Dear Fellow members, Distinguished guests,

Good morning.

Today I am going to review my first completed Pathways.

My review consists of the following four parts:

1. a pleasant surprise

2. where did I start

3. the joy of passing level 1

4. I miss you

A pleasant surprise

“Ding, Ding” My mobile phone rang. I checked the number - an unknown number from Suzhou.

Dear audience, what would you do when you see an unknown incoming number?

Many times, I just kill it by pressing the red button because most likely it is a spam call - trying to sell your a house, or trying to enroll your children to a special class.

How you ever had the same experience?

But this time, thanks to god, I pressed the green button.

“Hello, are you Wensheng Xie?” said a man with southern China accent. “Yes, I am. Who are you?” I became a little bit alert. “I am Cui Honglun, a Toastmaster member. Congratulations, Wensheng. You got Quintuple Crown Award, and I invite you to attend Taicang conference to accept the certificate.”

What…???!!! I was totally relaxed.

This is a pleasant surprise! I just finished the last project of my Pathways one week ago, and I am entitled the Quintuple Crown Award.

Dear audience, this is Toastmasters. It keeps giving you good experience as long as you stay in the club, as long as you follow the Pathways.

I went to Taicang. It is not far from Shanghai. I took public transportation and got off just in front of the hotel. It was already the 3rd day of the conference.

I saw people smiling all around. I saw volunteers helping around.

I asked the reception where the venue was and told them that I did not have a ticket. The volunteer told me I could go to the second floor and check if I was allowed to enter.

Of course, I was let in. Susan Zhou was giving her keynote speech. I could not answer her questions:

What’s the mission of a Toastmaster club? What’s the mission of a Toastmaster District? What’s the mission of the Toastmaster International?

Could you, my dear fellow members?

Where did I start

The hardest thing was to start. That’s where the mentor comes in. My mentor reminded me to start my IceBreaker.

The Toastmasters official web site is your best place to kick off your Pathways.

Dear audience, have you ever opened the web site? Do you still remember the www.toastmaster.org? Do you still remember your member ID and password?

IceBreaker is the first project of your level 1 in Pathways. It was not hard for me. I can do a 5- to 7-minute self-introduction. I hope you can do this, too. If not, your mentor has a lot of experience on this.

Of course, a whole Pathways consists of many projects. I have done 20 speeches along the ways and I have attended 41 club meetings. The D85 passport is a great tool to help me record my Pathways and club activities. Have you got one? Have you record your Pathways in it? If not, do it today.

The whole Pathways is a great training: writing the speech, practicing the speech, delivering the speech, receiving feedback, implementing feedback in the next speech. My communication skills have been improved dramatically.

I was so excited that I delivered my first sharing after I finished level 1. I see many happy faces there. I was so confident that I began to visit other clubs and challenged myself in different stages. The feeling is fantastic.

In one sentence, it is worth the effort.

I miss you

Let’s go back to Taicang. When it’s time for the Quintuple Crown Award ceremony, I Looked around, I saw familiar faces, I saw strange faces, I saw female faces, I saw male faces, I saw people younger than me, and I saw people older than me. Wehave one thing in common - we all completed a Pathways, we all finished the 5 levels.

Isn’t is easy? Isn’t it exciting?

Through conversion, I knew that some of them finished more than one Pathways, some of them were already DTMs, and some of them were even double-DTMs. If they can do it, I can do it, too. I told myself.

Standing on the stage, holding the certificate, something was rising from my heart, going through my nose, and shedding out of my eyes.

I was wondering: dear members of Yu-Life club, I miss you on the stage. If I can do it, you can do it, too. All you need is to come here on the stage.

Thank you.