The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry

Monthly Feature

Presidents Message

Human Relations

National President Ed Luttrell in the Saunders Library in Washington, DC.

Almost every company has an HR department or person. That person or department has the responsibility to make sure that government regulations are met and adhered to. They may need to make sure that contracts for labor are honored on both sides. They are often overwhelmed with rules from a myriad of government agencies. Yet HR stands for human relations, not application of rules.

In the Grange, we only deal with HR issues when our State or National Grange has a paid staff. Yet each Grange should look at the real issue of human relations. The issue is all about how we work together, play together, and how we fit as individuals into the Grange team.

Every Grange leader needs to think of themselves as a part of the HR team in the Grange. You need to create an atmosphere that brings out the best in everyone. You need to make sure that the needs of each member are being met as possible. Every member should feel that they are a part of the group.

Everyone is unique and different. Some people need positive comments almost daily while others need that positive reinforcement only occasionally. Some people need to see progress quickly, and others are satisfied to wait patiently. Each person brings something special to our group or team with their perspective and skills.

Human relations is the base of all team activity, and how we interact creates the opportunity for success or failure. There are a lot of reasons that people are motivated, but two of the important ones divide us into two distinctly different groups. Those groups consist of one that is focused on the task and one that is focused on the people doing and affected by the task.

This simple and basic difference creates the opportunity for conflict, dissension, and differences among team members. The people focused on the task are often irritating and troublesome to those who are focused on the people. The members in the other group are also viewed in a similar negative light due to the different motivation of the two groups.

Conflicts and differences between members give Grange leaders more headaches than any other problem. Every Grange occasionally has these problems, and every member has most likely encountered another who, at least once, drove them crazy. This is the reason that Grange leaders should view themselves as having responsibility for human relations in their Grange.

The first thing every leader needs to realize is that they fall into one of these two groups. We either focus on the task or on people as a primary part of our personality. This has no bearing on whether you enjoy being around people or if you are introverted or an extrovert, it is about what is important when you have a task to perform.

You need to build a team made up of members from both groups if you want to achieve the greatest long-term success possible. You want the task done correctly and with the maximum success possible, and you want the members and people involved to enjoy the process and to want to be part of more of the same. If you have a team made up of only people from the focus on the task group, you will get the job done, but it may not impact people as well and as positively as it should. You need team members who have different focuses in order to create a well rounded and successful effort.

As a Grange leader you have the opportunity to set the example and build a team including those who, may on occasion, drive you nuts due to what motivates them. When you demonstrate to others that you are willing to set aside your personal motivation in order to build a team, you create an atmosphere of teamwork. As you learn how to more effectively work with others, you will also teach your leadership team the same lessons by example. When you are teaching positive lessons, you create an atmosphere that encourages each member to step up and contribute in positive ways to your Grange. You will make human relations not a department or person, but a positive choice in growing your Grange. You will make friends working together the way your Grange functions regardless of how many people we add to membership.

Ed Luttrell
National President/Master

 
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Meet Charlene Shupp Espenshade, National Grange Youth Director

Greetings from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania! As I write this, I am just in the early days of serving this organization as the National Youth Director. In the months ahead, I look forward to meeting Grange Youth from across the country at the Regional Youth Conferences.

As requested, I wanted to share a little bit about myself and my family. My husband Matt, son Evan, 2, and I live on his family’s dairy farm in Lancaster County, PA. Both Matt and I have a family heritage based in agriculture. I grew up on my family’s four-generation dairy farm in Tunkhannock, PA. My husband’s farm has been in his family since 1867. The farm is home to registered Holstein and Guernsey dairy cattle, some of which we show at several local and regional shows.

In addition to helping on the farm, I am the special sections editor for Lancaster Farming newspaper in Ephrata, PA.

In Grange, I am a member of Elizabethtown Area Grange #2076, Elizabethtown, PA. and associate member of Oriental Grange #165, Lake Winola, PA. Matt and I served as the Pennsylvania State Grange Young Couple for two terms, 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 and on the state youth committee. At Elizabethtown, I serve as the Youth Committee Chairperson and the Assistant Steward.

The experience I bring to this job is a varied one. I graduated from Virginia Tech with a bachelor’s degree in Dairy Science and a minor in Communication Studies. My agricultural activities include the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, Wyoming-Lackawanna Counties (PA) Farm Bureau, Wyoming-Lackawanna Counties (PA) Dairy Princess Committee; and the Elizabethtown Fair Dairy Show Chair. In 2007 I was a finalist in the American Farm Bureau Federation Young Farmer and Rancher Discussion Meet. In 2006, Matt and I were the state winners in the AFBF Excellence In Agriculture Contest.

I enjoy serving on the Dickenson College Kappa Alpha Theta Advisory Board. Other memberships include Order of the Eastern Star, National Dairy Shrine, American Guernsey Association, and National Holstein Association.

Looking forward, I am a firm believer in our Youth programs. As outlined by our National Master Ed Luttrell, the Youth are and will continue to be a vital part of our organization. The Grange offers a unique opportunity to our youth. We must work together to capitalize on our strengths in order to prepare the youth and young adults to become advocates for our communities and rural America.

Grange is truly a special organization. It is the one organization that is truly designed for the betterment of the entire family. As a child, I enjoyed hearing the tales from my Grandpa Shupp as a Grange member during the 1940s and 1950s. When I joined at 16, I was blessed to have several members make sure I was always welcome at a meeting. In college, these same Grangers established a scholarship fund to pay my dues while in college and sent the best care packages. When I moved away from home, Grange was something that helped me adapt to my new community. Now married, farming, and a mother, Grange continues to provide me with a voice on important issues at the county, state and national level.

I hope you all enjoy a great spring and visit the National Grange Youth Website to see the latest information on contests, news, and other Youth events.

Meet John Goodman, Legislative/Communications Intern

As a seven-year-old, I thought that my best friend’s invitation to attend our county’s Junior Grange Camp would simply give me something to do over the summer months. Hardly could I imagine that all these years later, I would end up working in our national headquarters.

I grew up in the Hookstown Grange in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. As a junior granger, I was elected to serve as Chaplain and Overseer, but my favorite part of the experience by far was participating in Grange Talent shows, both as a junior granger and as a member of our subordinate Grange. This is how I got to attend my first National Convention two years ago in Columbus, Ohio; for such an amazing experience, all I had to do was show up, play the piano and sing!

I attended South Side High School in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and when I wasn’t playing drums in the marching band, I spent most of my time dreaming of a career in ministry and/or politics. This remained my dream as a foreign exchange student in Hong Kong for my senior year of high school, and in fact, I still study in both of these fields – in the church, I’m a licensed local ministerial candidate, and as for my undying thirst for politics, I currently attend American University as a freshman in the School of Public Affairs with a major in Interdisciplinary Studies: Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government.

I don’t consider working for the National Grange to be anything less than a privilege. I know that it’s rare to garner such great, real world experience in your field of study during the first year of college, and I can honestly say that I genuinely look forward to waking up and heading to work every Tuesday and Friday morning.

That’s probably all you need to know about me, but if I had to throw in one more thing just for the fun of it, I’d tell you that I collect neckties. So far, I own 180 of them, and they all hang from the ceiling of my dorm room.

But on a more serious note, there aren’t too many causes I support more than that of promoting rural America. As a proud product of rural America, I view it as an honor to have the opportunity to further our interests here in the Capital of our Nation, and I’m really looking forward to doing so over the coming months.

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