| FEBRUARY 1, 2024 -- Following our first major snowstorm of the year, Judy Doyle and I journeyed to Concord, New Hampshire, to attend the 2024 North East Region Leadership Conference. During this event, North East State Grange Lecturers met to begin planning of our 2024 North East Region Lecturers Conference which will be held June 21 – 23 at the Holiday Inn in Norwich, Connecticut. Connecticut is the host state for this event, so I will be chairing this event and I hope that all Community and Pomona Grange Lecturers will help strongly support this effort. I appreciate that Mountain Laurel Pomona Lecturer Debbie Vail and Granby Grange Lecturer Judy Doyle have already been involved in helping plan this event.
We plan to host our NINTH virtual Lecturers Roundup on Sunday, February 18th, at 7:00 PM. Zoom information will be sent out to all interested folks; and remember that these Roundups are not JUST for Lecturers, but for all who are interested in sharing and/ or learning more about Grange activities that could impact your local or Pomona Granges. At this event, we hope to feature an exciting new initiative launched at the 2023 National Grange Convention in Niagara Falls, called “Reaching Rural Surgical Seniors” or “RRSS” for short. This program is funded through a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) federal engagement grant awarded to the National Grange. Joan C. Smith, from Potomac Grange #1, serves as the RRSS Program Manager. At the invitation of National Grange, I am serving as the Northeast Region POC for this RRSS initiative for the next two years. For any Community Grange who participates in providing valuable information to your Grange friends and your community, you can earn a $100 incentive payment just by supporting this initiative. All you have to do is report in May and October of 2024 the total number of people you influenced.
Check out the Connecticut State Grange website for all 2024 contests. For the 2024 Lecturer’s Department Photo Contest, we will have four categories (Patriotism/Grange Activities, Pets, Landscapes, and Flowers). This contest is open to all Grangers (Junior, Youth, 1+ and Grange). Judging will be held at the State Grange Family Festival this summer and winning photos will be displayed at the State Grange Convention and then returned to their owners. Cash prizes (First, Second, Third) will be offered in each category. Adults will compete in one contest and Junior, Youth and 1+ will compete in a separate contest.
We have exciting news to report on “The Grange Plot” in Peoples State Forest. The boulder is now in place near Park Road in Barkhamsted; the bronze plaque funded by so many of you has arrived; the plaque will be installed on the boulder in Peoples State Forest by the Town of Barkhamsted town crew; and then we hope to plan a fun-filled unveiling of the new plaque in the Spring with many of you. Our 20 acre parcel of land, funded by members of Connecticut State Grange in 1930, has been re-identified and will now be remembered forever. Our Connecticut State Grange original donation of $500 to purchase 20 acres of land for Peoples State Forest, and our current donation of over $2,000 to purchase a bronze
plaque, are awesome gifts to all residents of Connecticut to show our commitment to the present and the future. Thank you!
In closing, please let me know if you need any help for your Grange or a speaker, as I enjoy visiting other Granges as your State Grange Lecturer. Also, if you would like help on performing a community needs assessment, I would be glad to help.
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