Bob's Toastmasters Pathways Blog

One of my good friends and fellow Toastmasters has come up with a definition of DTM that I like (not D on't T ime M e): D estined T o M entor Part of mentoring is the ability to help people by understanding something that you see in them.  One of my favorite things to see is when people realize their potential and what I saw in them. During my time as an Area Director, Assistant Division Director, Conference Chair and Division Director, one of my goals was to find people who I saw something in and help enable them to take the next step. During this time, I've been privileged to see someone that I asked to be an Area Contest Toastmaster be a District Contest Toastmaster, a once Conference first timer become a Division Director-elect and an energic Toastmaster become the first person in her club to become an Area Director (and likely the first DTM from her club). The Pathways Mentoring program will just help further this and I couldn't be more excited to take advant...

One of the nice things about Pathways is the ability for a basecamp manager to print certificates out and create more recognition for the members (which ironically, is one of the reasons why Pathways was created). Celebrating and recognition doesn't have to stop there, what accomplishments have your members achieved?  Area Director? Division Director? 1st Path? Consecutive years of district service from club members?  Getting to a sustainable membership?  Overcoming the challenges of losing members (and knowledge)? In terms of outside, non-Toastmasters achievements, be sure that the members are comfortable with the recognition.  For Toastmasters achievements, I usually don't give members a choice.  For example, we had a member achieve DTM who didn't want any recognition for that achievement.  However, I had a conversation with the President and told him that I was going to recognize it if he didn't.  He recognized it.  (If it had been a non-To...

Normally, once you get a DTM, you only show DTM after your name, but after seeing what other DTMs are doing, I'm starting to think that whoever started it was brilliant.  Instead of just DTM, people are adding their Pathways progress, i.e. DTM, LD5.  This shows that you've embraced Pathways, even if just level 1. While I probably have another CC or two before the end of the traditional program, I'm fully embracing Pathways because I want to be an example as a (almost) Past District Leader (AD, Assistant DivD, DivD and Conference Chair) and be able to help newer members succeed.  If I don't know the program then I can't be as effective at helping them. I may have gotten beat (by 2 weeks) to Level 5 by one of our newer members, but I was able to help him along the way as a result of embracing Pathways. Embrace Pathways = Helping Others

I recently completed my first path, which I previously blogged about.  I had to choose a 2nd path as I work toward my second DTM and first on Pathways. I selected it earlier as I wanted to continue to give speeches even as the projects got more specific as I got further along and harder to go a pocket speech with.  Based on the level 4 project that I did thinking it was going to help me complete my first path, I ended up selecting Dynamic Leadership. However, nothing stops you from taking the assessment again to help you determine the best path for you or you can pick the path that is for the skill(s) that you want to learn. I look forward to seeing what my second path reflection will be, but I know that it will be different because I'm working to stretch myself more. How can you stretch yourself?

I taught a VP Education TLI session last weekend and it made me realize a couple of things: 1. As an organization, we haven't done enough to encourage existing members to start Pathways 2. Newer members (and even some existing members) are encouraged by Pathways but want more information One person in my VPE session said she became the VPE because everyone else in her club decided that they were going to continue the Traditional Program and pretty much left her on her own.  That's not a good thing. As veteran members, we should at least be familiar with both programs so that we can support our new members who only have 1 choice.  We shouldn't be leaving any of our members in the dust, even those who see Pathways as a reason to reconsider their membership. When I look at members' progress, where they're at and the likelihood of them completing a Traditional DTM, I think about a couple of questions to ask them: 1. What do you want to get out of Toastmasters? ...

From the education programs that existed before my time in Toastmasters to the Traditional/Legacy Education Programs to Pathways, Toastmasters has always been about helping people improve their public speaking and leadership skills.  It's not to say that they haven't made mistakes or that they've released everything perfectly the first time (i.e. Old Competent Leader to Competent Leader & Advanced Leader Bronze).  Each time they've made a change, they've tried, figured out what worked and didn't work and then made changes accordingly.  Look at The Navigator that's currently out there or the Humourous Path. The Competent Communication Manual was great and still is because of the foundational skills that it teaches and would make a great path for someone who wanted to be a professional speaker, but the customization that is allowed earlier is still better. The one thing that I miss is the Competent Leader Manual that often made it easier for roles to g...

When Pathways launched in February 2018 for my Districts, I wasn't in an official position that had access to Base Camp Manager.  One of the things that I noticed was having our launch moved up to February from May in December 2017, made it really hard to fully understand Pathways, even for someone like me who wanted to embrace Pathways. First, you had the struggles of people thinking that had submitted the request to move on only to later find out they never clicked "Submit" on the after assessment. Second, you had people missing the training that was offered by their Guides and Ambassadors or somewhat absent Guides and Ambassadors.  Overall, people just weren't interested in learning about Pathways when it first rolled out. Third, you have new members coming in and taking these roles (which is great), but with very few people that can actually help them, it's really hard for them to succeed. Unlike for the officer positions, there is no official basecamp m...

I periodically run into people that don't like Pathways period and they're going to attempt to spread that hatred.  I recently saw a post in a Pathways Discussion Forum about an experienced member wanting to create a petition to reinstate the CC (Competent Communication Manual).  While I agree there's value in the CC, it's definitely something that doesn't completely disappear.  As someone pointed out, the CC speeches still exist in Pathways but aren't in the same order (and not always required). After all, the reason that Pathways gives rewards sooner is that the average time it took to complete a CC was 2 and a half years, but the average time someone stayed in Toastmasters was about 2 years. Rather than having to complete the CC first before getting to the advanced manuals (and customize your Toastmasters journey), you have the ability to start customizing as early as Level 2 (a few of the paths have different Level 2 projects).

I recently wrote about losing the advantage of Pathways by skipping ahead, but for some reason, I decided that it was a good idea to just start blogging, posting about once a month.  Then I read the instructions which said 8 posts in a month, oops! The project titles aren't always as descriptive, but they do give you an idea of what the project is about.  ALWAYS READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST!  While there's generally never a time when you can fail a project, you definitely get more out of a project by trying to follow what it wants you to do.  (I say generally never because I failed to have a Toastmaster on my first HPL's committee and therefore couldn't use it, but not meeting the objectives/purpose doesn't mean that you failed the project.)  Your goal should ALWAYS be to meet the objectives/purpose. In the Traditional Education Program, the term "objective" was used and in Pathways, the term "purpose" or "purpose statement" is used....

One of the things that I’ve realized about Pathways is that there’s a lot more places for reflection and it’s highly encouraged.  Not only do you have an assessment before and after each project, you have a reflection about your path before you can complete it. The first thing that I noticed was my likelihood to go to the projects that I’m comfortable with (I.e. storytelling, visual aids, etc.) and stay away from what I wasn’t (I.e. blogging, podcasts, etc.).  While I don’t have to start enjoying those projects or do all of them, Pathways is designed to give you options that stretch you and I need to be taking advantage of them to really allow myself to grow. While most of my assessment scores improved or stayed the same after I did the project, a few decreased.  This isn’t a bad thing, it’s more of a realization that I thought my skill was here, but after I did the project, I realized that I was really here.  There’s nothing wrong with that. I found that skipp...