Grange Action Program

Successful Actions of Marshall Grange - CA

“One of the things that impresses me about Marshall Grange,” says Richard Saxe of Aromas Grange which is also in California, “is that they seem to be constantly gaining new members every month!”

Learning just how Marshall Grange brings in new members was a key topic of the Successful Actions Teleconference in May, 2007. Buzz Chernoff, Master of Marshall Grange talked about what they do and how they’ve tried to fit their Grange to the needs of their community.

“The first thing you should know about is our community,” says Buzz. “There are about 3500 people in Garden Valley, California. The community consists of a Post Office, Rose’s Garden Café and a real estate agent, a feed store, a nursery, and of course a video store – and the Marshall Grange. We’re pretty rural and there aren’t a lot of options of places to go or things to do. So, the Marshall Grange has become the hub of community activities in Garden Valley and in the larger region known as the Georgetown Divide.”

“Most of the people here are either retired, engaged in rural activities, or younger folks like myself (under 65) who go out of the area to work,” says Buzz. “We’re not a wealthy community. In fact, we’re pretty poor. So when we’re planning Grange activities, we really have to be cognizant that there are financial limitations.”

Marshall Grange was not always active. “Back about 2000, our Grange was on the brink of disaster – just like many other Granges have been,” says Buzz. “We had about 100 members on our books, but only 5 or 6 ever did anything. The few members we recruited during April’s Grange Month dropped out before they ever got involved. Meetings were held for ritual, but most of the time there weren’t enough people there to fill the chairs. The Grange was thought of as the Hall. The Hall was available for rental, it had reasonable rates, and really it was our primary purpose as an organization. Visibility for Grange – except for the Hall – was practically non-existent.”

“In 2000, we had new people elected into Grange leadership positions. And about the same time, we started hearing rumors about Action Grange. It sounded like something we needed, and this new group of folks wanted to become part of Action Grange and did.”

“And then a whole bunch of changes took place almost immediately,” says Buzz. “We changed our name from a Subordinate Grange to a Community Grange. That doesn’t seem like a big difference, but in our community it really was. By calling ourselves a Community Grange, our purpose shifted from just taking care of our Hall and doing ritual, to being an organization for the community. That really made a big difference in our own mind-sets, and in how the community saw us.”

“Our meetings changed. We keep the Bible on the table and do a salute to the flag, but now we meet in a round table format. And we get more done.”

“One thing Action Grange asked us to do was to come up with a Vision Statement, Goals, and an Action Plan to accomplish those goals. We brainstormed a list of things that we wanted to be part of our vision statement and then handed it over to a committee who refined it into this statement.

The Marshall Grange will be the hub of Garden Valley and the surrounding communities. It will be a place where people bring ideas to exchange, discuss and communicate throughout the community. Newcomers and longtime residents will come together in a friendly environment to participate in social events, community service and educational activities. The Marshall Grange buildings and grounds will reflect the rural nature of our community and will serve as a model and inspiration for landscaping and farming ideas. The Grange Hall will be an up to date charming and inviting facility that promotes a warm, friendly family atmosphere. The membership will reflect the diversity of our community in age, skills, economic status, gender, religious and political beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. Most important, the Marshall Grange will be a place of interest were people throughout the community come together to have fun in work and in play.

“That last sentence about where people have fun in work and play is the most important part of the whole statement,” says Buzz. “One thing people say about Marshall Grange is that if you go there, you’re going to have a good time. Whether you’re working or playing – even our fights are a good time!”

“Now we have about 135 members. Our age range goes from young kids to folks in their 80’s and 90’s. Most of us are probably in our low-mid 50’s. In terms of active membership, we can count on 35-45 people to help plan events, and then we usually get 35, 40, even up to 100 people helping out at events. Our membership is really active and really supportive.”

“I think our active membership is reflective of what we do – and we do what the community wants us to do,” says Buzz.

“Our dues are $20. We’d like them to be zero. If we make enough money, we’ll subsidize dues to National and State Grange as long as we can.”

“In terms of monthly events, we have one business meeting a month. It’s open to the public and we usually get between 15-30 people who come to the meetings depending on what’s on the agenda and what will be discussed.”

“We also have a monthly potluck supper with a speaker. We’ve had educators, politicians, law enforcement, all kinds of people with leadership roles in our community. That’s really been a boon for us. Community leaders know our Grange a whole lot better now – and we know them better. It’s possible for us to call them and to be immediately listened to just because we know each other better.”

“We’ve developed a really close relationship with the schools. Our Superintendent is really impressed with the things we’re doing. We’re involved in an initiative of the schools called Ready by 21, and recently our community was listed as one of the top 100 communities in the country for raising children. That’s partly because of this Ready by 21 initiative and we’re involved in that.”

“We hold a monthly Bistro, because remember, we don’t have any nightclubs, or anyplace for families to go on weekends for entertainment. So we open up the Grange on the 1 st Saturday of every month. In the beginning, we served coffee, ice cream, and desserts, so we make a little money – and we provide a forum for entertainment. We set up card games, scrabble, and musical entertainment. Well that worked pretty well for the first little while. But then the musicians that we were getting were used to playing in bars – and ours is a family affair and alcohol is not part of that – so some of our musicians weren’t coming back.”

“So now the Bistro has evolved into a kind of Garrison Keilor, Prairie Home Companion-like program. It’s kind of like an old-time variety show that has skits and regular sketches. We have Hillbilly Sean who brings us hillbilly wisdom, I do a bit called the Local Buzz with local news like the guy who always says page 1, page 2. We get some musical entertainment from Sacramento. We get local sponsors and then we write up a special jingle for their business. And then they support what we call Bistro Bucks that give $1 off at their businesses. Or in one case, you could get $100 off stud fees from a local horse breeder. You get Bistro Bucks when we do the Almost Famous Bistro Quiz where one of our members Barbara Avery, acts as Professor Avery and shouts out questions for the audience to answer. The Bistro is free. We only charge for coffee and desserts. It’s just a lot of fun.”

Rich Saxe from Aromas Grange agrees. “We went up to attend Marshall Grange’s Bistro, and it was an incredible amount of fun. It’s like an old radio stage. The folks on stage were obviously having fun, and they were on and off the stage really quickly. There were a whole lot of people in the show. We were so impressed with what we saw that we brought the idea back to our Grange and now we do Aromas Live. We pack the hall with 150 people. We do 22 different acts. It involves kids of all stripes. We budgeted $300 for Aromas Live and we made $400. We do raffles on cakes and baked goods. It’s a fantastic event that involves the whole community. And it uses the stage in our Hall that hardly gets used anymore. Every community has talent out there. You’re just not aware of it. And it’s turned out to be a fantastic membership tool.”

Buzz agrees. “It amazes me now to hear people say it’s hard to get people to join Grange. People come up to us and ask how they can get to be a member. That happened just last night at the school’s Scholarship Night. My wife and I went to give out two $500 scholarships from Marshall Grange, and two people came up to us afterwards. They said they used to be Grange members back in the ‘60’s but they didn’t have much fun. Now they’re interested in joining again.”

“We do a Family New Years’ Party every year too. Our Grange Hall has a dining hall that’s separated by a hallway and a stage. So we set up rock and roll music in one part of the hall and Bingo in the dining hall. It’s a big fun time,” Buzz says.

“In February, we do a Valentines Serenade and Party. In April we hold a community awards banquet where we give awards to outstanding Grange members and members of the community. We give out at least 20 different certificates of appreciation to other folks as well as the big honorees. On July 4, the community holds a parade and a party, and Grange is an integral part of that effort. We do a hamburger booth, and in August there’s a Hot August Car Show and Party where we help and sell hamburgers. We hold a Harvest Festival each fall at the Grange Hall. And in December we hold a Chrisgiving Dinner for the community. Our Grange men cook up turkeys and hams and more potatoes than I like to think about and then community members bring side dishes. Well over 150 people come to that event. And we also hold a Christmas Bazaar where local crafts-people sell their goods. We have Santa and elves, and a good time.”

“In addition to our regularly scheduled events, we hold irregular events too,” says Buzz. “In election years, we hold Candidates and Voters Forums. And we’ve become known as a good place to come for resolution disputes. That process started when some folks got upset over the re-opening of a gravel quarry where there was known to be a lot of asbestos. We held about four meetings where people could talk about their concerns and figure out what to do about it. We were instrumental in getting asbestos mining resolutions passed and successful in resolving the dispute in the community.”

“We’ve tried to resolve a dispute about a transfer station in our area. The closest transfer station is about 20 miles away. We live in an area where there are a lot of hills and back roads, and a lot of stuff gets thrown away out there. You drive along a back road and you’re likely to see old refrigerators, stoves, and that kind of thing. So we started sponsoring a Recycle Day where people come and unload their junk. We made arrangements with a local disposal service for large containers that they could then haul away for us. Well, we were more successful than we really wanted to be. We had to turn people away. So people started to say that we really needed a transfer station up here, but then nobody wants it in their back yard. So we weren’t as successful in resolving that dispute as we were with the asbestos mining. The eventual conclusion was that we couldn’t get community compliance on this issue.”

“We had another issue come up where some folks wanted to set up an Intentional Community, but the neighbors to the property were hesitant to go along with the idea. So we served the function of bringing people together. The way it turned out is that the people who were planning the community decided to go somewhere else – that their plans were bigger than the possibilities that the location really offered.”

“We hold flea markets throughout the year. And we host touring concerts of music. We’ve had Chuck Brodsky who’s an east coast singer, Alice Stuart, a blues singer out of Washington, Lindsay Mac, a cello player – those kinds of folks. We split the take 50/50. The artist gets 50% and Grange gets 50%. That either goes into the Grange kitty or toward a designated project. For example the proceeds from our next concert, which is this Friday, will be split between a fund to put in a solar lighting system for the sign outside of the Grange Hall and a fund for a bear carving in the stump of a pine tree at our local community park.”

“We do community outreach projects. There’s a Farm Day where 3 rd and 4 th graders come and learn about farming. Marshall Grange has representatives there. One of our members took a transparent bee hive for the kids to see. The kids all loved it, and decided they all wanted to become bee-men after that.”

“There’s an Arts and Nature Festival put on by the schools and nature groups in the area. We had a solar display at the festival that was very successful. We had kids race solar matchbox cars. The kids loved it and learned the principles of solar energy. It was really fun to see the kids grabbing their parents and brining them back to the booth. They started telling their parents all about solar. It was really pretty touching.”

“We put on educational programs that we think would be of interest to folks in the community. For example, a couple of months back we had a ranger from one of our local State Recreation Areas give a slide presentation on the history of some caves in our area where mastodon and other prehistoric bones have been found. In advertising this event, which is free, we suggest folks bring their own comfortable chairs so they don’t have to sit in our metal fold-ups. So folks bring their chairs, we provide popcorn and drinks, and every one has a good time learning about the area. ”

“We show movies on a regular basis. Not entertainment movies so much, but documentaries. We just showed “An Inconvenient Truth”. I expected maybe 10 ten people to come out for that, but I think we had about 70. And then 4 four of those folks wanted to join the Grange.”

“Every year we put on the Wizard of Oz with the schools, but not like you might be used to. Think about the Rocky Horror Picture Show where people get all dressed up like the characters. Well we turn the Hall into the Emerald City and Aunt Em’s in Kansas, and we’ve got the yellow-brick road going through the Hall. So we play the movie, but then people will get up and sing along with the movie. It involves about 40 kids doing different things. The first year we had one performance and then four, and the last time we did 6. We do charge to attend that, and it’s really fun.”

“We participate in regional Grange events with our Pomona,” says Buzz. “We’ve had regional picnics where 6-8 Granges gather together about 100 people for an old-fashioned country picnic. We have a tug of war, sack races, pie-eating contests.”

“It was Buzz’s idea to do the tug of war,” says Bob McFarland from the Pleasant Valley Grange in California. “We knew why when this big guy – about 6 foot four in all directions – pulled up. He joined Buzz’s team, pulled us all over the pit, and then got back in his car and left!”

“He wasn’t a ringer,” defends Buzz. “He’s a member, and I can show you pictures of him playing Santa!”

“We are engaged in other community projects too,” says Buzz. “We do the Dictionary Project and Ready by 21 with the school. And we have an active ecological group that calls themselves Grange on Green. They set up battery recycling stations at all the different businesses on the Divide that sell batteries. We’re talking about small batteries, not car batteries. But they’ve got these bins in every business, and then our members pick up the recycled batteries from the bins and dispose of them properly.”

“We’re involved in 4-H and have chosen to support them instead of forming a Junior Grange. They do a lot for us and we do a lot for them. We do food baskets, and we get a lot of publicity through our low-power FM radio station.”

“We have an Executive Committee, the Grange Women’s Association, the Young At Heart Players who take care of the Bistro and the Wizard of Oz entertainments, a Food Coop committee who makes an order every 2 months from a natural foods wholesaler and then distributes the orders through the Grange. That’s been another good way to get active new members. We have the Grange Presents Committee who sets up the touring concerts, and Grange on Green who are exploring and supporting solar energy. We’re talking about the lowest level of solar as possible so it doesn’t cost a lot to install – water heaters and that kind of thing.”

“We get great publicity through the Georgetown Gazette. We try to have an article in that paper every week. Sometimes it’s an event we’re advertising, sometimes it’s just to let people know that Grange is here and we’re playing a relevant role in the community and they should be members. My best advice to any Grange who wants more publicity,” says Buzz, “is to find out what your local editor likes to drink – whether it’s coffee or a beer – and go out and treat them. And then send them something every week.”