“…to defeat…the HUNS…”

 (Am I the only one who can’t help but finish that phrase that way?)

As AIA Northern Virginia’s incoming President, I was excited – and slightly worried, let’s be honest – about facilitating this year’s Leadership Retreat, which was held on Monday, November 10, and graciously hosted by Jacobs’ Arlington office. Historically, this annual meeting has served as an opportunity to thank each year’s Board and Committee Chairs for their service to the Chapter, welcome new Board members and chairs, appreciate those who are exiting, and kick-off collaboration and discussion between volunteers and staff so that everyone’s time can be well-spent in the year to come.

However, it seemed appropriate to also take advantage of this session to perform a mid-cycle evaluation of our progress on the Chapter’s 2023-2027 Strategic Plan, and refine our tactics in alignment with AIA NoVA’s mission and vision.

These efforts are of course iterative; the structure of interrogation outlined for the Retreat will probably be familiar to anyone who’s worked with AIA NoVA as we’re always tracking some core questions:

• Are our events and programs sufficiently responsive to what our constituencies need or want?
• How do we maintain and increase internal and external engagement without burning anyone out?
• How do we balance our budget to appropriately resource staff, services, and programs for members, partners, and the public for the long term?

We used several different activities to give us a jump-start on answering these imperatives in 2026, from qualitative scoring of our progress on the different goals and strategies outlined in the Strategic Plan, to work groups targeted at specific Chapter functions and initiatives.  Building off the three Board task groups my predecessor, Christopher Kehde, established for 2025, the Retreat’s three work groups were generally oriented around programming, engagement, and partner sponsorship. A sample of the specific asks and outcomes for each work group included:

• Outline a new Chapter-sponsored program (beyond golf – no offense, golfers – WE KNOW YOU WANT MORE GOLF AND WILL DO OUR BEST TO OBLIGE.)
• Designate this year’s Board Advocates – board members who are paired with committees as resources and liaisons. (Yes, we empowered a work group to voluntell the Board what to do, with outstanding results).
• Find new ways to meet our members where they are, whether it’s literally location (because we all know the joys of Northern Virginia traffic), or figuratively at their career/life stage and architectural passions.

As each group reported out their findings and recommendations,  I couldn’t help but think that if we’re able to bring even some of these ideas to life in 2026, they would be such great additions to our existing opportunities to learn, collaborate, connect, and most importantly enjoy what our ragtag band of architects, design advocates, allies, etc. is capable of creating.

Caption: Lo, my terrible photos of great ideas!

As a bonus, I had the fun of wandering around to each work group during their sessions to eavesdrop on their discussions and cannot say enough about how much I am looking forward to working with next year’s Board and Committee leaders. Although that might be my extrovert self just feasting on the good energy they bring to the table…stay tuned, because I think there will be plenty more excitement to come.

If you’d like to participate in one of the exercises we undertook, here’s a link to the quick survey to rate your perception of both the Chapter’s progress on meeting  the goals of  its Strategic Plan  and the importance of achieving each component in the Plan: 2026 Strategic Plan Check-In

If you’re interested in getting involved or volunteering for some of the cool stuff we’ll have on the 2026 docket, get in touch here: [email protected].

Many thanks to our excellent Chapter staff, as well as Grace Gan, Bronwyn Redd, and Tom Becherer from Jacobs for their management and logistical support of the Retreat.

– Anh Tran, 2025 President-Elect, soon-to-be 2026 Chapter President