Region I is comprised of 20 churches in the center of the Diocese. A wide range of churches is represented including small country churches, rural churches, suburban churches, city churches, historic churches, new churches, traditional churches, and conventional churches. The Region extends across Caroline, King George, Louisa, Madison, Culpeper, Spotsylvania, and Stafford Counties; into the northwestern corners of Westmoreland and Essex Counties; and includes the City of Fredericksburg. This diversity challenges our efforts to coordinate, cooperate, collaborate, and communicate. But this diversity also strengthens our ability to offer help and advice to one another.
The Region I Council is experimenting with some changes designed to make our meetings more exciting and rewarding while eliminating some of the burden of meeting attendance. We changed the format of our meetings this year to infuse a little excitement. We have streamlined the business portion of our meetings and devoted two-thirds of the meeting time to presentation of a topic or an issue followed by a group discussion period. This allows more engaged participation of the more than forty members of our council. We use small groups for the discussion period if appropriate. Another challenge is the size of our Region. It can take over an hour to drive to a Region I meeting even if it held at a central location. In response, we instituted this year sub-region meetings once each year. This allowed churches in close proximity to each other to meet and work on common goals and programs. We are also experimenting with different meeting times and days.
Region I sponsored two events for our youth this year. Senior High youth participated in a trip to New York City for the Night Watch Program at St. John’s the Divine. High school youth were also treated to a Halloween Party at the home of Pat Piland. These events provided an opportunity for our youth to experience something of the larger church.
Region I has a long-standing tradition of holding an annual dinner as one of its meetings. This year we honored twenty years of faithful service by Bishop Peter James Lee. Bishop Jones and Bishop Gray were also there to provide comments and share stories about their experiences with Bishop Lee and to praise his leadership.
The Region I council approved a budget of $12,300 for 2005. The budget includes $6,000 for missions including youth mission trips; $2,000 for youth; $1,000 for future church planting in the region; and $500 for the region sabbatical fund.
At our November meeting we elected the following officers for 2005-2006:
President: Bill Wick, St. Peter’s, Port Royal
Vice President: Jack Gaines, St. Mary’s, Colonial Beach
Secretary: Rev. Brad Jackson, Piedmont Church, Madison
Treasurer: Anna Lou Flynn, St. James’, Louisa
We also elected the following Diocesan Executive Board representatives
for 2005-2007:
Executive Board Representative Don Metheny, Trinity, Fredericksburg
Executive Board Alternate Anna Lou Flynn, St. James’, Louisa
Submitted by
Don Metheny, President