Holding the hand of a Pathways beginner

What is in a Path? we see once it does open for us

Not everyone likes to take in hand a book of many pages to figure out what path to choose from. They were shorter and shorter explanations, but each tried to be "exact". 

Exact, meant mentioning also the single Level Two Tasks which in some cases is different. I think that those on Level 2 do not matter in which path we choose, because when they are not in Level 2 as Required then they are in Level 3 electives.

Someone else did create those different images that can help, not me, it is the shortest way to decide : I only added my own experience of some of them. 

The Paths who have a line in them I finished or begun. The others, I will perhaps, a day. Solid line, finished, dotted line begun. I love how the author did "tell all" even if succinctly. 

Name of the path and the three Required Project of Level 3 and Level 4 and Level 5. For those who do not want to read through details, in a glance "it says all". 

After sending this yesterday to a toastmaster Pal who wrote me "I want to choose my path today" she send me alas again an SOS after she did make a selection, she did not know what to do, or if she indeed did select her path. As it was a good time for me, we decided to Zoom together, and did for more then 1h. 

Most of the time, she was sharing her screen, doing, and I looking at what she was doing, and got in to share my screen only when she needed to see something fast. 

Ok, you selected the path proposed and wanted.
 "Now, let us tell her browser (she was using Chrome) to let it Popup for TMI... " This took some time, even if the documentation from TMI is very good at this point. It seems one line is missing, I heard. I do not use Chrome, sho she had to find how: "I got it!" 

Then the Choice of the Path disappeared. 

"OK, then, let us go to your TMI and see: yes, we could go from your account directly to the Path inside the Educational Transcript's 

The Path selected was there waiting for her! She then opened it, the levels appeared. "Now, open the Level 1" The Icebreaker was now ready to be Activated, Launched. It did arrive, indeed !

Now Activate and Launch, the Icebreaker.

The project popped up as a small rectangle, all small at the beginning, open it up all page so the arrows can be well seen. She first opened it holding it till it begun bigger, then by clicking on the small round 'open all window". 

Next, going page to page. I showed her she can jump from one part to the other from the bottom of any project. 

I shared my own screen only from time to time. Where you find the Print my Project, Print the Evaluation, the title is Your Evaluation in any Project, where we find the Self Assessment Before and After (the later telling BC I finished the project). And showing a few bizarre things of the user Interface, (not all of them at once) like how some clicks has to be under the title not on it. 

Oh, so they are a few things to learn, she told me. Indeed, understanding them, from then on you will become the expert! She laughed, happy, from now on, she will be able to help others.

DCP, DTM till 2020 June

DCP des "points for the club to obtain". Till June 2020 it will be easier, as instead of just six, one has 12 choices to obtain them. One can take either of the 12 but one can not mix, putting 1 CC with 2 Level 1's. As before, one person can not have to of same.

And look well: only One Level 4 and One Level 5 a year! So as my club got already a Level 5, till end June can not register one more, at least for earning "points".

Having 12 choices is always better then only 6 Education Goals and the Levels come faster then the 10 speeches in the Traditional program. 

And DCP ? Here is what I found in the base camp information for Guides.

I wondered what was this, in fact a road that arrives to DTM as for now, in Pathways. Already three earned Pathways DTM, all the requirements and two path finished, also the DTM project. One from Australia, two from Singapore. Bravo for them, they all worked hard to obtain it!

Here they are compared in a text I found also on TMI. 

I always told and believed that one DTM was enough, but in Pathways... I am interested.

My last post worked! Now Effective Coaching Proficient

This is from the Base camp, Digital Badges from my Profile. In "real" they are not near each other I did work with photoshop editor to bring them together. In "real", between them are the different levels, and path activations where level 1 is not yet done.

The Effective Coaching is now between my official Awards on TMI in my profile, as the Visionary Communication and Presentation Mastery were last year. The Leadership Development will be given to one of my Online Clubs, where I have done most. 

Here are my last three awards this year, attributed to three different of my clubs. Adieu DTM Masters and Yakina Toastmasters! Alas, we could not hear each other well. But they opened the door to me and I did offer then points, many more then seen here.

Last time my profile looks like this the 1st April it will change. 7 clubs? Too much!

Inside my base camp, now the Effective Coaching can be found between Completed.

H

Those are in inverse order, the first one at the bottom and the last one in the top.

Visionary Communication was the discovery of Pathways, Levels and Projects. The work of a Pioneer: so much to understand and learn.

I also learned to make best from I can achieve, and see the glass half full. Still continuing my vision: help Pathways Transition as much as I possible by me. And with great teams and great Toastmasters!

Presentation Mastery did also teach me some skills, became more inspirational, but also to avoid Printed Material that stops choice.

Leadership Development, will remain my preferred path : the joy of telling personal stories in parallel and getting to create an international storytelling festival with teams, was great. I will dedicate it, offer it to Witty Storytellers Online club who contributed to it so much with Paul White.

Effective Coaching is my way of thanking the District 91 naming me beside Ambassador, also Chief Pathways Guide, and the Lewisham Speakers club where I joined in 2009 and who let me give Pathways speeches even before our rollout. 

Two more path, one at level 4 Dynamic Leadership, and one at the very beginning, Motivational Strategies. This last I will dedicate to my photography and how from failing in a thing we can find something wonderful different, unexpected. Try to go slow, by doing all the Electives, at least at Level 3 and 4 and many at 5! There are 37 projects in the path. And my last, a French path : again Leadership Development. 

Between my active projects is now also the Guide "path" lots of project in it, to Activate, to read and understand, to save and do. Our second Meeting was yesterday. It did give us help and possibility to tell what worked and ask questions. My journey that begun a year ago continues.

Adding a Level Award for Pathways is easier! But it happens in two steps.

You are one of the three Base camp managers. Want to look or someone asked you to approve a level, (and declare the award in Club Central), two different from each other. How we do it?

Login to the base camp as me Base Camp Manager. 

Open the Pending Requests tile. 


Is anyone asking for approving a level? You approve it from inside there, with a click.

The Level is approved and the Toastmasters who asked it can go and open the next Level projects, in any order. There is no "order" how to do the projects inside a Level. 

More work is only needed in 0.4% when someone asked for a Printed path, the VPE has to ok all the projects and send them one by one to BC, and a special letter to TMI for each Level. They get manuals Level 1 and 2, after that Level 3 and Mentoring, at the end separate Level 4 and 5 manuals : remember without any choice of electives.

All is not done. The member of your club determines when and to which club (if more then one) want to offer the award. Let us suppose the toastmaster asked. Login to TMI

I suppose all of you logged already in to the Toastmasters.org website, and if not the first time after having added your email, you can add "forgot password" then login and create a new password you want. Saving it so you do not have to do it every time. 

Any officer can then continue to Leadership Central, from there to Club Central, the first options. 

There are many great informations to be find in the Club Central!

And look! I succeeded even to add a red arrow to point to it! (Not easy...)

Opening Club Central was faster and easier! Of course, I am used to it. Same with anything else in our life! Once we done it many times, it seems "natural".

When you are officer of more then one club, you have to decide to which you enter.

Once inside there are lots of great informations you can find, things you can do. For now, choose Submit Education Awards. When time, discover all other possibilities.

It does not have to be a Base Camp Manager, (VPE President Secretary), all club officers can enter club central, even if usually it is the VPE (or the President) who submits an Education Award.

Select the NAME of whom you want to submit the award then, 
The Education Program. 

In our case, of course it will be a path's level, the Path and then the next level will be offered.  The level the TM did not yet got will be available.

You can see that he had enrolled in Online Presentation Mastery and the Level 1 is available to choose. That is all! Of course, we can not submit an award for ourselves.

For a Traditional awards, one has to add the Titles and Dates of 10 speeches, lot of work, for Pathways only one click! After the award given, the VPE and the Member both got a letter, congratulating the Toastmaster for her achievement.

This is what I got from BaseCamp@toastmasters.org when I finished, my Level 3 in Dynamic Leadership. Indeed, I am not on the Level 4, still have to "do" the required task "Change Management". Very interesting and well written project that I do not wish to rush! So much to ponder and think about, and also with whom do I do it? What between many changes before me will I use for this project to do, to think about after having done it and of course to speak at the end?

Bumpy beginnings, keep on! How ? Here some practical advices.

I got a letter from a worried toastmaster. She is in one of the clubs I visited.

1. The Icebreaker comes I so slow, I had to click 5 times. 

I usually answer, it depends on the bandwidth but it has to arrive all the way from US!

2. Arrived to the page were it does congratulate me as finished, but I did not even given the speech, my Icebreaker! 

About that I wrote a whole post already: the congratulation page means nothing. It is at the end of each project and one can arrive there just by going page to page or jumping at the page before and advancing one. IT IS CONFUSING.

I even signaled it to the highest decision levels about Pathways to no avail.
Till you do not answer ALL the Auto Assessment After questions and save, the project is NOT finished to Base Camp. Even if you did already give your speech after completing all the tasks. (That one happened to me a year ago) Let me show again.

Till we do not see, in ANY PROJECT this comparison between BEFORE and AFTER Assessments, no project is closed. As soon as it is there pops up for us: the project is considered closed by the Base Camp.

3. Where do I find an Evaluation form I can send to my Evaluator? I would like to put my name and title and I can not. 

That is when the Senior Learning Specialist from TMI closed our discussion, half year ago. When I told her that Adobe Acrobat does not let us fill out forms free any more. Each of us had to find new solutions, depending on our system.

First, let me tell you that at the end of each project, (just after the "self assessment after" page) there is a page YOUR Evaluation. It is there that we can find not only the Evaluation form for that project, but also the Project, ready to Print. It opens the Project and from there we can also save it to our computer). I opened here the menu under the page that lets us jump always from one part of project to the other.

One has to download the Evaluation, save it, then we can open it and write on it. In case you have any problem with Acrobat from Adobe, I also use XODO app, and Preview, both free on my Mac or iPad. 

As I said Saturday, I am now "Pathways Proficient" (4 path finished and many bumps on the road that did teach me trics of the trade) but a year ago, I was Pathways Naïve. And yes, one more item I discovered only after a few month of frustrations!

4 The base camp does not remember where I was, she wrote me. 

It took me three month for my son to come and visit, and show me two things. 
a) To open up the window I use totally. Then I did not have to pull the project rectangle and could see easy all the arrows to navigate.
b) More important, how to configure my browser so if I open a link it does create a new TAB so when I close it, I find myself where I started! Suddenly I had my "bookmark": the last tab I used. In plus, Base Camp does remember where we were in a project last time we opened it!.

This "small" adjustments to my browser changed my life in pathways and also showed me that many small things depend on ME and not on the Base Camp!

Kenya Toastmasters and Lessons of life.

I begun today to study seriously by all means all I could find on the Kenya clubs I have to present to Pathways in April.

A bit concerned after yesterday late evening presenting to Haiti, but even if I did not hear them, they did hear my presentation and seen my screen sharing. I asked them to raise their hand if they did: all raised their hands! I loved that there are means to communicate through Zoom, even when the bilateral communication is not so good. 

Today, I was reassured. Not all clubs have this kind of problems. We will see... Above, is members of Thika Toastmasters listening to a great and funny presentation, I added it for the moment on my facebook page and to the Witty Storytellers Online group in Facebook too. After 5 minutes the great speaker finally tells the secret of a good beginning: tell a personal story! Hold in a hotel, it had wonderful facilities for presentation and recording.

Bellow, is another club, holding a contest at Kwenza Kenya Toastmasters, for Video Recorded International Speech. Wangu Kamundia tells a personal story to get her point across! This club is, I believe, the oldest one in Kenya with a lots of experience! 

Bellow a video: Speaking at Kwenza Kenya about Lessons of life.

Another club seem no more existent, we will see if it is not a mistake. But two from three already, a good sign, in plus I found out they meet each other.

If they can host each other, they could gather also for a presentation, to see it better. 

Another time, they met even more of them! 

I am impressed with the number of clubs and their activities in Kenya! 

I found the Facebook page of my only French club I have to visit, and it did have a great photo (alas old). When I looked at new ones, very different. And looking them up at TMI it has conflicting information. How can a newly chartered (renewed???) club has a need of 20 members, as no one paid and no award was earned? And two different addresses, one in a college the new one on a street address. 

I wonder, what happened to all those wonderful girls, and the few boys figuring in this? 

In all, it was a fruitful morning, listening to youTube videos, looking up awards and data. It did reinforce my feeling, I had seen already in 2011 at my first TMI Conference, of how International Toastmaster is indeed!

To culminate all this work, and after I got out to walk and talk and take spring flowers photos with my great daughter, I answered a letter of a worried Toastmaster. She got the same problems I had a year ago. I hope, my letter explained to her what she can do, and if not, I will return and do this time (online or in the club) a practical demo. 

Remember? I do have a post about how to finish a project and how not to believe in the last page! And how to configure the browser so it opens a new tab for a link? It seems small things but they can give beginners a lot of frustrations!

Pathways Proficient

Instead of telling now that I have become:

Visionary Communication Proficient
Presentation Mastery Proficient
Leadership Development Proficient
Effective Coaching Proficient

I call now myself "Pathways Proficient"

And from now on, I decided to Slow down, Savor, Smell the roses on the way.

Will I have the time?

Well, I can go slow and taste all the available projects on my next Paths. But I will be very busy anyway as Guide and Ambassador for the Undistricted Clubs that I was given. One of them is French and I am preparing with joy, and lots of work, for that too.

VC was the first begun and finished. PM the second. LD took less time and was a joy! EC the longest but I learned to see the glass full with the Positive Thinking Project! With each path I got a different wisdom and each had it's own problems.

My Vision was huge and not possible to obtain as I imagined first, because it did not depend on me. I did learn to level it to my own possible things I can do and I am doing it still now. Helping the Transition to Pathways as much and every way I can. VC is about Change, how to spread it, how to plan it and discover your vision. 

As for PM I have the Printed that I put in Archive as I stopped after Level 2 and went to buy the web based: I am between those 0.4% who did not know better. Then I did buy a printer. I learned to be more Persuasive and give Inspirational speeches, speaking on how much I learned from the bad choices I made, when as Pathways Naive, a year ago. PM is very much needed in all the presentation we make, but has little "in plus" then other path: they all contain the same projects.

LD was all about the importance of personal storytelling! Which is my first big vision and will also remain with me. Begun in a courtyard in Normandy, finished in an international story swap festival, done in parallel with Paul E White, a joyous path. Creating special events, from small to bigger is the what we learn with Leadership Development which does not have it in it's name.

EC took a year because I put it on a back burner for long. Took it out from time to time, and had to wait here and there, mostly because I needed someone to coach now, not wanted to use old coaching, then because I waited for the right time to Moderate a Panel that Base Camp believed I have already done it. Indeed, alas you can not undo a completed project, but you can again, alas, finish it without answering the Assessment Before... questions. I learned a lot again, and so no regrets: all those can be told so others do not fall in potholes and dirty their legs, as I did. Coaching is different from Mentoring, as it is with a specific goal and a finite time. I prefer it so.

There is no glory to finish four path, only a lot of hard work. Of course, on the path there is also joy of skills learned or skills practiced and become better. Knowledge that begun from "I did not know I did not know" to "Now, I understand how much I do not know" to "I know... let me practice and try it" to "doing it without even thinking". 

I do hope, I will be now able to apply what I learned to spread the word about Pathways to other clubs and other worlds. A new exciting work begins now!

Pathways Guides4U ? A new task for me

What this has to do with me?

Till beginning of March I was Pathways Ambassador and wrote here about it. Went to 9 clubs and two officer trainings to deliver presentations about Pathways. Plus, I wrote, day by day this blog. Answered many questions, hold and participated to Panels about it.

I am in three clubs that are Online: VP Education in Witty Storytellers Online, SgArm in Global Trainers Online, and Charter Member without official function in Firebirds Collective. A club coach remote access to yet another and helping and visiting two others. I do love Online: all from home! Even if I go twice a month also in my base club in London.

The 100% Online clubs were added to District U where U means Undistricted. Not having a district to arrange for Guides and Ambassadors, the un-districted clubs are spread all over the world. They were supposed to roll out one of the lasts, in May, but how?

George Marshall: In 2018, and a few of us who were active in online clubs got the idea to train those undistricted clubs via remote meeting technology, working with members who were already experienced Pathways Guides. We presented the idea to WHQ senior staff, and the program was approved. The project is big: over 150 clubs in over 40 countries are to be trained. Assignments of guides to clubs had to be based, not so much on location, as meeting time and language spoken.  

Carole, from Online Alliance with George, Mark and Michelle dared to offer a solution. The four Steering Committee then begun Head Hunting between the Online Clubs those who where already Guides or knew well the Pathways Program, like me and were ready to get to spread it to places where not many go. Imagine what work to find not only those ready and able to go out but also about all those clubs and countries!

End February, we filled out questionnaires, and a few weeks later, we got the answer. I was "head hunted!" My huge surprise come a day, when I logged in my Base Camp and found suddenly this: 

Access Base Camp as Pathways Guide!

I could Log in as Pathways Guide! It is now like an option of choosing between my clubs.

Unlike the Base Camp Manager, in my case - at least for online Guides for district U, it is not exclussive. My projects and the Guide projects are together. I do not have to log out to come back and find either.

I am finishing after a year Effective Coaching, very soon, as Thursday I offered a Panel finally, and then wrote "Reflect on your path". My Dynamic Leadership path is waiting for me at the Project Change, and I do not want to rush it. The other two are at beginning of level 1, just completed the Icebreaker in them.

The other two path are new and at beginning of Level 1, just completed the Icebreaker in them. One of the two is in French.

Here were my tasks. I did read the Navigator, but of course the one animated is even better: I do have them now in English and in French too. I begun to look at many Resources and read the Guide Handbook. For the online guides there is a special page.

Then, I arrived here!

Pathways 4 U: Online Workshops through Zoom the 22 March. Yesterday, I did have the welcome workshop for Guides and today I looked at the orientation nr 1 recording which was similar but a bit different. 

What a joy! What a pleasure! 

Mostly known faces, well organized meeting and a new, improved deck! 

We all come out of the meetings very happy and ready to go and work. Also admiring all the preparation that the four in the steering committee put into it. We all fell that we will be very well helped and supported and encouraged to "think outside the box". Whatever needs to be done to prepare the clubs allocated to us to be ready for the launch of pathways the 15 May. Along with helping my 9 clubs in my district, I have now a new task too and I feel very confident to work with those wonderful Toastmasters.

A new adventure awaits me!

Enter Base Camp like...

After 8 month, I am Base Camp Manager again. As Secretary, as I was last time too. As you can see, I can enter the Base Camp now and choose my club. When I choose Lewisham Speakers: here I am! 

Able to Log in either like Base Camp Manager, or Log in like Member. 
Attention! When you enter as Base Camp Manager, you can not access your path!

We do enter like Base Camp Managers to approve a web based Level finished by a club member or see how many have enrolled and on which path and level they are. The text in the top wanted to say probably, that there are other ways to access "my path" for example, directly from my name when I am logged in. Indeed. But it does confuse some. Just remember, when you enter Base Camp as BCM you can not at the same time access your path. One has to go out of the Base Camp as Base camp manager, then enter and Log in as a Member, to access one's paths, and projects.

Last summer, I become Secretary only to discover how Base Camp Manager role, and Level approval works, but then we had all to quit that club where I did it. All of us who where remote access members. But I become Secretary of my home club in July waiting for this moment: to be again Base Camp Manager. This time, I count to do my job very seriously and help the VPE with his task. 

So happy, that Pathways arrived finally to us!

Ends and Beginnings

It is a beginning for us, all from Region 11 and Region 1 : we are now all in the Pathways zone, finally.

I have waited years for this!

At the same time, many things will end, even if not suddenly. Soon, the Guides club visits finish, 90% finished in our district already. As Ambassador, I will try to visit later, when I feel I am most needed. 

Even if the Traditional Education program will last, parallel two more years, some veterans feel as the world as they know ended for them. 

Some rushed yesterday, to select a path, and even programmed their Icebreaker. Tried out the Base camp and their first projects. Most got in well, some had problems.

"I do not see my projects" Elisabeth called me: she went in as Base camp manager instead as a member. Indeed, nowhere was told, you get in either as one or the other. 

But once she get in, here she is with a huge smile on her face and a special Teeshirt.

I want a similar one! Love the tee-shirt she imagined and ordered! And of course, her happy smile "Yes, it is here now!.

I met her only online, admired the enthusiasm she puts in preparing and delivering each and every speech.
At the morning, someone discovered - the first guide I was out in a club end January already, that the gates opened, we all rushed in. Some with a lot of luck, other had first a crash problem: all was not open yet.

The languages got added by early afternoon. Here are now all available for now.

Deutsch German and Spanish and Portuguese and... others. Of course, French too.

The Manuals are translated, the videos spoken in those languages, but the outside did not change, remains the same for the moment. With time... 

Then the "new" begun and with it different questions. One or two of Toastmasters rushed through the Icebreaker and answered the Self Assessment After questions and found herself with a finished project when she was still starting. "No one told me not to answer that!" Well yes, it is written in the beginning but in the Check Project. Where the information is, it is very important! 

TMI letter contained a new 1 2 3 go for it! 

Instead asking go to check the configuration as before, now it is clearly "Disable your pop-up blockers. After you have chosen your path, but before you enter Base Camp. Of course, all the projects are on popups and from popup we have other pop-ups too.

Different questions will come, after having chosen a path and entered Base camp and begun a project. The answers are all there in Tutorials, but the tutorials do not pop up when we need them alas. We have to go and discover them. 

So indeed a new period arrives with new problems and new questions. And new joys.

After a year, Pathways Arrived to me!

For a whole year I had to go out and away far to have access to Pathways. I did. Finished three path and got far in others. 

This morning, we discovered: pathways arrived in our District!!!!!!!! 

In February, I worked with Karen Ince Pathways Guide : now she could also choose her first path. Very eager, this morning, she was the one discovering: we can go in earlier then expected.


Bellow is how my pathways clubs before today. My three Remote access clubs.



As I am Secretary in my base club in London; was from July last year, now I am suddenly also again Base Camp Manager. I am so happy! 

Two whole regions are launched today, Region 11 and Region 1. The "gates" opened early not at 7 am Pacific time but earlier! Must have been very late in night for all those at TM HQ working to open Pathways for all of us!

I am happy to participate in the excitement, one by one discovering and voicing their joy on my district facebook page. Already send email to the clubs for which I am Pathways Ambassador that they can begin, even before getting the letters (late at night here in London and even later in some other parts of the region). 

And then, of course, a whole new part of our job will begin, helping all those who got on, answering to their questions, and getting others from the clubs as excited as us.

Back to Breaking the Ice

Today, a new Icebreaker. Not as I hoped to give it, in French but in English. Alas, I can not unlock the Level 1 other French projects till I do not finish it's Icebreaker. "You can do it in any language, as long as someone understands it". 

Of course, in Canada where I will be offering it, some must get it in French too, and my pal Brian Dodd the Royal Roads Toastmasters President and VPE helper, who opens it up every Monday noon (evening for me in London) for anyone from afar to come and speak or take roles, said "important are the gestures and the voice".

I will still use my Icebreaker today, as it is his birthday, to speak of all the ways he helped me last year in my pathways journey. 

We were co-conspirators a year ago, earning to get into Pathways faster, and together we discovered a way and begun our journey remote access at the club Great Communicators in Virginia. He from Vancouver Islands, me from London. He helped me all the way and I did also when he finally admitted me he needs it. Hours of calls and conversations with programmers did not help him, but a Zoom sharing with me did what he needed: I discovered it in just three minutes. With this, he gave me confidence that I can help others and so... I become seen as an "Expert" even when I was just a step ahead. I could share the experience I gained. 

So much to tell about our life, our passion, there will be never enough for any path! 

But what is really new is that this Pathways Icebreaker asks us, after the speech to ask about different opinions and ask us to reflect back minute by minute later how it went. The journey of self discovery and self learning begins in a subtle way with that first project already. Yes, we learn the fundamentals! 

Some think, the Research and Present Project is to show something others do not know, when in fact it is also pushing us to RESEARCH and not Search, farther in a subject we do not know well, increasing our knowledge, from books, blogs, interviews, and so on. Pushing us again to a discovery, to self-learning and then reflecting on it before presenting. 

More I read about the new learning methods, theories and new applications of the "blended learning", better I realise all that on which our Pathways projects are based. 

After the Fundamentals, it continues the self discovery at level 2 but beginning to open up to communicating with others, then to acquire knowledge from lots of projects for us to discover. As with the first time first path I opened almost all the Elective Projects of level 3, this time I will try to give also a speech from each of them. Till all the clubs I know get tired of me? Not if I find an interesting thing to say! 

Someone asked yesterday "can we not jump directly to building skills level?" 

Jump to Level 4 is not possible but beginning to acquire the skills before, why not? I did blog for more then ten years before I begun this blog and opened it three weeks before arriving the first time to the level. I also shared podcasts with audiences - but not now for long - telling stories and trying out my comedy routines. Yes, there are a lot of skills to discover or to hone and more we DO more we REFLECT how it went, the best we are on the way of becoming real experts, not only one small step ahead.

But we do have to make that first step and I hope with the Pathways arriving tomorrow in Europe (and other places) many of those around me will take that first step. As most are younger then me, they will make longer steps and soon I will be no more in front. I am looking with pleasure to see many going ahead! I will still continue, just differently. There is so much more to learn!

Launch Reg11 in 2 days! With the first free path come 37 Projects

As I begun offering interactive presentations, day after day, I begun to understand all that is still to let know. I did write about the 10 Required projects, from which 3 projects only are the those that are Specific to a path and differentiate them. It does not seem a lot, but they do make a huge difference! 

I did write in detail how to choose a path, how to avoid were we do not want to go and choose those we need first. But look at this picture. 

In left,those ten required. At right all the "Elective Projects". I did publish them level by level: same in each path. 

Twenty seven elective projects available to us in a path.

That is what I do not think it was not written clear and I realized by me either. While we do have to choose, to pass a Level, only 2 Electives at Level 3 and 1 each at the next Levels, we got all the Projects (online) that we can Activate one by one, read them. Then we can Save, Print, Export in PDF format any of them. All 27 of them! not only four of them! 

In my first path I did Activate, read and saved 20 Electives and 10 Required and printed many of them - some I did not yet "done" even by now a year later. Later, I opened less, because I had them already available in my computer. Beside those specific for the path, I did open a few that I did not before. They were waiting, patiently.

So, as they are same from path to path, next time we already have them at our fingertips. We can use them any time (after we arrived at that level) from then on. 

I did not realize so clearly, within one path, we do get already 37 books or manuals! Is a project a manual? It looks like one at least. For the first two levels, we could put together three by three. From then on, it is difficult. 13 Elective projects would make a thick one - even if that was what I was hoping to get in my Level 3 Printed manual! (I got only 3 projects in all. 

Building skills takes even longer then Increasing Knowledge, and both take time and repetition if fact, that is why they arrive almost same again and again in every path. Demonstrating Expertise needs a team, needs time allotted to do it, and again, doing it once is not enough to really become experts! We have to begun to get there, take the first step to learn knowledge and skills by ourselves too. 

Expect the unexpected, again and again

I have given now one after other 3 pre-launch presentations in my district. Two were about using zoom, for Virtual Support Sessions. "VTT" as the Pathways Guides call it. I did record only one of it, but all were useful for those who come, and happy about what they learned, the information showed and demonstrated.

How to show a slide and the speaker about half half or slide it to show more of one of the parts, side-by-side through Zoom was one feature many loved. But also the virtual background, green screen about which I have already written posts in this blog.

Here is the Zoom about Zoom video presentation and discussion from Thursday, repeated differently Friday again with others. My partner Samir Malak come all the way from North Carolina to help me with my London presentation!

Saturday morning, I woke up and created a second presentation about Base camp and the first steps we can take. Then, once the presentation was over, I have taken all to my base camp. What is interesting, many did not realize that once on Level 3 we have access to ALL the Elective projects, not only to the minimum two we chose! 

After a whole hour presentation, I may say well done, one hick: I forgot to click in zoom on Record! So angry at myself. Only in the mind of those who came, it does remain. And there was so much information... But I think, all will retain what was new to them, something important now for them. That IS the most important. And in plus, I was told, it was very well structured!

Here is a message I did receive almost as soon as I finished. I do like small snippets telling me I helped to understand an aspect of Pathways.

Indeed, once in a Path, we can access not only all the required projects plus all those we do chose - the minimum, but all the other projects "electives" that we did not choose this time. We can Activate them, Launch them, Read them. In plus it is up to us if we want them saved also in our computer or printed or both. 

Once can see only the minimum or take time, read study delight in many of them!

I also talked today about the importance of spending time with the tutorials, and looking at the videos and reading descriptions and enjoying the online Navigator animations. 

After the spring this morning it begun to snow again: all outside is covered again in white! Expect the unexpected will be the theme of my next path. Embrace what comes, use it! Embrace the unexpected will be in all my stories and, at the same time the importance of pictures. This is at least how I will begin, then, well expect the unexpected even there. It is 17 March: it did begin to snow this morning!

I have begun taking pictures about fifteen years ago and took and took and took, I do have lots I can share, and some really tell a story by themselves. Others, do when I add a few words to them. 

Here are two pictures, only from my window taken this morning. 

The cars are again covered with snow, and the ground too. 

The tree is in blossom, it was for more then ten days now. I am sure, those flowers did not expect to get snow! Even if it will last only as it seems for the weekend and get warmer again by Monday. Good days will arrive, together with the Pathways to our clubs!

The spring will be back by then. And I would have forgotten my stupidity to forget recording a good presentation.

So many things will happen next week!