CHICAGO – On the weekend of Feb. 17-19, the six officers (President Jonathon Ross and Vice Presidents Joseph Keefe, Nicholas Christiano, Connor Arthur, Benjamin Wengerd, and Braden Moore) from Indiana Theta’s Executive Board made the trip to the Carlson Leadership Academy. The retreat was hosted by the Eaglewood Resort and Spa. The retreat featured meetings and workshops with other executive officers from their respective chapters.
Carlson Leadership Academy is a regional conference hosted by Sigma Phi Epsilon. Several cities across the United States are chosen to host the retreat, and chapters attend based on regional proximity. Chicago’s Carlson Academy played a weekend getaway to chapters from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Kentucky among others.
Saturday, Feb. 18 featured an all-day workshop for the officers. The group of attendees was split up by position and were sent into breakout rooms. There, they spent most of the day conversing with facilitators and other officers that shared their respective position. This format would allow each officer to converse with other officers in their position.
“Overall, it was a great experience,” said Connor Arthur, the Vice President of Membership Development. “It was so cool to pick the brains of other VPMDs to see what works for them and what doesn’t. There were a lot of great ideas exchanged, and I took away a lot.”
“I thought it was so much fun,” said Chaplain, Braden Moore. “It was a lot of learning and notetaking, but that was a trip I’ll never forget. It was so much fun, and I genuinely believe that it brought us closer together as an E-Board. Getting to spend the weekend in the car, and eventually in Chicago, with some of my best friends was, in and of itself, awesome. Never mind the fact that we got to learn so much in the way of leadership and how to be an administrator in a business setting.”
The bonding was, perhaps, the best part of the weekend. Following the workshops on Friday and Saturday, the board was free to roam about the resort together. During that time, the officers would go to Dave and Busters.
“Dave and Busters was most certainly a bonding experience,” said Joe Keefe, VP of the SLC. “Getting to go and do something some may consider ‘childish’ was so much fun. We just got to relax, forget about our adult responsibilities and just be present with our brothers. Above all, the bonding experience was enough for me to say I’d go again. That’s not even taking into account all the networking and the information that was exchanged.”
All in all, the Carlson Leadership Academy was a huge success. This E-Board made the trip after a two-year hiatus by the chapter. It’s safe to say that IN-Theta will be making another appearance in Chicago come next February!