It’s no secret that Grange Halls throughout the state are closing their doors in the face of dwindling membership. In recent years, three Grange Halls in Lincoln County have been shut down because they couldn’t meet quorum requirements at their meetings: seven members present.
The first to go was the Seaside Grange in Bristol Mills. The Jefferson Grange, which served the south end of Jefferson, followed. Earlier this year, as attendance declined at the Nobleboro Grange, they chose to combine with the Meenahga Grange in Waldoboro.
Statewide Grange membership was once around 60,000. Now it’s down to about 5000.
However, at the Bunker Hill Grange in Jefferson, through all the decline around the state, membership has remained strong. They currently boast about 50 members, 20 of them regularly active, said Jefferson resident Gladys Johnston, a member of the Bunker Hill Grange since 1946.
However, the Bunker Hill Grange voted to surrender their charter on Oct. 7, following a failed inspection by officials from the State Grange, Johnston said. Despite giving up their charter, group members will continue to meet under a different name.
“We’d gotten pretty lax with our rituals and our degree work,” Johnston said.
The Bunker Hill Grange had been operating under the assumption that they were an Action Grange – a program instituted by the National Grange several years ago that excludes halls from mandatory participation in rituals and ceremonies.
After they failed that inspection, the State Grange informed Bunker Hill Grange the Action Grange program had been discontinued a few years ago, and that the hall needed to start participating in the rituals, said Bunker Hill Grange Master Ken Andersen, a member for 15 years.
“A lot of the members are like me, and don’t have a deep connection with the rituals,” Andersen said. “We just want to help the community and raise money, and try to have some fun while we do it.”
Although the Bunker Hill Grange will no longer exist under that name, the organization will meet for a potluck supper at 6:30 p.m. on Thurs. Nov. 4 in the Ladies Aid Hall on Bunker Hill Road to discuss the future and choose a new name.
All members of the former Grange and any interested members of the public are invited to attend the first meeting of the new community club.
“We were probably going to do this anyway,” Johnston said.
After more than 60 years in the Grange, Johnston is sad to see the old ways go, but said that in a lot of ways this may be a positive step for the club.
“We were really a community club that paid dues to the State Grange,” she said. Now all that money – a significant portion of the organization’s income – will go right into local, community projects and activities.
In recent years, the newcomers to the Bunker Hill Grange were less and less interested in the rituals and degree work that are traditional staples of the organization and are required by the State Grange.
For Johnston and other long-time members, the ceremonies and rituals are an important part of building the feeling of community within a Grange, but for recent additions to the Bunker Hill Grange, they seemed like unnecessary formalities.
All former members will be given the option of joining another Grange, Andersen said.
“I think we’ll actually see membership go up now that we’re not a Grange,” Johnston said.
Whatever the future brings for the new community club, they plan to continue many of the traditions of the Bunker Hill Grange, including the Christmas Carol Sing at the Bunker Hill Church, and the Community Picnic in July, Johnston said.
