Regionalization. What is it all about?
by Roger Comstock, Financial Officer
NNED Board
You may have heard that the UUA is in the process of
organizing our service delivery (i.e. District Executives) into regions. What is all this about, why is it necessary and what impact will it have on our congregations and our District?
On January 24th, your board met with two representatives of the UUA to find out more. Here's what we learned.
First of all, we were aware that our region consists of the six New England states, and the four Districts which encompass those states. Rev. Terasa Cooley, Director of Congregational Life at the UUA, told us it is not her (or the UUA's) intent to do away with Districts. Governance will continue to happen pretty much as it does now. She hopes that as this process develops, each region will begin to take on the flavor of the culture in its part of the country. Some of this is already happening. For example, the Western region (states from Colorado west) will begin to hold regional assemblies, as folks there have to fly to get to any of their district meetings anyway.
Rev. Cooley sees three major imperatives which are providing the impetus for developing regions.
The first is economic. Like the rest of the country, some of our Districts and the UUA itself are having trouble making ends meet in the current environment. One group of districts in the Midwest, harder hit by the economy than others, will actually share staff and create a single regional board to reduce costs. We in the Northern New England District are fortunate to have a fairly substantial endowment which will help ride us through the hard times. In either case, if there are ways of saving some money - we should at least consider taking advantage of them.
The second pressure is that the nature of congregational life is changing - we are becoming more active in a greater number of ways - and congregations are asking for help in these new areas of activity. The result is that District services must have expertise in more differing functions. The old model that the D.E. tried to be all things to all people just doesn't work anymore. It is helpful to be able to share skills across District lines. As an example, we in the old Northeast District (before the consolidation) came up with the idea of the Small Church Consultant and it has been very popular. But the NNED has only enough small congregations to support a half-time staff member - Rev. Karen Brammer*. What if Karen were to go to work full-time and be made available to the small congregations in Mass Bay, Ballou Channing and Clara Barton Districts as well? The whole region would gain from an economy of scale.
The third impetus is the advent of electronics. We can do so much more electronically without having to travel for every event. Already, we are making greater use of e-mail, electronic meetings (using software like Skype), webinars and the like. No doubt technology will continue to advance in these areas, and we need to be positioned to take advantage of those changes. There is the potential of huge cost savings in this area - by eliminating a lot of travel from our budgets.
So, New England is organizing as a region and talking about what that will mean and how it will be structured. Rev. Sue Phillips, DE for Mass Bay and Clara Barton Districts, is designated as the regional lead for New England. This will take some of the load off the Congregational Life Director, and hopefully will enable us to provide better services to all the congregations in the New England states. This change is a work in process and will be unfolding gradually over the next several years. The NNED board is extending an invitation to the boards of the other three districts to designate delegates to a regionalization committee to explore the many questions which this change implies. Our delegates to this committee are Rev. Margaret Beckman, Rev. David Chandler, and Roger Comstock. We will keep you posted. There will be a presentation of this material at our Annual Meeting at the Red Jacket Inn in North Conway, NH on April 13-14, 2012. You are all invited to attend that presentation and offer your suggestions on how to make this new system work better for all of our congregations.
*Karen is now our Interim District Executive, serving until Joe Sullivan, the new District Executive begins April 1. Before Mary left, Karen also took on an additional role as ¼ time Congregational Justice Consultant.
Executive for three months, 'holding the form' for you and Joe Sullivan, your next DE. With increased travel I have experienced more of what District and congregational leadership have been building for five years and much longer. 
England, Mass Bay, Clara Barton, and Ballou Channing Districts is gaining speed. I have had the great privilege of being able to work closely with some of my regional colleagues this year.