Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

The title of my sharing today is the joy of passing Pathways level-1. I have finished all the projects in level-1 in our 327th meeting on August 2nd, 2020. The purpose is to share what I thought, what I did, and what I felt during my way to pass Pathways level-1. I hope this sharing can help you start or continue your journey of Pathways.

Where there is a will, there is a way

Everyone comes here for a reason. Mine is to learn public speaking. This is not a will from my childhood. The will or dream when I was a child was to become a scientist, and as far as I can remember, the reason was that I was doing well in school and good students should choose scientists as their goals at that time. So kids like me should become scientists.

I went to university, studied physics; I went to insitute, did research in physics; and I was a young scientist. Dreams change often. Then the internet came, and I followed the wave to became a software engineer. My dream became to be a good engineer, and contribute to a great product. This dream is still going.

In the meantime, I want to share some of the great ideas during my journey to more people, like many heroes who choose to be pen writers instead of gun fighters because great ideas and thoughts help more people. I used to write and talk to people, and even had my account for Youtube. Then I got to know Toastmasters from one friend’s wechat Moment.

The dream to become a public speaker awakes from my heart. I visited several clubs, Chinese clubs, English clubs, Chinese-English clubs, English-Chinese clubs. I joined Yu-life club, and I know I can learn from the club because we have many great people here, and I know I can improve my public speaking skills because we have great meetings every time.

I know this is my will, and this is my way.

A walk of a thousand miles consists of lots of steps

The Toastmasters home page may be the first step to go. It clearly displays that it teaches public speaking. Please note this little find a club button. I used it to find our Yu-life club.

I was so excited after I became a Toastmasters member that I logged in the Toastmaster home page immediately after I got my member ID.

• TI website

Please remember your toastmasters’ membership ID. You need it to log in. After you log in, you may see it says leadship - everyone needs leadership.

My journey started from Pathways, where we have the Go to Base Camp. This is the home of your learning center. If you are not comfortable to read English at the beginning, you can change the path language.

There are currently 11 Pathways available. I don’t know about them yet, but no worry. First you need choose according to your will. If it is your first time to choose a Pathways. You may need to take an evaluation to decide which Pathways fit your need. Here I took the evaluation and chose my Pathways

• Presentation Mastery.

The process is very simple. You follow the website to answer the questions - about what do you want to achieve in Toastmasters. It will finally recommend the related Pathways for you.

• Level 1

Each Pathway consists of 5 levels. Here is the current status of my first Pathway.

Level 1 has 4 projects to do.

• an Ice Breaking prepared speech (5 to 7 minutes)
• a prepared speech based on feedback (5 to 7 minutes)
• an individual evaluator practice
• a researching and presenting prepared speech (5 to 7 minutes)

I did not know all this when I checked the web site the first time. I thought I just went through the curriculum in the web for level 1, then I finished level 1. And I clicked the submit for approval button.

You know what? Our VPE, Nicole, of course, declined my submission. My mentor, Annabel, then invited my to the Toastmasters Officer training. I began to understand the whole Pathways process.

Now there are tons of training materail available in the Toastmasters web site, our public wechat account, and so on and so forth. You may not need to repeat my mistake to

• finish level 1 in a week

But you can do

• level 1 in a month

All you need is this little

• District 85 passport

to record your Toastmasters Pathways footprint. This is a very good supporting tool from our D85 district. Thanks to the members and leaders who contribute to this.

This is the recording of my level 1 projects. You can see that I have done all the 4 projects and they were signed by our club president.

Never give up

As a new member, the projects may seem a lot because we have our family to take care, we have our job to finish, we have friends to visit, we are just too tired to do extra job. Nobody is pushing this anyway.

There are reasons to delay, there are reasons to give up.

Let me share my recent experience.

I am currently living in an old dormitary, 16th floor. There are 2 elevators. One of them has been long time broken. Recently the second elevator is broken, too.

What would I do?

Would I give up going home? Would I wait until the elevator is fixed?

Of course not. I will take the stairs. No matter how long it will take, no matter how tired I am, no matter how others may say to me, I will keep climbing, because I know that I will never give up, because I know I will reach home, because I know I can do it.

Dear fellow members, today is our 330th meeting. This is the perfect time to start your Pathways. I know you can do it.

The Joy and Benefit

• level 1 personal benefit

When you started your Pathways, you will get a Pathways Activated badge. When you finished your level 1, you will get a Level 1 Achieved badge. You will also get a signed certificate from Toastmasters’ CEO and President.

Show them to your beloved, show them to your children, show them to your colleagues, show them to your managers. It is your achievement. Let them admire you. Let them celebrate for you. Let them join you.

• level 1 club benefit

There are other benefits. Your Pathways achievement not only inspires your fellow members, but also it helps your club.

Toastmasters place a lot of value in Pathways for clubs. To be a Distinguished Club, we need as many points as possible in Pathways to get a total points of 5.

In Pathways, we have the following points to achieve.

1. 4 members finish level 1
2. 2 members finish level 2
3. 2 more members finish level 2
4. 2 members finish level 3
5. 1 member finishes level 4
6. 1 member finishes level 5

Last but not least, I heard that members who finished level 1 are eligible to take part in speech contests. So you have bigger stage to perform and grow.

Keep working.

Thanksgiving

I hope this sharing gives you enough information for Pathways level 1. If you have any question, please come to me. Finnally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to

• Club
• Officers
• Mentor
• IEs
• All of you

Thank you.