| MAY 1, 2026 -- As I write this, I have just attended the Bridgewater Grange Easter Egg Hunt. Thought I heard someone say this tradition is about 70 years old. While a bit windy, it was sunny and fairly warm for early April. Not sure of exact numbers, and while some thought there were a few more attendees last year, I felt it was a very good crowd of parents and kids of varying ages. Between Grange members and friends of the Grange, there were about 10 people working the event. Renee Siana went all out to make sure there are nice prizes for the egg hunters and donates many of them. She introduced the event with opening comments to which I added by introducing myself on behalf of the State Grange, as well as complementing Bridgewater Grange for their work and inviting folks to join. It is a fun event. Afterwards, several of us enjoyed breakfast and good conversation at the Bistro in the town center. This is a good time of the year for your Grange to hold an event of your own Grange’s choice to get the public out and tell them what you do for your community. After winter, people are looking to get out and do things. Oblige them with fun events.
Membership development how-to is the $65,000 question of our (Grange) age. People ask me about attracting members. I go to events and see the baskets of applications put out on a table.
Sometimes I hear that no one or only one or two people picked one up. It’s because attracting members is an active process of you selling a product, the Grange, and inviting people in by ASKING them to JOIN, not just take the application.
I hear of times where completed applications or even just questions about membership from interested parties are shuffled about to a “higher authority.” Some express the idea that these things need to go through the “proper Grange channels” while potential members get lost in the shuffle or forgotten. Rare it is that those folk are so persistent as to hunt a Granger down and beg to be admitted. There is no “high, higher, or highest authority” on membership.
We, as individual Grangers, are all responsible for membership development. Don’t be one to “pass the buck” as the old saying goes (I love that expression, by the way). Be the ACTIVE recruiter for your Grange.
If someone expresses interest and you don’t have an application, make your own on a piece of paper. Think about inviting that person to your next meeting. With that self-made application, you have all the contact information needed to follow up yourself and call that person without pushing it off to the higher authority. After all, you may be the first contact and the better choice to call that person and remind them of your meeting. Remember, you MUST ask. Remember too, if you may have to ask 100 people to get two. These are the statistics on recruitment so don’t be discouraged. PERSEVERANCE is the key (where have we heard that before?). I don’t mean to co-opt or replace the efforts of our Membership Co- Directors, Jody and Jodi-Ann, but with recruitment being essential to our survival, this subject needs all the attention we can give to it, and I wanted to share these ideas I have based on what I hear in the fields of our Grange. Remember also to consider different levels of commitment to Grange membership. Not everyone will commit as some did in the days of yore where it was their entire life. Some may attend meetings and some less so. Some may help with events and projects. Accept people for what they are willing to commit to in terms of time. The world is changing and we must adapt as a fraternal order if we are to survive.
As I write this in early April, I anticipate Ted and I attending the National Leaders’ Conference in Sparks, Nevada. We leave on the 30th and the conference is that first weekend in May. This is where we will be presented with the roll-out of the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) to strengthen and grow the Grange. You will have to wait for the June Granger for more feedback on that. Ten hours travel time going to and coming from this conference make me think of another old expression: “You can’t get there from here.”
From National Grange President Hamp’s “Speak Like a CHAMP” series, the phrase of the month is “Leadership Multiplier.” Think of this as a person whose influence increases the leadership capacity of someone else. A coach or mentor who pushes others to greater capabilities to move things forward. I know who these are in our various Granges, but if you are not yet one, won’t you step up to be one of your Grange’s Leadership Multipliers?
The Rural Life Initiative (RLI) program awards were announced on Grange Today 3.27.25 vol.3, issue 6. Forty thousand dollars was awarded in 40 grants of $1000.00. These fund worthy community service projects in rural communities. More than 80 Applications from Community and Pomona Granges in 21 states were received. I know of at least two Granges in our state that applied but were not accepted, and there may have been others. None of the grants came to our state. This was the third round for this program, and I hope it will continue and would encourage Granges to keep applying in the future.
Congratulations to Carol Swanson for winning $250 in a drawing for her Grange for completing the Grange Member Perspectives survey from National Grange. There were two monetary awards and 10 subscriptions to Good Day Magazine given out as prizes.
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