Arcadia Celebrates Grange Month!

Last night I had the privilege to attend Arcadia Grange's Awards Night. The made many recognitions both in the community and within their Grange. They are doing wonderful things for Arcadia. Here are a few pictures from the evening!


Grangers and Guests line up for dinner!


Patty hands envelopes to all the Jr. Grangers


Fire Station of the Year


Firefighter of the Year




Family of the Year- The Jessups


Jr. Granger of the Year- Maria Rapp


Granger of the Year- Norine Swing

2009 Officers Meeting

We held an officers meeting this past weekend in Clemmons. We wanted them to all be a part of growing the Grange, and understanding where we are now as an organization vs. how we want to be/could be/can be! Here are a few pictures from the weekend!

Jimmy started off by giving his presentation on Friday night called "The State of the Grange" He showed financial reports, and membership numbers from the last 8 years. He showed how we dropped from 17,000 members down to 3,000. Allison and I set up the Jenga blocks seen below to represent how we view the organization. There are many holes and instabilities that can be fixed with active particiaption from our members. It can be fixed by offering fun and entertaining programs.



Here groups work together on three of the National Grange Priorities- they identified ways to reach those priorities and then they made a plan of how to execute their plans!


Here's the list that they compiled of "problems" with active membership- they then turned those negative statements in to positive ones- and figured out how to accomplish those goals. They ranked them with stickers, we took the 5 with the highest votes and gave each of the 5 teams a goal to reach the priority.

Ways to develop new leaders!

Ways to start new Granges!

Here a group works together to brainstorm and figure out a way to reach their goal!

At the end of the weekend, the Officers and Department Heads signed this statement saying that they will work to accomplish the goals.


Allison and I showed this commercial, to remind everyone that we don't want to completely change the organization, we just need to figure out new ways to do things.

Pepsi's Forever Young Commercial

We also gave everyone Rice Krispy Treats to also give an example of a way to think outside the box- someone came up with the idea of making a dessert out of a breakfast product. That took some thinking outside the box!


Thank you to all those who attended this weekend. Know that we value your oppinions and we want and need your help to make the NC Grange better.

The information shared and accomplished this weekend will be sent to all the Granges. Remember we are all a team, working towards the same goal.

Legislative Day!!!

Our annual Legislative Day has been set!!!

Date: April 28th

Time: 9AM-1PM

Go to the Grange Website for more information!!

Please RSVP by April 20th!

New Pomona!!!

Tonight we will be meeting to hopefully form a new Pomona Grange!!! The following Granges have been invited to participate:

1. Troutman
2. Corriher
3. Patterson
4. St. Johns

We will be meeting at Corriher at 7 PM if anyone would like to attend! :-)

NC Cooperative Council Annual Meeting

Last week, Jimmy, Allison and I represented the Grange at the annual co-op meeting ! Here are a few pictures from Tuesday nights reception.


Jennie Gentry, NC Co-Op President, and NC Grange Youth Director, Alice Graham Underhill, and Jimmy Gentry, NC Grange President at the reception


Alice G. Underhill talking with our own Allison Fowler :-)

2009 Family Conference Recap!

It's Monday, we've lost an hour of sleep, and did lots of driving.... but all worth it for the great weekend we had in Myrtle Beach!! :-) Here are some of the pictures from the weekend....

Don't you wish you were here?




Crystal Allen gave an update on hosting the 2010 National Convention, interested in helping? Email her at onebeegirl@hotmail.com


Grangers headed to the Dixie Stampede for dinner and a show on Saturday night... here we are enjoying the pre-show!




Our own David and Crystal Allen, and Jonathan and Amanda Faggot from Corriher Grange got to participate in the show! "Go pick your horse, guys!"


hahaha... just kidding.... you don't get to ride those horses! Check out our Grangers racing for the South in the video below... David and Crystal on the far left, and Jonathan and Amanda next to them!


Untitled from Jessica Newton on Vimeo.

Some of us even ventured out to the beach on Saturday afternoon! The youth seemed to have a great time, getting wet and playing boccie!




Even our own Jimmy Gentry made it out there!

Our youth create friendships that last a lifetime!



A special thanks to Rusty Hunt, our National Membership Director for making a long trip out to Myrtle Beach from Washington State to lead us in membership activities on Friday evening and Saturday morning. We learned a lot talking in our groups, and gave us things to think about!

Greetings From Myrtle Beach!!

This evening was the start to our 2009 Family Conference. We are down in sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, enjoying our first taste of spring weather! It topped out some where in the low 70's today, and is supposed to be just as nice the rest of the weekend! Man! I'm glad I drive a convertible!

So far, we've had a great presentation from Rusty Hunt, our National Membership Director about choosing your attitude towards Grange. Is it a positive one? Is your attitude contagious? And, is it setting examples for other Grangers!? It was a great presentation, I am sure tomorrow morning's session will be just as good!

I've taken a few pictures, but left my device for getting them on the computer in my office... I'll be sure to upload them Monday morning!

Jessica