The snippet of ritual featured in the Heirloom Program for May is from the charge of the Overseer/ Vice President. It will be familiar to many of you: “For in our fraternity there is work for all, and the idler has no place among Patrons of Husbandry.” Hard work indeed does bring rewards, and I hope this will bring back memories of the time when we used to confer the four subordinate degrees regularly. Because many Grangers have not seen the degrees exemplified, my goal is for us to have a statewide Degree Day. We are aiming for dates during the summer. We will aim for a centrally located Grange in which to do this. The four degrees will be exemplified by teams and the four teams will come from the state officers and the three Pomona Granges.

I would like to encourage the Connecticut State Grange officers to make visitations to community Granges. It seems visitation has gone out of style. As a Pomona or State Grange officer, we are the ambassadors of the Grange and should be making an effort to get out once in a while and visit. Keep track of your visitations and let’s see who can get around the most. There might be a prize incentive in the offing, according to my little elf. The Legislative Handbook is close to completion. Our Legislative Director Noel had a computer disaster and lost his draft making recreation of the project necessary.  This document sums up what we stand for legislatively and can be passed on to legislators and others with whom we wish to share our agenda.

There will be Schools of Instruction for Secretaries and Treasurers (but good for everyone, even Master/ Presidents to attend) put on by CSG Secretary Todd Gelineau. I was recently talking to an upper officer in one of our Granges who was not aware of the proper money handling procedures to be followed by Granges giving that area of business the proper level of checks and balances. These procedures must be followed to protect your Granges and their members, especially officers, from allegations of financial misconduct. Those Orders on the Treasurer and Treasurer’s Receipts are there for a reason. Our Granges carry bonding insurance against financial malfeasance but a claim could never be made in the absence of proper procedures being followed.

Leadership Academy 2.0 has hit some delays due to the injury suffered by our State Grange Treasurer in a bad fall. Thankfully, he is on the mend and getting around better now. Stay posted for the resumption of this series with a repeat of 1.0 and the new 2.0 version.

The Northeast Connection and Trustees of the New England Grange Building met today in the Massachusetts Building at the Big E. In the Northeast Connection meeting, we talked about the upcoming Lecturers Conference June 21-23 in Norwich; the 2024 Youth Conference July 19-21 in Castleton, NY; and the Grange Service and Family Fun Day July 27 at the Vermont Grange Center in Brookfield, VT. These are all great Grange family events and I hope many will attend one or more of these.

On the subject of the New England Grange Building, our next meeting is June 30 and will be clean up and pricing day. Hopefully all crafters are busy making items for sale in the Grange Building. We all appreciate the hard work put into these items because it is your hard work and dedication that allows us to keep the building going. On that note, we mourn the passing of 63 year member Lois Evankow who was very dedicated to producing a prodigious amount of saleable craft items which sold like hotcakes. This year, Vermont will supply the raffle quilt. We are exploring sales of raffle tickets outside of the Big E.

On a humorous note, Maggie and I made it into a picture at the Leaders Conference in Myrtle Beach which was published in Idaho Insights, the Idaho State Grange newsletter. I was pleased and amused to see ourselves in that photo. I always enjoy the company of Eileen and Richard Javaux, President and First Gentleman of Idaho State Grange. Remember, we are Grange Strong: Rooted, Resilient, and United. Raise the bar because we want to be stronger tomorrow than today!