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08/15/2007: "SJI Grange Suspended By State Master"

(file photo of David Waldron presenting drawings of a Grange property (CarQuest) remodel for use as a farmers market)

Members of the San Juan Island Grange have been informed by the State Master of the Grange, Rob Horgen, that “Based on past actions of the San Juan Island Grange and it's Officers' and members, I hereby suspend the Charter of San Juan Island Grange”.

This comes after the " Entire SJI Grange Leadership Resigns ", but State Master Horgen told The Island Guardian that he believed it necessary to formally suspend the Charter due to the holding of meetings outside of the Grange; an act which is expressly forbidden.

Some of the members have suspected the crack down on not following the rules, may be related in some way to the move by some of the members to explore the possibility of taking over the Grange commercial property that is now rented out, for the use by a farmers market. Based on Horgen’s statements, the only connection would seem to be that some of those conversations were held outside of the Grange, which, ipso facto, excluded some members.



The membership had been warned by the previous State Master, Terry Hunt, about this, and other violations, but the newly elected State Master took action. Horgen stated it was not a harsh reaction to anything in general…I have seen some of these things happen in past years, and I just don’t think they are dealt with quickly enough”, but he added that “the members who are members are still members; were not closing the Grange”.

Horgen expanded his explanation for the suspension by stating: “We have meetings not being conducted during the meetings, you have business being conducted outside of the Grange Hall…Seemed to me that the way to deal with this…well, we have folks that do not have a long history or track record with the Grange, and the training is not well received in the current atmosphere that exists in the Grange.” He added that “I think it would be best to have a cooling off period so we don’t have anymore adversarial or confrontational meetings taking place in the Grange”.

Horgen stressed that this is not intended to be the end of the Grange, but only a suspension. He said that it is his intent that “at some point in a month or two, -or three- we can start out with ‘what is the Grange’, what are ‘the principles of the Grange’, how to run a meeting, why do we run the meetings the way we do, why are we structured the way we are”. Horgen said that it will be “like we are starting from scratch”.

It has been an up and down couple of years for the San Juan Island Grange. Membership had declined for a number of years, and then grown again as new members joined; but soon divisions within the Grange led to strongly worded accusations and counter accusations, and slowly the 130 plus years of traditions and ceremony that have always been a part of the Grange were improperly followed. At the last meeting prior to the suspension, one member who volunteered to take part in the opening ceremony clowned around in front of a State Grange officer while performing his part.

And then there was the suggestion that a commercial property owned by the Grange be used as a farmers market. Seemed like a good idea at the time, and so a committee was formed to do a feasibility study. A division within the Grange was widened as a result, and some of the Grange rules of how meetings are to be conducted, and where, and when, and by who, all came into question by some of the members; and then State Grange officers started showing up.

One of the problems -and there were more than one- was what some felt was a recruitment drive of new like thinking members to push an agenda. There was a stated intent to allow proxy votes of non-attending members; again, not allowed. This in turn resulted in a recruitment drive for like-thinking members, but not all of the members were thinking the same thing, or for the same reasons. (And there is some irony in this, as the drives resulted in the SJI Grange having the largest number of new members of any Grange in the state of Washington)

If there was one single act that pushed some members over the top and off to the State Grange Master for guidance and help, it was when candidates for membership were subject to a secret ballot, and rejected, without a stated reason. This was not acceptable to an organization that refers to it’s members as Brothers and Sisters of the Order; and anyway, one can join the Grange in a matter of minutes on the Grange website.

At the last meeting held before the suspension, a number of candidates for membership were up for a vote, and a State Officer in attendance carefully explained that no one can be rejected without evidence, or reason given, to justify a “No” vote. Nevertheless, one member voted against the candidates without any explanation as to why.