Welcome to the coming new year, from your Co-Presidents Courtney Hammond and John Harker. Yep, we have banded together and are planning a busy new year for Farm Bureau. The President’s position is a full time job and we will be sharing the duties to make sure Farm Bureau stays out of the ruts and plows straight ahead. We have set up a number of committees to get the work done and you will be hearing more through timely newsletters and updating our website.
This past year has been difficult for County Farm Bureaus to operate normally and we will be reaching out to each of you to see what we can do to help get your county back on track with meetings and membership. We will be reviewing all past policies for relevance, and looking at the Bylaws for changes to make Farm Bureau administration more efficient . We will be looking for ideas on possible changes to our current county structure and hope to engage you to help us plan a better future.
This “New Normal”, as they say, with remote working, has also led us to rethink our office and building location. A Building Committee will be visioning what we might do to reimagine where we might conduct business in the future. Do we stay where we are and do renovations or do we get “back to our roots” in the country. If you would like to get involved in the discussion, contact us.
The economic “Reset” everyone is talking about is impacting Farm Bureau as well, and our budget this year is very slim. We will be looking more closely at our finances and investments this coming year, and what we can do to better protect them. Thanks to the work of Kerry Casey and Julie Ann for bringing our books up to date and helping with hiring of a new bookkeeper this coming month.
And of course, this year’s political upheaval and COVID shutdown is impacting State legislative business and budgets. We have a number of legislative proposals members would like to see passed. It will be a challenge for Julie-Ann and the Legislative Committee to make any headway, but we will try.
Finally, we want to thank all those members who are stepping up to assist keeping Farm Bureau strong and responsive to our members. We had a good annual meeting young farmers and resolutions session and, with the addition of new Board members, we expect to have a productive year ahead. We continue to be blessed that Farm Bureau is run by farmers, for farmers, and your support and assistance keep us leading the charge to support Maine Agriculture.
