Dear Clergy, Congregational Leadership and Congregants of the Central East Region,

Joan Van Becelaere and I are excited to announce some staff changes that will be coming over the summer as we continue to regionalize.

First, from July 1, 2016 on, the Regional Lead responsibilities will shift from Joan to me. (Please see below for an excerpt from a letter from Rev. Scott Tayler, UUA’s Director of Congregational Life with some more detail.) I’m excited to be able to work with Scott and the other Regional Leads on planning for the future of UUA service delivery to congregations at the national level, and I’m looking forward to continuing to work with our amazing staff team to be sure that we’re bringing resources and opportunities for collaboration to you. I’m also so pleased that Joan will continue working on the staff team; her commitment, experience and dedication has been invaluable and we will continue to benefit from her expertise going forward.

I will continue with my primary contact responsibilities in the Washington DC area, and Joan will continue with her primary contact responsibilities in upstate New York and will continue to work in the program areas of regionalization, multisite/partnership opportunities, and our Commissioned Lay Leadership program.

I’m looking forward to meeting and connecting with those of you I don’t know yet as I travel around the region; I’ll certainly be at GA in Columbus in June, so I hope we can have a chance to meet. Be sure to attend our Regional Ingathering Meeting before the GA Banner Parade!

Our other piece of Congregational Life Staff news is that our Youth and Young Adult specialist, Raziq Brown, will be moving to the Southern Region. We’ll miss him, but we’re glad he’ll still be a part of our national Congregational Life team. We will be starting a search for a new staff person with the portfolio of Youth and Young Adult shortly, and hope to have that person on the job on August 1st. Stay tuned for more information about that search soon.

If you have questions about the switch, feel free to be in touch with me at mfoley@uua.org or 301-535-2956, or with Joan at jvanbecelaere@uua.org or 303-641-5896. This Regional Lead change will not impact your primary contact person. And the whole Congregational Life staff team continues to be at your disposal as needed, as they have been for a couple of years already.

Best,
Rev. Megan Foley

From Rev. Scott Tayler, UUA’s Director of Congregational Life I want to share with you that as of July 1, 2016, we will shift Regional Lead responsibilities from Rev. Joan Van Becelaere to Rev. Megan Foley. This change achieves numerous positive things that all three of us are grateful for. It honors Joan’s request to move to 80% time to focus on some family support responsibilities. Trying to balance team leadership with these family care needs has been challenging. I am glad we can support Joan in this way. I am also grateful that we get to keep Joan’s gifts and skills on the team. She is excited to move back into more direct work with congregations as well as focus on key Central East strategic work such as our Commissioned Lay Ministry program and multisite/congregational partnership development. This shift also allows us to take advantage of Megan Foley’s gifts and passion for team leadership and development. The team and I are excited about keeping known personalities and relationships in place.

The video in the sidebar was prepared by Rev. Foley and Rev. Van Becelaere for members in the OMD and SLD.