From May 13th to May 15th, we convened on the Carleton University campus for the Leadership Summit. An impressive 50 Chapter Leaders, staff members from EWB’s National Office, Community DT and Advocacy DT members were all in attendance for this weekend of learning, brainstorming and planning. Our event kicked off with the Cocktail Hour, a formal event held at the Lord Elgin Hotel, Ottawa. This event gave us the space to set the tone for the weekend, and (re)introduce our ongoing Advocacy campaign Question the System. Between the hors d'oeuvres, laughs and rising conversations it was evident that an in-person event had been long overdue in our community.
When planning for this weekend we sat down and drew up goals that would help us fine-tune our sessions as much as possible and ensure that our Chapter Leaders walked away from the Summit feeling emboldened and ready to lead their Chapters for the 2022/2023 year. We wanted to generate a sense of community for participants and excitement towards building new traditions. Our Grounding in EWB & Culture Reset Session did just that, as our CEO Boris and Global Community Director Justin talked about the near 20 year history of our organization, its foundations and the strategic direction we are building for the future. This wonderfully detailed mural from AHA Graphic Facilitation captures the sense of excitement and interconnectedness in our vision so succinctly. We saw firsthand the sense of community our Chapter Leaders felt as they pitched new initiatives at our Shark Tank themed activity with great ideas including Chapters Without Borders and a Chapter buddy system.
We strove to impart tangible skills for empowered citizens and stood in awe as Casey fearlessly led the Advocacy stream across an Advocacy 101 session, an Engagement Plan session and an EWB Wins session. We also saw the Advocacy stream make their way around inclement weather challenges by leaving behind a mural on the Carleton University campus for all to see.
Another important area for us was to define impact and bring context and tangibility to Impact Framework Initiatives. Geneva and Bernice spearheaded this big task and worked to determine metrics that can make the Impact Framework, the guiding structure for Chapter initiatives and activities more realistic for our community. Jean-Marie Chapeau from Tamarack Institute led a brilliant session on Impact Storytelling and Geneva tied everything together at the Annual Planning breakouts.
Finally we wanted to ensure that both new and returning Chapter Leaders would walk away with a strong understanding of how they can lead their own respective Chapters and portfolios. The Chapter Operations round-robin led by our dedicated staff members shed insight on EWB policies, finance, fundraising, Africa-based programs as well as marketing and communications. Many leaders had their burning questions answered and could proudly say that they were more aware of the resources and tools available to them.
This was a weekend about understanding our organization and learning new traditions. We battled a strong heatwave in Ottawa that was followed by a thunderous storm. There were tech issues that stood at hand and things didn’t always go as planned. But above all things we were so overjoyed to see our community come together, stand with us and proudly proclaim for the whole world to see this is us, this is EWB.
P.S. - We also wanted to send a huge thank you to two Chapter Presidents. Mathieu Fillion from EWB USherbrooke for sorting out a tech problem we faced and Sabrina Désilets from EWB Polytechnique Montreal for asking important questions!