MPI Ottawa Chapter - Spring Board Retreat

Planting Seeds: How MPI Ottawa's Board is Building for What's Next

Every chapter has a rhythm. There are the events, the programs, the member touchpoints, the steady pulse of work that keeps a community like MPI Ottawa moving forward. But once a year, in the spring, the board steps away from that rhythm entirely. We find a quiet room, sit across from one another, and ask the harder questions: Where are we going? What does our membership need from us? Are we building something that will outlast any one board term?

This spring, the MPI Ottawa Board of Directors gathered at Thee Farm, a remarkable venue just outside the city, for exactly that kind of retreat. What followed was two days of candid conversation, collaborative planning, and the kind of thinking that only happens when you get the right people in the right room and give them the space to go deep.

Getting out of the office to see the bigger picture

There's a reason retreats work; when you pull leaders out of their day-to-day environment, something shifts. The defensive posture of a busy schedule falls away. Conversations that get pushed to "next meeting" finally happen. Ideas that seemed too big for a Tuesday evening agenda suddenly feel not only possible, but necessary.

That's precisely what this year's spring retreat delivered. Across two days, the MPI Ottawa board worked through strategic priorities, examined how we serve our members, and mapped out the initiatives we believe will define the chapter's next chapter. Conversations ranged from program design and member engagement to the long-term sustainability of our events and the evolution of our communications strategy. No topic was off the table, and that openness is what made it productive.

A Board that actually talks to each other

One of the less-discussed realities of volunteer leadership is that board members can spend an entire year working in parallel without ever truly working together. Monthly meetings have agendas. Committee work happens in silos. The retreat is where that changes.

This year, the table included voices from across the chapter's portfolio: Events, Membership, Finance, Education, Communications, Awards and Recognition, and Charity and Community Outreach. Hearing those perspectives, side by side in real time, revealed connections between workstreams that don't always emerge through email chains and shared documents. We left with a clearer shared vision, not because we agreed on everything, but because we understood each other better.

It's the kind of alignment that makes a board actually function as a team and it doesn't happen by accident. It happens when you build in the time and space to let it happen.

Planning with intention and looking ahead

The work of a chapter board is never just about the year you're in. Every decision we make about programming, about partnerships, about how we show up for our members either builds toward something or doesn't. One of the central conversations at this retreat was about exactly that: what are we building, and are we building it with enough intention?

The discussions that emerged were honest and forward-looking in equal measure. We talked about growth and how MPI Ottawa continues to attract and retain professionals who are navigating a rapidly evolving meetings industry. We talked about value, what membership in this chapter truly means, and how we can make that value more visible and more felt. And we talked about legacy, the kind of chapter we want to hand off to the leaders who come after us.

None of those conversations are simple. But they are exactly the right ones to be having, and this retreat gave us the time and the structure to have them well.

The right environment makes a difference

As meeting professionals, we know that environment shapes outcomes. Thee Farm understood this in a way that made every session feel purposeful and every break feel genuinely restorative. The property's grounds, green, expansive, and thoughtfully designed gave board members space to continue conversations informally, take a walk between sessions or simply decompress beside the waterfront firepit.

“It was a great experience. The food was great and the service even better. The fixtures and furniture all demonstrate a commitment to quality.” 
— Desmond Lomas, President Elect, MPI Ottawa

The venue's commitment to quality in its food, its service and its physical space created the kind of atmosphere where good thinking can happen. There's something about being in a setting that takes itself seriously that encourages you to do the same. And when a board is doing the serious work of planning a chapter's future, that backdrop matters more than you might expect.

“I like the adaptability of the space. It could accommodate a number of different types of groups. A very well thought out plan with room for growth.” — Chriss Holloway, Director of Awards and Recognition, MPI Ottawa

The MPI Ottawa Board of Directors left this retreat with full notebooks, a shared sense of direction, and something harder to quantify but equally important: renewed energy for the work ahead. The meetings industry is in a period of real transformation, and our chapter has an opportunity and a responsibility to lead thoughtfully through it.

We are excited about what we are building and we look forward to sharing it with you.

 MPI Ottawa Board of Directors, Spring 2026

 Edited by Darlene Kelly-Stewart, Stonehouse Sales & Marketing Services