years?
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”Online Grange Directory CHANGE?
Maya Angelou
Submitting news can be as simple as a photo and “cutline.” A cutline is a brief description–longer than a caption–to accompany the photo. Let’s prove that the Grange is alive and well in Maine! (Photos should be submitted as an attachment to an email.) We get inquiries from people looking for active Granges!
By Margaret Henderson, Director
Committee on Women’s Activities
207 948-2762
The CWA Committee met last month. We planned the program booklet for next year and chose the items for the baking contest and craft projects. This was a very productive meeting. I am so thankful for the ladies who are on this committee with me.
Just a reminder that contest entries are due at Headquarters on August 20th. I will be there from 9-3 that day. If you can not bring them that day, please call me or headquarters and make arrangements with either Sharon or myself to make sure that your entries will be there to be logged in on the 20th and judged on the 23rd. Sharon is there on Tuesday and Thursday every week, and if you can not do one of those days, call me, and I will find a day that works to make sure that your entries will be judged.
I hope that everyone is doing well. I am looking forward to some warm, sunny days and many Grange activities.
We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.
Robert Brault
An apple picker often works with a bag slung over his shoulder. Experienced pickers always begin at the top of the tree. Typically, the fruit is “better” because it gets more sun. The bag gets heavier as the work progresses. Starting at the top puts gravity to work on the picker’s side.
Until insurance regulations required us to remove a wood stove, the foyer of our Grange hall included a non-working woodstove with several chairs around it. One day, during a quick stop, I found my companion sitting in one of the chairs, staring into space.
He explained that he was visualizing a scene from a century earlier. He pictured a few farmers sitting there, absorbing the warmth and discussing their challenges. I joined him in his reverie.
While the past is behind us, sometimes it’s worthy of a visit. When considering those early Grangers, we should explorre how difficult their lives were as farmers and as early organizers of the Patrons of Husbandry. Consciously or not, they didn’t just focus on the low-hanging fruit in their farming practice and in growing the Grange.
Perhaps we should sit by the stove virtually and discuss continuing the Grange. I recall a conversation (electronic, not by the stove) several years ago with a member who passionately suggested that the Grange should be open and welcoming to everyone. He wasn’t wrong. But the hazard we may create is forgetting the lessons of agriculture. Culling livestock, selective breeding, and many other practices are necessary to maintain the health of the herd. Weeding the garden removes unwanted plants. The word “contribution” comes to mind.
This is certainly not to say that the low-hanging fruit has no value. Even the drops (fruit that falls to the ground) serve a purpose. But most know how “one rotten apple will spoil the barrel.”
I worked with a management team years ago that had a team member affectionately referred to as “good ole number 32.” In football terms, John got the ball when the team needed a yard because the team could count on him to get it. Sometimes, you win by a yard.
But the players who can advance the ball further down the field are just as important and can’t be overlooked.
In our drives to increase membership, we must remember it’s not just about increasing membership, it’s really about increasing the reach, relevance, and resilience of our organization. Find some members who can make an end run or go up the middle. We also need and want some number 32’s.
Whether we use the lessons of farming or a sports analogy, we must remember the goal of membership is not simply increasing the roster. Remember: we are increasing our reach, relevance, and resilience.
Any degree or ritual quotations are from the forty-sixth edition of the 2013 Subordinate Grange Manual or the most recent edition of the Pomona Grange Manual. The views and opinions expressed in “Exploring Traditions” are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine and policy of the Grange. Information about the book “Exploring Traditions—Celebrating the Grange Way of Life” can be found at http://abbotvillagepress.com, on Mr. Boomsma’s Amazon Author Page, or by contacting the author.
Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
Some years ago, Heather and I were asked to teach a portion of a class for beginning farmers. A portion of our presentation included listing a few ideal skill sets for a small farmer. We had a little fun with this. The list was usually long and included diesel mechanics, carpentry, electrical knowledge, plumbing, heavy equipment operating, chainsaw proficiency, butchery, basic veterinary skills, welding, computer skills, etc…
Mind you, I didn’t even get to the “farming” part!
One could spend a lifetime learning any one of these trades well, let alone being able to demonstrate a passing level of proficiency in all of them. So most of us get by. We hire out what we can afford and either dispense with the need or find a workaround for the rest.
I’ve been meaning to take a welding class for decades. Somehow, the time to do it has eluded me. Thankfully, we have seldom needed welding skills as we have not owned much equipment.
This is all changing as Carolyn and Benjamin are amassing tillage, cultivating, forage, and woods equipment for their team of horses. A lot of this equipment has been hanging out on rock walls or in barns around the peninsula for decades and requires maintenance and repair.
For Christmas, I gifted the farm and family an arc welder and an acetylene torch, two important components of metal working. The arc welder came to us from a dear friend whose husband has passed and, until now, has sat in our shop awaiting a 240v outlet. A store is still holding on to ‘our’ acetylene torch, unaware of my plans to purchase it.
Necessity is a good motivator. Last week, after cracking the loader frame on the tractor again, Benjamin and I decided to try and fix the issue. The professional welder we hired a few months ago had declared our problem fixed, emphasizing, “You can’t break that.”
We snaked the required heavy duty wire through an underground chase to the barn and found the correct outlet for the machine, wired it, and blew no fuses in the process. Thankfully for us, Benjamin has taken a welding class. Two days post-repair, the farm weld is holding!
We hope this will continue.
Meanwhile, Benjamin is practicing on other projects. Our ’96 Tacoma is on the shortlist for repair. Exciting.
It is apparent that more trade skills will need practicing in the near future as needs arise here. I read somewhere,”Maine only has one plumber (fill in the blank for other tradespeople), and he is not answering his phone.”
On to fence-mending this week so the cows can be turned out of the barn for the season. Now, that is a skill in which I’m well practiced.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.
By Walter Boomsma
207 343-1842
Communications Director
Our April Column discussed “boosting” the Grange. One obvious way of doing that is to promote your events thoroughly. Since I’ve recently had some questions about posting events on the website and in the calendar, let’s continue the theme!
When you submit information about an event…
For example, the deadline for the May Bulletin was May 14th. As long as space permits, I include the entire website calendar (the following month [June] through December) in that (and every) Bulletin. I usually complete the Bulletin a day or two after the deadline and post the PDF on the website. I also send it to MSG Headquarters for them to print and snail mail a copy to all Subordinate Grange Secretaries. The way the local secretary handles it is very individualistic. Many bring it to their next meeting. That’s where it gets tricky. Using Valley Grange as an example, we’ll be meeting on June 19th, so you can see how most of the June events in that Bulletin will be over by the time it reaches some people.
For the website, I usually post events within 24-48 hours of receiving them. I probably should note that we don’t post “regular” meetings. I love to create an individual post for events when there’s sufficient information. If you use the submission form on the website, it prompts you for what to include. If sending an email is easier, by all means do so—if you send an email, you can attach a copy of any flyers or other visuals. Visuals help me create an actual post for the event!
Once your event is posted on the MSG Website, it’s easy-peasy to share that post to Facebook–or lots of other places! Go to the bottom of the post and click the button!
Hopefully, this shows the value of posting your events to the website:
To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.
Leonard Bernstein
► FACT: So far this year, nearly 3,000 people have visited the MSG Website!
One of the software providers for our website recently blogged some ideas for community events that will draw people in.
What are you going to do this summer? Don’t forget to submit your events to the MSG website calendar!