Departments

Education and Enrichment Department
Elizabeth A. Lake, Program Director
1008 Stanton-Lebanon Road
Lebanon, NJ 08833
Phone: (908) 236-7874
E-Mail: director.ee@newjerseygrange.com

Committee Members
Genevieve and Bruce Sliker
P.O. Box 402
Califon, NJ 07830

Brenda Muhlbaier
9 Russell Mill Road
Woolrich Township, NJ 08086

Donna Waters
431 Pemberton Road • P.O. Box 47
Juliustown, NJ 08042

Is Your Grange in Tune with the Times?

A strong Grange needs to sing about the work of their Grange to their community! Upon the Program Director falls the responsibility of keeping their Grange in tune with the needs of the Community and its residents. Programs need to be tuned to provide variety and substance, while sparking interest, keeping members involved and providing entertainment and educational value. Strive to have no more than one poem type reading at each meeting.

Program Directors are encouraged to secure outside speakers for programs, while other programs can be developed for in-house presentation, with members participating in the presentation. All programs should be well balanced with informative materials and substance, leaving members feeling that they would have missed an interesting and informative program had they not been there. Programs should generally be between 20 minutes and 40 minutes in length. Longer programs are appropriate for special occasions or celebrations. Shorter programs are necessary when time is critical.

Interesting and informative programs will help your Grange be in tune with the needs of your community. We need to attract new members, keep current members active and bring inactive members out. Programs well planned in advance and publicized, inviting the community to attend, will truly help your Grange sing a great tune out into your community.

Mission Statement

The mission of this department is to focus on the education and enrichment of our Grange members, as well as the citizens of our communities. Our goals are to encourage the promotion and publicity of our organization in an appealing manner to prospective members, interest our inactive members, and interact with other associated organizations.

2008 Calendar of Important Dates

Please watch The Gleaner, your quarterly newsletter and mailings
for reminders and details as event dates approach.

Community Concerns

Each and every Grange is encouraged to be in tune with the needs of their community with programs selected from our Community Concerns list.

The 2008 Community Grange Topics are:

• Family Mementos: How to utilize new technology to update and preserve family mementos, including photographs, videos and scrapbooks.
• Going Green: Importance of recycling and using products that are environmentally friendly.
• Be Proactive: Importance of health check-ups, screenings and exams.
• Stay Up-to-Date: Importance of updating insurance polices such as medical, life, home, automobile, personal, etc. to reflect needed coverage.
• Your Medical History: Importance of and how to compile and maintain your personal medical history.

The 2008 County Grange Topics are:

• Compiling Your Family History: How to create and maintain a record of your family history, including genealogy, and important family medical histories and personal historical achievements and events.
• Clean Energy: Issues and alternatives for oil, gas, power and transportation industries.
• Crisis Intervention: Getting help from or avoiding physical, mental or financial abuse.

On-line Chat

Calling all Program Directors and interested Grangers! Tune into the Education and Enrichment Department’s on-line chat on the first Sunday of each month at 3:00 PM. This department has its own chat room, located here, for use as a program tool and a means to communicate with each other and share program ideas. Our on-line chats will begin on Sunday, January 6, 2008 and occur on the first Sunday of every month thereafter. If possible, a transcript of the chat will be furnished to those participating or those who do not have on-line access. Please mark your calendar for each month and come chat with us!

Program Materials Available

This department is willing to assist you with the preparation of a program that you feel would help your Grange be in tune with the needs of your Community. Please send me your requested subject and any ideas or pertinent information you have. A program will be developed and returned to you by mail. A roster of programs will be developed and published in our newsletter so that other Program Directors may benefit from your ideas.

Bi-Monthly Newsletter

This department will continue to send out our bi-monthly newsletter, Timely Tidbits, this coming year, offering program information, ideas and tips and bits that we hope you will be able to use for your Grange to be in tune with the times and keep your members in beat with today’s issues. If you have an idea for a program you would like to see included in an upcoming issue, please contact Elizabeth Lake.

The Dictionary Project

The Education and Enrichment Department is continuing the Dictionary Project for 2008. This project is designed to provide a dictionary for third grade students. The ideal of the program is to aid third grade teachers in their goal to see all their students leave at the end of the year as good writers, active readers and creative thinkers. This ideal can be reached by providing third grade students with their personal dictionary for use during the year, which they keep and take with them into the fourth grade and throughout their school career.

A dictionary is perhaps the first and most powerful tool that a child should own. Its usefulness goes beyond the spellings, pronunciations and definitions it lists; it is a companion for solving problems that arise as a child develops his or her reading, writing, and creative thinking abilities. Students benefit from an increased self-reliance and resourcefulness inspired by the maxim “look it up”.

This program is an opportunity for children to expand their vocabulary and for many, to actually own their own dictionary. We in the Grange believe strongly in community service, and the power of the gift resides in the giving. We would like to see each Grange take on this project and give one dictionary for each third grade student in your local school. Dictionaries can be secured by The Dictionary Project, P.O. Box 1845, Charleston, SC 29402, 843-856-2706, or at www.dictionaryproject.org. There are a couple of different dictionaries available, at a cost of $1.25 to $1.75 per dictionary.

If you would like to participate in this project and need assistance in contacting your school or securing dictionaries, please contact Elizabeth Lake at (908) 236-7874; 1008 Stanton-Lebanon Road, Lebanon, New Jersey 08833.

Literature Recycling

The Education and Enrichment Department will continue the collection of new or like new children’s books to be donated to the Children’s Home Society of New Jersey for their FACES (Family and Children Early Education Services) Literary Program – a fun with books interactive reading program for Foster Children. If you are unable to collect books, small monetary donations will be accepted to purchase new books for the children. Books may be donated to this department at any Grange activity. Books will be distributed as accumulated.

Mid-Atlantic Program Director’s Conference

The 2008 Mid-Atlantic Program Director’s Conference is scheduled for May 16-18, 2008 and will be hosted jointly by Virginia and Tennessee. More details, conference itinerary and reservation forms will be forwarded to each Grange Secretary and Program Director, and will be published in the Gleaner upon receipt from the host states.

Please mark your calendar and plan to join with us, as well as Grangers from the surrounding Mid-Atlantic States, for a fun-filled, educational and informative weekend. You do not have to be a program director to attend!

Grange Day at the NJ Museum of Agriculture

June 28, 2008 is the tentative date for our 2nd annual Grange Day at the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture. Our day will start at 10:00 AM and end at 2:00 PM. Different activities, displays and programs are already being planned. Come and enjoy a day of fellowship with friends, reminisce on days gone by and lunch compliments of the New Jersey State Grange. More details will follow in The Gleaner.

New Jersey State Grange Essay Contest

The Education and Enrichment Department will be conducting an open essay contest. Entries must be at least 300 words in length, and may not exceed 500 words. Our contest is open to non-members and there are two categories, one for high school students and one for adults.

The Student Topic for the 2008 contest is: If I were President of the United States, I would …

The Adult Topic for the 2008 contest is: The world would be different if …

The deadline for submission is April 1, 2008. All entries must include the author’s name, address, county of residence, phone number, word count, and designate if student or adult division. (If student division, include school name and grade.)

Judging will be based on the following criteria:
Content: 55 pointsOriginality: 30 pointsClarity: 10 pointsGrammar: 5 points

Prizes will be awarded for each class as follows:
First Place: $50.00Second Place: $40.00Third Place: $30.00

Program of the Year

Share with us a program presented this year that you felt was most in tune with the times and the needs of your community. Your program can be based on any subject and can be most unusual or unique. There will be two program categories, one for programs which included an outside speaker and one for programs that were presented in-house by the Program Director and Grange members. For the speaker category, please provide a brief synopsis of the information presented, as well as any other program materials for the evening. For the in-house program category, please provide the information for the evening program. If available, please include a picture from the evening.

Please include your name and Grange name with your program information, as well as date program was presented. All programs are due at the opening of state session, December 4, 2008. A booklet of all programs will be distributed on Saturday, December 6th, or mailed to those unable to attend.

Snapshot Contest

Share with others the memories in your life by entering your photographs in our snapshot contest. Entries can be a snapshot of minimum size 3"x5", and up to 8"x10". Although not required, entries may be backed or matted.

There will be two divisions: standard processing (35mm film or digital pictures with standard processing and no computer enhancement); computer aided photographs (photographs that have been enhanced or altered via computer assistance).

Please include your name and Grange name with your snapshot and indicate whether commercial processing or computer aided. All entries are due at the opening of state session, Thursday, December 4, 2008.

Decorated Door Contest

Let’s jazz up the doors to our hotel rooms with a little decoration! Use any type of decorations you desire to be creative and decorate the door and/or door frame to make them attractive and festive. All decorations must be affixed with suction cups or masking tape (must be non-damaging to paint/wallpaper), which we will supply. There will be two classes for judging: Christmas and General. All doors being judged must be completed by 10:00 AM, Friday, December 5, 2008. Monetary prizes will be awarded in each class. (A great place to shop for the decorations is your local Dollar Store.)

Gallivanting Grangers on the Go

The Education and Enrichment Department will be sponsoring the following bus trips in 2008. They are:

May 3-4, 2008. Spring Weekend Trip.

August 29 - September 1, 2008. Labor Day Weekend Trip.

November 13-15, 2008. Bus trip to National Grange Convention, Cromwell, Connecticut and other points of interest.

Arrangements are being made for all trips. Be sure to watch the Gleaner for reservation form and details of each trip as time draws near.

Reservation Form

If you would like to make reservations to attend any of our 2008 bus trips, please take a moment to submit the form below. (* = required information.)

* Your Name (First & Last):
Address:
City, State Zip:
* Phone:
* E-Mail Address:
Weekend Trips:	Spring Weekend Trip Labor Day Weekend Trip National Grange Convention
Number of People:	1 2 3 4 5 6
Please indicate any special needs or requests: