COVER STORY
Where Will Pathways Take You? Pathways. You may be sick of hearing that word by now - in your club meeting, contest, Area conference, (soon to come) Division conference and in your club Pathways education session ad nauseam. Well, I remember rolling my eyes at the whole thing a year ago and thinking, I want to be as far away from that as possible. Now, I am a Pathways Guide. Let me talk you through what happened. I took up the role for one primary reason – change is hard. The main thing in managing change is effective and positive communication with members. As I read through the program, every part of it started making sense. I started to understand why Toastmasters International was pushing this program so aggressively – it really was exciting, fun, and addressed the needs that had been sorely missing from the Toastmasters experience so far. Here are some of the major highlights of the program, straight from my experience as a Pathways Guide and in no way endorsed by Toastmasters International or the District. To all who are reading this, know that your member experience will forever change for the better. Customization All Toastmasters are not created equal, so why should they all go through the CC and CL tracks? Granted, those two have been the cornerstone of the program for ages and they have some valuable lessons to teach. But as we expand our membership base we need to let the members decide for themselves what learning path they want to take. The 10 learning paths teach a variety of interesting skills and I cannot wait to see the new projects in action. When you begin the program, you can take a skills assessment to get a sense of what paths might be right for you. But then, you can still choose the path you want to take. Even within the path, past Level 1, you decide what elective projects to do and as always, the pace is in your hands.
5