By Janice Fairfield
June 30, 2020, less than nine months (even less if you consider the busy holiday season that’s right around the corner), is the end of the Legacy Toastmasters Program. Beginning July 1st, everyone will be on Pathways.
Is your club ready? Does your club have a VP Pathways (VPP) to help you through the transition? About half of our clubs already have their VPPs in place, helping their members.
Here are questions and feedback that I hear often:
Is the VPP a Club Officer? No, the VPP is not an official club officer. The VPP is not recognized by Toastmasters International and will not have access to Base Camp. Since this is not an official club officer position, the VPP does not get credit for attending Club Officer Training at TLI or the Makeup training sessions. The VPP role does not satisfy the club officer requirement towards DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster).
What does the VPP do? The VPP role is intended to serve as a liaison for their club and interfaces with the D57 Pathways chair. As training materials, videos and other links are distributed, the VPP will share this information with their club members. The VPP will also attend quarterly Zoom meetings to share best practices and to trouble shoot challenges. Most of all, the VPP identifies challenges their club members are having with Pathways and reaches out to the Pathways Chair at pathways@d57tm.org
Who should be the club VPP? Usually within the club, there is someone who stands out as the person everyone goes to. It could be because the person is very approachable, or is active in the Toastmasters program. This person is a prime candidate for the VPP role. What if you’re that person and you don’t have any room for anything more on your plate? Three ideas to consider: 1) if you’re already assisting your club members, being the VPP doesn’t add very much to your workload. 2) by helping others become familiar with Pathways, you will free up the time you spend helping others. Each person you help in Pathways becomes a resource to help other club members. 3) consider mentoring a less experienced person to become the VPP. The VPP will have primary responsibility for assisting club members and will only come to you when they don’t have the answers. All VPP’s will have access to support materials to assist them. To sign-up as VPP, click here.
Our club is already successful on Pathways, we don’t need a VPP! If your club is already successful on Pathways, D57 needs you! We are looking for additional local ambassadors to help our struggling clubs. We would like to have local ambassadors dispersed throughout the district so it’s easy to follow up with the clubs that need help. Share your success and help our district be successful. If you would like to be a local ambassador, click here to sign up.
Incentives are a good way to foster change so we have a few nice ones:
- Our VPP Contest. Club VPPs will earn 1 point for every Pathways level completed by their members and 10 points for every Path completed. To make it fairer for smaller clubs, we are applying a ratio to our point calculation. Number of members on Pathways/total club members. The VPP and Club that scores highest in each Division will win a prize.
- VPP’s will earn 600 points in the Leadership Category for their OATM
- VPP’s will learn valuable coaching, mentoring and leadership skills.
Help D57 Be Excellent this year! If your club doesn’t have a VPP and you would like to sign-up, click here.