Congratulations if you have chosen your Path at Base Camp. You may already be well on the way to completing your first level and happily planning your speeches. The five levels in a Path provide you with sequential development of skills, aptitudes and competencies. This month’s post will focus on:

Level 1: Mastering Fundamentals

What are the fundamentals?

Creating a speech outline, delivering a speech, listening to feedback, researching a topic, giving feedback and practicing your leadership skills.

Each of these are learned in Level One on Base Camp and provide you with  instructions on how to request speaking opportunities in your club meetings.

Level 1 requires you to complete four speeches and one evaluation and to do this you will need to:

• access your Path transcript and open the curriculum
• view each online lesson and download the project checklist, project description and evaluation resource (note: store those in your own computer folders for your Path)
• finish each project by completing the online self-assessments (note: be sure to complete both the Before and After surveys)
• schedule the required speeches with the VPE(s) of your club(s)
• deliver the speeches and have them evaluated (note: simply completing the online lessons does not constitute completion of the project – you are required to give speeches)
• continue with each subsequent project and note the requirements (as above)
• notify your VPE(s) when your level is completed (note: simply waiting for the system to notify the Base Camp manager (VPE) may be insufficient – send an email to your VPE and send copies of the Evaluations completed for all projects to verify completion)

Steps for Success

Your steps for success in Pathways may include some or all of the following activities: mentoring, self-help, further research, planning ahead and networking.

• Mentoring 
  Get help from a mentor in your home club or seek a mentor from the Toastmasters Pathways Forum: Mentorship Program. Preferably a Toastmaster with experience and/or a person who has completed Levels 1 and 2 and/or the Toastmasters Mentoring program.
  Your mentor can provide support for your selection of speech topics, creating the speech outline, methods of delivery and ways to incorporate feedback.
  The mentor may also provide advice on how to plan ahead for other levels in your Path, technical assistance for navigational issues in Base Camp, and completion of your projects and levels.
• Self-Help
  Read the Navigator!
  This document provides you with a clear overview of expectations at club meetings and how to navigate in Base Camp. Available in Base Camp as both a downloadable PDF and an online version.

You can also access a copy of the Paths and Projects Catalog. Thanks to D57 for this dynamic Pathways Paths and Projects Catalog-1 .

Access and download any of the self-help resources you need from the Base Camp Tutorials library, as PDFs from the Tutorials, in a language of your choice from Base Camp at Toastmasters International. eg: Quick Reference Guides

Further Research
Depending on your personal learning style, the blog posts or YouTube videos from fellow Toastmasters may be useful for your further research.
Blogs

Access the Blog of Pathways Champion Julie Kertesz; many helpful hints for those beginning their Pathways Experience. Search for other blogs!

Read the Tech Tuesdays blog post from GALE or the DTM Journey from Pete Punwani or the succinct summary post of the Pathways Learning Experience from Rodney Denno.

Read other posts from this blog by accessing the menu for Toasted Training and subscribe to have my latest posts sent to you via email.

YouTube videos:

D7 Toastmasters Pathways Virtual Academy: Pathways 101 – an Introduction

How will Pathways transform your career 

Completing a Toastmasters Pathways project

Pathways Sample path

How to get the RED CHECKMARK on your Pathways project!

Where are the Evaluations?!! D7 Toastmasters Pathways Virtual Academy

Uploading evaluations you have been given to Base Camp in Toastmasters Pathways

And if you hold the club officer title of President, VP Education or Secretary, watch this selection of YouTube videos:

How to: Pathways Level Completion 2-step for VPEs!

Where are the Pathways Level Completion Emails GOING?

Toastmasters | Navigating Club Central

Further short videos on all the tasks involved at Base Camp are provided here:
TI Pathways

• Planning Ahead

Now you can plan ahead for completing the projects in Level One Mastering Fundamentals and earn your first Level Completion Certificate!
You can access a copy of this Tracking Spreadsheet by clicking on the Path Planner Template V2. The sheet contains a sheet for each of the ten paths.

• Networking 

Attend additional Pathways workshops at Club Leadership Training events and any online education sessions provided by your District as scheduled.
Talk Up Pathways in your own social media.
Join the Pathways Discussion Forum in Facebook.