Pathways FAQ

 What is base camp?

Base camp is where members can access their curriculum that they have chosen for Pathways.  After selecting a Path, members will need to log into toastmasters.org and click "Pathways" on the menu bar. Next, members select "Go To Base Camp" and then "Access my Path Through Base Camp", select "Log in as a Member".

How many Paths are there?

Currently, eleven Paths have been released.

Image from Toastmasters.org

How many projects are in a Path?

Currently, there are 14 projects that are completed throughout the five levels. Ten of these projects are required and then four projects are elective. Each project requires the member to give one speech. 

Can work in the Legacy program be applied to Pathways?
No, only leadership roles held that have not been applied toward an award in the Legacy program can be used in Pathways. 

How do you get DTM in Pathways?

Complete two Paths

Serve as a club officer for 12 months

Serve as a district officer for 12 months 

Serve as a club mentor or coach

Serve as a club sponsor or conduct a Speechcraft or Youth Leadership program.

Complete the DTM project. 

What is a DTM project?

In order to receive DTM, each member is required to create and implement a project they designed. The project is available upon the request of the member after they have completed Level 3 of the second Pathway. A member can request this from the Education Services Team by phone at +1 720-439-5050 or by email at EducationProgram@toastmasters.org.

Can I access all of the projects when I pay for the Path?

Yes, all of the projects are open. 

Choosing Your Toastmasters Pathway

 Log into Toastmasters.org

Select the tab “Pathways”

Select “Choose a Path” (If not already logged in, Toastmasters.org will now prompt you to log in)

Select your language that you want your path in

Select “Digital” or “Printed” 

Choose “View Path Options" (Or Take Assessment)

Select Your Path

Pathways Virtual Academy

Pathways Projects to Complete Online

Level Four

Conduct an Online Meeting

• With many clubs turning to online meetings, you can complete the project for leading an online meeting!

Level Five:

Ethical Leadership Panel

• Moderate a panel for a 20 to 40 minutes discussion on ethics, with a Q&A session. 

Lessons Learned:

• For a project that has already been completed, facilitate a discussion about the project and review how everything was handled. Have each member fill out a 360 evaluation form. 

Moderate a Panel Discussion

• Moderate a panel for 20 to 40 minutes on any topic 

Lauralee's Toastmasters Reflection

Picture Taken For a Previous Award

I am extremely happy to announce that I have completed Toastmasters' Advanced Communicator Gold today. I started My Toastmasters Journey in 2016 as a solution to needing an audience for my Public Speaking class at Oregon Coast Community College. Little did I know that starting in Toastmasters would change my life.

After giving my speeches for the class, I was convinced to keep going and finish the Competent Communicator. The system was addicting and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my progress through pages completed. In 2017, I I jumped at the chance to complete a District level role through being a Pathways Guide.

It was at that point that I realized I had a passion for educating and serving the consumer. I switched my major to Business Administration: Marketing. Now, I am in my last year of my Bachelor's in Business Marketing.

So far, I have served as the Vice President of Public Relations at Yaquina Toastmasters, a Pathways Guide for the Coast, and the District Public Relations Manager.

In my time at Toastmasters, I have found many friends and mentors along the way. Dave Coffman challenged me to go beyond technical speeches. Laurie Weitkamp encouraged me to share personal speeches and not be afraid of showing emotion. Paul Brookhyser was always there to lift me up and motivate me. Lee Ritzman helped me prepare speeches and offer insights for my speeches on Germany. Avital Miller worked with me to complete my Pathways speeches. Christa Colway has supported my crazy ideas for Public Relations and helped me reach my goals. Brian Haggerty encouraged me to go outside of my comfort zone and compete in club contests. Svetlana helped me navigate online meetings. Brian Norris has walked me through many speeches to help me fine tune my message. The newer members of the club like Pam and Larry have sparked my curiosity with their speeches and experiences. John Rodke encouraged me to push the boundaries of my mind and let myself grow. Crystal and Donna motivated me to become more involved in the Toastmasters community.

Throughout this journey, I have been touched by the support of my Toastmasters community and I am excited to see where my journey takes me from here.

Don't Loose Traction on Pathways! Start these Projects Now

Level Four:

Manage Projects Successfully:

• For Manage Projects, you will need to decide on a project, which can be used for later projects within your path, and carry it out for whatever length of time you deem appropriate. This project does require collaboration with at least three people. 
• Suggestion for Project: Help plan a contest that is now online
• Suggestion for Project: Lead the club transition to online meetings
• Suggestion for Project: Create a new member packet for your club

Create a Podcast: 

• Record 60 minutes of content for your podcast (in sections or one podcast) and share the podcast with your club. 

Building a Social Media Presence:

• Take this time to either review and enhance or build the social media presence for your club. 

Write a Blog:

• This requires you to write a minimum of 8 blog posts over the span of a month. You may choose to have your blog evaluated by members of the club.

Create a Public Relations Strategy:

• To complete this project, map out a public relations plan which can be used in future projects if desired. 

Have 10 free minutes? Complete this Pathways Project

Level Three

Focus on the Positive:

• This project takes a minimum of two weeks with writing daily in a journal on feelings, what you are grateful for and behavior. 

Start Your High Performance Leadership Project

High Performance Leadership Project: (Works for Pathways and Legacy)

1. Read the High Performance Leadership manual for their background

2. Come up with an idea for a project (IE: leadership campaign, Speechcraft, Youth Leadership)

3. Recruit a guidance committee to work with you on your project

4. Meet with your guidance committee to go over what you have in mind

5. Create your mission statement, vision, and values. Run these by your committee

6. Present your first speech to your club about your project

7. Create your Roles Goals and Timetable for your project

8. Recruit and Action Team

9. Create your action plan on how you are going to achieve your goals in your time limit

10. Meet with your action team and guidance committee to review your progress and how things are working. Overcome problems, if any, and reevaluate your plan if needed

11. Results: go over your results with your team and evaluate how your plan went

12. Present your results to your club with a speech

Project to Work on From Home

With the cancellation of clubs everywhere, this can be a great time to start projects that extend over several weeks. Here are a few projects that take an extended amount of time- both for the Legacy and Pathways Program.


Legacy Projects:
Competent Leader:
Project Six:

• There are many Divisions and Districts that are working to pull off an online competition. You can volunteer to help in one of those contests and get credit for helping organize a speech contest.
• Another option for project six is helping with the online presence of the club. This is a great time to go through the web presence of the club and make sure everything is accurate. 

Project Nine:

• If someone in your club is working on their High Performance Leadership Project, you can volunteer to be a part of it. 

Project Ten:

• If you chair a contest, you can complete project ten in the Competent Leader manual. 
• Another option for completing Project Ten is to serve as the webmaster in your club.

High Performance Leadership Project: (Works for Pathways and Legacy)

1. Read the High Performance Leadership manual for their background

2. Come up with an idea for a project (IE: leadership campaign, Speechcraft, Youth Leadership)

3. Recruit a guidance committee to work with you on your project

4. Meet with your guidance committee to go over what you have in mind

5. Create your mission statement, vision, and values. Run these by your committee

6. Present your first speech to your club about your project

7. Create your Roles Goals and Timetable for your project

8. Recruit and Action Team

9. Create your action plan on how you are going to achieve your goals in your time limit

10. Meet with your action team and guidance committee to review your progress and how things are working. Overcome problems, if any, and reevaluate your plan if needed

11. Results: go over your results with your team and evaluate how your plan went

12. Present your results to your club with a speech

Pathways:
Level One:
Researching and Presenting:

• This is a good time to complete any research that needs to be done to put together a speech on any topic that you wish. 

Level Three:

Focus on the Positive:

• This project takes a minimum of two weeks with writing daily in a journal on feelings, what you are grateful for and behavior. 

Level Four:

Manage Projects Successfully:

• For Manage Projects, you will need to decide on a project, which can be used for later projects within your path, and carry it out for whatever length of time you deem appropriate. This project does require collaboration with at least three people. 
• Suggestion for Project: Help plan a contest that is now online
• Suggestion for Project: Lead the club transition to online meetings
• Suggestion for Project: Create a new member packet for your club

Create a Podcast: 

• Record 60 minutes of content for your podcast (in sections or one podcast) and share the podcast with your club. 

Building a Social Media Presence:

• Take this time to either review and enhance or build the social media presence for your club. 

Write a Blog:

• This requires you to write a minimum of 8 blog posts over the span of a month. You may choose to have your blog evaluated by members of the club.

Create a Public Relations Strategy:

• To complete this project, map out a public relations plan which can be used in future projects if desired. 

Level Five:

High Performance Leadership Project (See above)

Leading in Your Volunteer Organization:

• If you have served in a leadership position for six months, or are volunteering in another organization for six months, ask members who have worked with you to fill out the 360 evaluation form. Create a succession plan for the person who will replace you in that position, and reflect on the position that you were in. 

Bonus: 

Level Four

Conduct an Online Meeting

• With many clubs turning to online meetings, you can complete the project for leading an online meeting!

Level Five:

Ethical Leadership Panel

• Moderate a panel for a 20 to 40 minutes discussion on ethics, with a Q&A session. 

Lessons Learned:

• For a project that has already been completed, facilitate a discussion about the project and review how everything was handled. Have each member fill out a 360 evaluation form. 

Moderate a Panel Discussion

• Moderate a panel for 20 to 40 minutes on any topic 

Practicing Public Speaking from Home

With the spread of COVID-19 and the cancellation of in-person meetings, some Toastmasters have been wanting to keep up their skills while on break from regular meetings. There are a variety of ways to continue practicing your public speaking skills at home. Here are five ways to keep your public speaking skills strong during the break.
1. Join an online Toastmasters club
There are several hybrid clubs and online clubs that you can attend while your traditional club is on break. Additionally, your home club could consider moving online during this pandemic.
To look up online Toastmasters clubs, follow this link:  https://www.toastmasters.org/Resources/Online-Clubs-List
2. Start a podcast
One of the projects for Pathways is to start a podcast. This would be a great time to look into how to complete that project. What topic would you want your podcast themed around? How long would you want your podcast to run? The possibilities are endless!
You can see the official Toastmasters podcasts to get some ideas here: https://www.toastmasters.org/resources/news-and-announcements/podcasts
3. Start a blog
While on this break, you could start a blog or a vlog, which is a video based blog. The Toastmasters blog project requires 8 posts within a month. With the break from in person meetings, this is a great time to get started on your blog so you have time to reflect on what you learned.
You can find information on how to create the blog on Pathways.
4. Record Live on Social Media speeches
If you are still on the Legacy program, you can work on the Interpretative Reading manual by reading your selected pieces live on social media, such as Facebook. For the Pathways program, level four has an elective of creating a social media presence.
You can find information on how to use live to continue giving speeches in Pathways or on the traditional program.
5. Write speeches to give to your club later
While on break, you can use this time to read through different projects and brainstorm speeches that would fulfill them. This is a great time to explore the Pathways platform and plan out which speeches you would like to give to complete them.

Roots of Yaquina Toastmasters

Yaquina Toastmasters started on April 1st, 1965. They are a club that is apart of Toastmasters International, an international speaking and leadership organization. Since it's beginning in 1924, Toastmasters International has grown to become a world leader in helping people become more competent and comfortable in front of an audience. Yaquina Toastmasters strives to provide a fun and supportive atmosphere where their members can practice public speaking and leadership skills. This allows their members to grow in confidence and overcome their fears. To help their members achieve their goals, Yaquina Toastmasters has a mentorship program, where every member has a mentor that will guide them through the education program towards their goal.
As a club, they are active in their community, helping the Loyalty Day Princesses perfect their scholarship speeches, assisting clubs such as the 4H members as they work on their competition speeches, and supporting professionals in the community to further their career and ambitions.
To aid in the members' growth, Yaquina Toastmasters has an educational program that all members have the opportunity to go through. This new program is called Pathways, which is made up of ten different Paths that members can choose from, which can be seen in the graphic below. Each Path includes five different levels that increase in difficulty (see below). These Paths will teach both leadership and public speaking skills to the members, and can be customized to the person's interest.

As a member of Toastmasters, there are opportunities to practice leadership skills at club and district levels. Every club has seven officers, including the President, Vice President of Education, Vice President of Membership and Vice President of Public Relations. There are also the Treasurer, Secretary, and Sergeant at Arms. In addition to year long roles, there are meeting roles that members can practice their skills doing. These include roles such as timer, speech evaluator, grammarian and Toastmaster of the day. Other meeting roles are general evaluator, table topics master, and speakers. Members also have the opportunity to give prepared speeches at meetings, and participate in Table Topics, practicing on impromptu speaking.
Yaquina Toastmasters meets every Tuesday at 7 AM PST at Pig 'N Pancake in the back meeting room. We would love to have you join us!

Reflecting on a Path

On January 31st, 2020 Lauralee Norris completed Level Five of Innovative Planning Path, one of the Paths offered in the Toastmasters Education Program Pathways. Lauralee is the only current member of Yaquina Toastmasters who has completed a full Path on Pathways.
Norris chose Innovative Planning because she wanted the challenge of developing a long term project, and seeing it through from conception to celebration. For her Path, Norris chose to explore topics that she was not familiar with, such as creating a podcast and presenting an hour long presentation at Oregon Coast Community College.
One of the projects required to complete the Innovative Planning Path is to complete a High Performance Leadership Project, which would be the second High Performance Leadership Project Norris has completed with Toastmasters. The first project focused on a public relations campaign to bring awareness to Yaquina Toastmasters. For Innovative Planning, Norris chose to use her position as a Pathways Guide to help spread information about the Pathways program, and make the program easier to understand for everyone. To do this, Norris created step-by-step guides and recorded videos to help other Toastmasters navigate the new education program. 
Norris said that "for the new Pathways program, I wanted to lead by example and show that this new education system is meaningful for everyone to try." This is why she created over 70 blog posts and videos to help Toastmasters with this program.
When reflecting on her journey on Pathways, Norris felt like it has given her a variety of opportunities to experiment with new ways of public speaking, like her podcast project and trying out new public relations strategies. While there have been both ups and downs, Norris has enjoyed being able to use her skills as a Pathways Guide to become a mentor through her videos and blog posts for Toastmasters near and far. 
Norris said that "throughout this journey to one completed Path on Pathways, I have become a mentor my fellow club members, grow as a speaker and become a more organized leader."

District 7 Pathways Introduction

Detailed Pathways

District Seven: Trouble Shooting Pathways

How does Pathways Affect becoming a DTM?

Pathways requirements for becoming a DTM:

"Completing two paths

Serving as a club officer for 12 months

Serving as a club mentor or coach

Serving as a club sponsor or conducting Speechcraft or a Youth Leadership Program
Serving as a district officer for one year
Completing DTM project"


Currently to become a DTM, you need to have received your Advanced Communicator Gold, and Advanced Leadership Silver. This means you would need to complete the competent manual, as well as six advanced manuals for speaking. Instead of those extra manuals, you complete two paths through Pathways. For the Advanced Leadership Bronze, you are required to serve as an officer for six months, which has now been increased to a year. In the Advanced Leadership Silver, you need to serve as a district officer for a year, which is the same as the new DTM requirements. Serving as a club mentor or coach is also a current requirement for the Advanced Leadership Silver.

District 7 Pathways Academy: Getting Started

Pathways Questions: Technical and progress

Q: Can I be in more than one path at a time?
A: Yes you can. In fact, if you are a member of more than one club before roll out, you receive two free paths.

Q: Is it more expensive?
A: No, actually it is a little cheaper. Your first path is free, and your second path online is 20 dollars. That will get you to your DTM. For the traditional program it is $6.00 for each advanced manual, making it $24 dollars to get your DTM.

Q: What is base camp?
A: Base camp is where you access your online materials. On base camp you can find your evaluations, projects, videos, and interact with members of your club.

Q: How long do we have to finish in the traditional program?
A: It is two year from the day it rolls out in the very last region. There are seven roll out phases that are left before those two years will start.

Q: Why is in not letting me see my project?
A: There could be a few reasons for that. If you have not reached that level, you cannot see the projects yet. If your pop-up blocker is on, your computer is refusing to open it. It will come up in a new window so check your windows to see if it is there.

Q: Do you have to use Pathways online?
A: No, there is a printed version that you can bring with you. Another way to do this is you can print the Pathways projects straight from Base camp.


Q: Will they let me keep my current progress?
A: Your current level in Toastmasters, such as an Advanced Communicator Silver and Advanced Leader Bronze, will still be present in your title. However, you will start back to your Ice Breaker with Pathways.

Welcome to Pathways

Steps to Print Your Pathways Projects

Step 1- Launch your project
Step 2- Make sure your popup blocker is disabled
Step 3- Find the navigation bar at the end of the page
Step 4- Go to evaluation page
Step 5- Hit print my project