Dear Readers, I have been following Julie’s journey in Pathways for many months, as she writes her daily blogs .

• Her blog has been a compelling read for her thousands of followers as she unravels her journey with stories of challenges, frustrations and success. I have asked Julie to share some of her thoughts on Pathways from a different perspective this month. These are the questions I have posed for her consideration:

1. What are the favourite aspects of the Paths you have worked on?
2. Why did you choose the Paths and how many have you completed?
3. What advice would you give to a new user of Base Camp?
4. What are the benefits from your work in your Paths so far?
5. What is your wishlist for new projects in Pathways?

See her answers in her blog post the same day, Friday 12 October:

Part of the Pathways Exchange Blogging project!

Q1. What are the favourite aspects of the Paths you have worked on? Dear Julie, My favourites occur in the electives!

• As you know, I was keen to explore  ‘Write a Compelling Blog‘ and ‘Storytelling‘, and this has been the source of many of our conversations by email. The blog elective, with your mentoring, improved my understanding of what a compelling blog looks like.
• Building my blog followers by fine tuning my writing style and promoting in social media.
• The process, starting in January this year, sparked the idea for this Pathways Exchange Blogging project. Thanks for participating.

Thanks for reading my early blogs which focussed on my experiences as a novice Pathways Guides. Taking the Hero’s Journey approach and placing my experiences in a fictional fantasy world enabled me to explore my favourite writing genre and weave in some magical images of my journey. This image on the right sparked a series of posts for a fictional Toastmaster called George. Julie, do you remember, when you and I were discussing how important it was to look ahead and find out which Paths contained longer final project? Revisit Pathways with George, post 1, post 2 and post 3 I was eager to get through the first two levels on each of my paths –  Effective Coaching (completed), Strategic Relationships and Visionary Communication – to reach the electives in level 3. I was impatient to expand my ability to speak on the topic of blogging and to change the way I structured many of my other early Pathways speeches. Since then I have chosen to write and tell stories – these had a much greater appeal at Toastmaster meetings both online and land based. Note: happily exploring those in the Witty Storytellers Online club.

• The elective on ‘Storytelling‘ has become my all time favourite elective.

This elective has helped me to improve my speeches with stories and to add panache to my delivery. It also sparked a renewal of interest in my Family History stories that I write in Celtic Family History blog. I wish that there were more Storytelling projects like this in Pathways. Q4. What are the benefits from your work in your Paths so far? Dear Julie, this leap into new writing and speaking adventures has given me a framework for a new community project on Oral History.

• I am excited to tell you that this one will provide the content for the next elective on ‘Podcasting‘.
• I had been ignoring that elective for some time, knowing that the spark for its content was still to emerge. Now I can plan a series of podcasts

Working on Storytelling projects, delivering my speeches in storytelling mode and joining your online club and listening to Pathways Journey stories in your Storyswap project, has set the scene for my podcasting journey. Distinguished Toastmaster Project in Pathways

• As a natural extension of these activities, I can focus on combining blogging, podcasting and storytelling, as the basis for my DTM project in Pathways. This is my goal set for next year. Finally I have a project theme that will be beneficial to me in my world of Family History Storytelling and to my community learners. Note: thanks to M for suggesting this.

This month I am embarking on a Digital Storytelling adventure in a local adult learning community by teaching a group of volunteer historians how to prepare oral history videos using simple software, photos, videos and recording the voices of elders in their community. I will once again be training others in the art of Digital Storytelling – something I used to do over a decade ago. I am really excited about this project and looking forward to getting back into the classroom again. It is ages since I attended the first Digital Storytelling Conference, at the BBC Wales, in Cardiff where I was born.

• I have introduced the steering group to Zoom for meaningful project discussions and I hope to explore more of that style of collaborative and social learning online with other learners.
• I will finish this Pathways Conversation now and focus on more answers to that first set of questions I asked of you. Hope you are enjoying this Pathways Exchange of stories. I am really looking forward to the questions you have of me.

Regards Coach Carole

• PS I start a new module in the Diploma of Family History with the University of Tasmania this month – it is called Oral History. Everything is falling into place!