With many events canceled over the past year and a lot of momentum stalled, one section took an innovative approach to bolster the leadership of lodges and chapters through a series of online trainings. Section NE-1 taught a variety of trainings in their Arrow Institute from December 2020 to late June 2021.
Arrow Institute was originally the creation of 2021 Northeast Region Chief Garrett D. and NE-1's current chief Darryk K. when they were chief and vice chief, respectively, of NE-1. The institute covered an abundance of topics selected by the section’s lodge chiefs. Topics chosen ranged from elections and inductions trainings to branding guides, and even running virtual events. Each training was facilitated by an expert in the topic which included region and neighboring section leadership.
It had been over a year since lodges had an in-person gathering in NE-1. During that time, many struggled adapting to the changes and the frustration with being shuttered for the year. Arrow Institute leadership said that using video calls helped gauge lodge interests and inspired them to bring back the best practices enabling them to thrive and rebuild momentum. Feedback stated that Arrow Institute was a huge success in providing valuable experiences to lodge and chapter leaders, keeping energy and momentum high during the virtual season, and enabling connections that will ensure lodges and chapters are set up for success for the years to come.
The Arrow Institute is not the end of inspiring virtual training events for NE-1; rather, NE-1 leaders have partnered with two other sections to offer a bigger and better virtual training series, known as Light the Fire: a Virtual Training Series. According to Section NE-1 Chief, Darryk K.:
It is a combined effort of a three sections conglomerate working to use the resources we have to train new leaders. This new effort will be bigger and better than anything our sections have been able to do alone. We plan to provide consistent content according to our arrowmen’s demands. We hope to see you there! (Darryk K., Section NE-1, 2021)