Please check out the latest update from the Chinook Winds Regional Executive Council which met March 17-19, 2025.  Through thoughtful discussion, worship, and collaboration, the Executive built on its commitments to effective leadership, healthy communities of faith and faithful public witness.  

Thank you to the Executive Members providing summaries of each day’s conversations and decisions: Joanne Anquist (Chinook Winds’ Presiding Officer)  McDougall United Church; Allan Buckingham, Ralph Connor Memorial United Church, Nancy Nourse, Northminster and St. David’s United Churches.

Day 1 – March 17, 2025 by Joanne Anquist

    A number of us spent the morning in Lacombe checking out the Memorial Center and the St. Andrew’s space in preparation for our AGM in May. Then we returned to Okotoks for our Executive meeting.
     We always begin our meetings with worship — it helps to ground us and bring us to a space of “reasoning” together. March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, so our worship had a celtic flavour. We used a service outline from the Iona Community – and yes I know that Iona is in Scotland, but it is the spot where St. Columba landed, bringing Christianity from Ireland to Scotland, so I think it counts! We spent some time talking about how we shape our personal faith with inner practices and outer action. Getting to know these people who serve on your Executive is one of the biggest rewards for serving in this capacity.
     Then we began our conversation around our previous goals which were:

1. Building Healthy Communities with a commitment to First Third Ministry.  We were particularly pleased to hear from Pamela Evans and Chris Mah Poy about the exciting things that are happening in First Third ministries, including attention to summer camping, retreats for kids, campus ministries.
2. Continuing our work with Reconciliation and Right Relations. We continue to hold our relationship with the Mini Thini (Morley) community as we seek how to support that community.
3. Fostering healthy relationship with communities through engagement with regional reps and clusters. We committed to having Executive members attend cluster meetings around the province to hear from the regional reps and church representatives about their work and how the Region can support them. This will happen as we are able; and
4. Effective leadership amongst our clergy. We evaluated the Clergy Retreat (held in February) and agreed this was a worthwhile event, (even though the flu caught quite a few there!) deepening relationships between clergy members. We hope that it will be held at least every other year.

Day 2 – March 18, 2025  By Allan Buckingham

     The Executive discussed many things during our full day of meetings on Tuesday March 18th. I really appreciate how we take the time to get into things that need to be discussed in depth. One item that got such treatment was the state of the finances of the Regional Council. While we continue to have a budget deficit, due to prudent financial management and above-expectation investment returns, we have managed to maintain our fiscal position. We have also added to our operating fund over the years which helps provide income for our continued support to communities of faith. We also went over some of the planning for the General Meeting in Lacombe May 8-11 that features our Moderator Rt. Rev. Dr. Carmen Lansdowne where she’ll share her flourishing project with us. We talked about ways we can acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the United Church of Canada at that meeting. One continued aspect of Executive meetings is that we review our existing policies to make sure that they are up to date, being followed, and align with our other commitments, like being an Affirming Regional Council. Thus we took a look at a few of these, which also led to some interesting discussions.

Day 3 – March 19, 2025  By Nancy Nourse

     At the beginning of day 3 of meetings, the Executive opened with worship led by presider Joanne.    
     Conversations were then held on a number of important topics:

• A proposal to General Council to recognize Anti-Palestinian Racism that the Executive received from two Regional Council members. It was decided that, because of the good work done previously at General Council 44 the proposal would be forwarded to the Church in Mission Unit with Region support rather than back to the floor of General Council.
• Discussion was also had around the disbursement of funds from the sale of church buildings.
• Executive took an in depth look at the challenges of our four United Church Camps in the Region and how Region might be able to support, guide, resource and connect the camps for greater sustainability.
• Another discussion was held about the geographical isolation and the number of vacancies of churches in southeastern Alberta, and how the Region might help urgently guide the congregations to find a ministry model or partnership that supports the congregations and clergy serving that area.