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completing toastmasters pathways level 2 before level 1 is approved

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See my main Presentation Mastery Pathways page for some context.

I completed all the projects in level 1 on January 4. My level 1 actually got approved today due to some difficulties in processing. I had lots of speaking opportunities in the club though and I successfully completed all the level 2 projects before I obtained access in Base Camp. This blog post is about that journey!

Each path has three required projects for level 2. All of them have the “Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring” project. The Presentation Mastery path also has “Understanding your Communication Style” and “Effective Body Language.”

For level 2, you can do the three projects in any order. I describe them here in the order I did them.

Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring

On January 10th, a speaker at our Speechcraft session cancelled so I jumped in with this speech. Since level 2 was locked, I went online to see if anyone had uploaded the PDF. I found out that a club shared the “Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring” PDF online (link no longer works). The description on mentoring vs coaching was excellent. I like how the project has you speak about a time you were mentored.

For more on this project or how to download the evaluation sheet, see my starting level 2 blog post.

Effective Body Language

On January 16th, I was giving members of my New York club an unofficial preview of Pathways. I choose to use the “Effective Body Language” speech for this. I couldn’t find the PDF manual online. Instead I went to the “Speeches and Evaluations” section of Base Camp and downloaded the evaluation sheet. I gave my speech and got evaluated.

Now (as I write this blog post), I’m reading the actual project. I learned that I was supposed to get feedback from a mentor or reviewer while practicing. Oops. The online project also contains good tips on posture, stance, position and movement. I need to move more deliberately when I speak! There was also good descriptions of the four different types of gestures: descriptive, emphatic, suggestive and prompting. There was a video and great interactive exercises. Finally, there were references to culture and the visual impaired.

Understanding your Communication Style

One of my clubs meets on Thursdays lunchtime. At the January 18th meeting, we had a speaker cancel the evening before. This happens sometimes. Work is of course the priority! As a DTM, I knew it would be no trouble to put together a speech the night before. And it was a perfect opportunity to complete level 2!

The same club that shared the “Introduction to Toastmasters Mentoring” also club shared the “Understanding your Communication Style” PDF online.

I read the PDF. It contains an excellent 12 question “test” where you answer how you view yourself. Then you add up the scores to determine your communication style:

  • Analytical
  • Direct
  • Initiating
  • Supporting

You can then read how each communication style interacts with the others. (The online version is better because it automatically tallies your score and lets you control the order in which you read about the styles.)

Not surprisingly, I’m mainly analytical/direct. Then I had to write a speech. Since Pathways is new, I chose to include a couple sentences on what each was. Then I had the audience vote on which they thought was my predominant style. The majority of my speech was me telling a story of a strength (or perceived weakness) of my interactions with each of the four styles. It wound up being a great speech. Our VPE even suggested that I save it for the humorous speech contest.

This is a great project and really shows the benefit of the Pathways educational program!

Submitting level 2

Since I did all three projects on paper, I went back and clicked through in Base Camp. Then I emailed my evaluations to our club leadership for approval. And now they know what to do so getting access to Level 3 should be fast!

 

starting pathways level 2 before level 1 is approved

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See my main Presentation Mastery Pathways page for some context. You become eligible to start Toastmasters Pathways Level 2 after you submit level 1 and your VPE (Vice President Education) submits/approves. I”m the first person from this club to complete level 1 so my VPE doesn’t yet know how to submit. Yet I had a meeting speaking opportunity before that. What to do? What to do?

Getting a level 2 (or any level) evaluation sheet

Level 2 is three speeches. You can download the evaluation sheet for all three easily.

  1. Go to the Base Camp home page
  2. Click “Speech Evaluations” (the rightmost option)
  3. Choose the project you are interested in and click Launch

This opens a PDF with the sheet your speech evaluator needs. Some of them you could do most of with just this information. For example, Intro to Toastmasters Mentoring is to give a speech about being a mentee. It is also supposed to include how Toastmasters envisions mentoring. For that, you need the full project. Googling for “pdf introduction to toastmasters mentoring” showed me that a club has uploaded the full project. This was useful in learning what the rest of the project was.

I imagine that Toastmasters doesn’t want people to upload the whole PDFs. But given this project is in all level 2 paths, it is a great start. The PDF for Understanding your Communication Style is also online and in many paths.

The actual project for Intro to Toastmasters Mentoring

After reading about the difference between mentoring and coaching (which is interesting), you give a speech that largely includes a story about when you were mentored. I’m currently leading a SpeechCraft program so I gave a speech on how mentoring helped come up with speech ideas.

Submitting

I uploaded the PDF of my evaluation from this speech. I can’t mark it off in Base Camp until my Level 1 is approved. Also read how I completed level 2 before level 1 was approved.