Public Relations/Membership
Carl Meiss
Director
20 Erford Road
Suite 310
Lemoyne, PA 17043
800-552-3865
publicrelations@pagrange.org
Advocate
Congratulations to Alverta Etzweiler from Community Grange #2048 in Dauphin County! Alverta was the first member to win a $20.00 Sheetz Gift Card for reading her name in an Advocate article and calling me at the State Office.This issue also has two members' names and Grange numbers "embedded" somewhere in an article. If you read your name, call me at the State Office at 1-800-552-3865 and tell me your name, Grange number, the article page and where you saw your name and I will send you a Sheetz Gift Card worth $20.00 (be prepared for some simple identification questions).
So make it a point to read your entire Advocate. You could be the next winner!
Membership
We had another very good fourth quarter for 2007. Although we are still on the verge of showing positive membership numbers, we only lost 82 members for the last quarter of 2007. As you can see on the next page, we've already recruited 58 new members in the first two months of 2008.Congratulations to Donald Sitler of Briar Creek Grange #146 in Columbia County and Fay Caldwell of Buffalo Grange #1523 in Washington County! Donald and Fay have both been reported as recruiting two new members and I have their $30.00 checks on my desk to send to their Grange secretary to pay for their 2008 State and National Dues.
As I said in the February Advocate, I am continuing the membership recruitment program through June, 2008. If you recruit two new members who pay their 2008 dues and are Obligated/Welcomed into your Grange before June 30, 2008, AND YOUR SECRETARY NOTIFIES ME, I will send a check in the amount of $30.00 to your Grange to pay your 2008 dues.
If you have already paid your 2008 dues (I hope you have by now), then this money is to be used toward your 2009 dues. If you are a Life Member, then your $30.00 is to be put into your Grange's general fund in your name.
I hope that everyone will take advantage of this program. With very little effort on every members' part, we can begin to see positive membership numbers!
TAKE NOTE:
Hamburg Grange #2103, Berks County took advantage of the Membership Brochures at their recent pot pie dinner fund raiser (see page 18). They served more than 400 dinners in less than three hours. They placed a Membership Brochure on EVERY tray that the people used to get their dinners. As a result, they recruited four new members during the dinner, just from the people reading the brochure and seeing what the Hamburg Grange is doing in their community! Well done!!
Public Relations
Hamburg Grange #2103 also did an outstanding job of public relations for their dinner. Throughout town they had signs posted pointing the way to the Hamburg Area High School where they were holding the dinner. They also received coverage from the local paper, The Hamburg Item as well as announcements on their local radio stations, promoting the fund raiser.
And we, here in the State Grange Office, continue to try to keep the Grange in the forefront of publicity. Please take a moment and go to www.youtube.com on the internet. Then type in "PA State Grange Commercial" in the search box and click on "Search." You can then watch the PA State Grange television commercial that we had produced about 4 years ago. This was shown on local television in the Lancaster/Lebanon area but this is the first time we have put it onto the world wide web. Please encourage friends and neighbors to take a look at it. Hopefully it will be useful in your recruiting efforts.While you are on YouTube, try typing in "National Grange" and doing a search. You will see that our National Grange is now in the "YouTube" age and is posting videos. National President Ed Luttrell is posting a monthly video explaining his five goals for the next two years. Numbers One and Two are already uploaded. Ed has also had Rusty Hunt, the new National Grange Leadership/Membership Director, do an introductory video that is on line as well as a few by Leroy Watson, our National Legislative Director.
Our own Betsy Huber, Chairman of the Executive Committee, will appear there soon.
TeamSpeak
"TeamSpeak is a quality, scalable application which enables people to speak with one another over the Internet. TeamSpeak consists of both client and server software. The server acts as a host to multiple client connections, capable of handling literally thousands of simultaneous users. This results in an Internet based conferencing solution that works in a variety of applications such as team mates speaking with one another while playing their favorite online game, small businesses cutting costs on long distance charges, or for personal communication with friends and family."The above paragraph is taken from the TeamSpeak web site. National Grange purchased the software for TeamSpeak last year and it was used on a limited basis by Ed Luttrell and myself for various membership/leadership conferences with Grangers from around the country.
Now Rusty Hunt, National Leadership/Membership Director, is putting it to use on a monthly basis. During the first week of every month, Rusty will be posting a new Leadership/Membership Tip on the National Grange web site at www.nationalgrange.org. This tip will be the topic for the next week's TeamSpeak conference to be held the second Tuesday of every month beginning at 9:00 p.m. EST.
Everyone is welcome to download the TeamSpeak program and log onto the conferences. The instructions are in a downloadable format on the National Grange web site under "Recent Headlines." All you need is a computer with internet access and a headset with a microphone (so you can listen and talk).
The February TeamSpeak conference topic was "Leadership-Management: There is a Difference." I was honored to be asked by Rusty to be the presenter for this first Flora Rothrock #2006 of many topics. It was a great opportunity for Grangers from all across the country to go on line and participate in the conference.
Rusty has prepared a list for 2008 of the various Leadership/Membership topics and I am sure that they will prove to be very informative. He hopes to alternate with one month's topic being geared to Leadership and the next to Membership.
I hope to see many Pennsylvania Grangers taking advantage of this unique opportunity.
CALLING ALL PENN STATE STUDENTS!
If you are attending Penn State Main Campus, we need you! We are working to reorganize the Penn State Grange, which has been inactive since 1965. We had our first organizational meeting on December 11, 2007 and plan a second meeting in late February, 2008. Watch your Advocate and your college email for additional updates. We know there are a number of current Grange members who live in University Park who could re-charter a Grange under the auspices of Student Activities. We only need 20 students to get started. If you are a current student or if you live in the Centre County area and would like to help with this effort, please contact the State Master at master@pagrange.org