TOPIC:

Good day,

Our club, TLC Toastmasters Ivy Tech, rely heavily on our website as a check and balance to Pathways. For instance, we run reports on Free Toast Host (FTH) to confirm roles and projects are complete and consistent with Pathways. There have been several times, for instance, for the level one evaluator and feedback role, members have clicked completed on Pathways but realized the project was not completed because they did not have someone evaluate them as an evaluator. Another example, when members mistakenly click the incorrect path and project on FTH, they then realized they were evaluated on a project that was different than what they worked on in Pathways based on this missed step. Thank you for making FTH the check and balance to help us with ethical matters such as these.

Our reports would be more robust if there was a way to feature external training in it too. Specifically, our club is finding it to be a challenge to have a check and balance for external trainings. Has there ever been a discussion about how to incorporate external training in FTH in the report feature? Or have I missed something, and it is already available on the website? Our club really appreciates all the work the ambassadors/volunteers of this resource has put in. Members tell me all the time that without FTH, it would be so much work to have a quality meeting while maintaining integrity on Pathways projects. Thanks for all you do. I am sure there is much detail in making changes and updating code. If there is some way I can help, I would be more than happy to do so.

All the best….
Valerie

What sort of external training are you referring to?
District officer training is tracked on the Toastmasters.org site. We have no access to that information.

My question is about external trainings not District Officer Trainings. External trainings are Pathways projects.

Valerie

Ok, but we still would not have access to that information. Are you suggesting some additional feature to just allow entry of information about those additional trainings?

Please help us understand what you are suggesting, what the specific benefit would be (e.g. time saved, ease of tracking progress towards goals, etc. etc.), and how would this benefit clubs other than just yours. The last part is very important to us... for the most part, we strive to implement functionality that benefits a lot of clubs.

All Toastmasters projects need to be evaluated by a active Toastmaster member, even ones done outside of a meeting. So the member has to provide the evaluator the appropriate evaluation form, which they then add to their Toastmasters.org pathways profile.

Remember only the information on Toastmasters.org is the only one considered valid by Toastmasters International. FTH only provides a record based on club agendas that are only as valid as the VPED who keeps them up to date.

Okay. My suggestion is for members to input the data just like they do for projects. Then that information shows on the reports. FTH would not need information because if a link or feature is made available, the member would use the same drop-down information that is already on the site to note the information. Perhaps I am unable to iterate what I am asking for. Thanks all the best....

Valerie

vrice1 wrote:

Okay. My suggestion is for members to input the data just like they do for projects. Then that information shows on the reports. FTH would not need information because if a link or feature is made available, the member would use the same drop-down information that is already on the site to note the information. Perhaps I am unable to iterate what I am asking for. Thanks all the best....

Valerie

Ok, so this would be something that would be accomplished outside of meetings that would be recorded for the sake of tracking progress, correct? The VPE would still have to check whatever was recorded for verification and approval purposes.

Historically, what we have typically suggested to do is to create a "dummy meeting agenda" that you create a 1 item agenda for to record the external speeches/projects/training for. It is a bit kludgy but it is really the only thing that can be done currently.

Yes. For instance, when a member did an external training she was contacted by the VPE and said the report (FTH) was missing one project. There person did an external training, which is the same info that is on the FTH now but another location. We are trying to incorporate a way for members to let us know so it shows on the report too. Members encouraged me to pose the question here to see if there could be support for this feature. Therefore, I am asking here. But again, the website already features everything for Pathways. All members would input the data just like they do for projects. The feature would simply say something to the effect of (External Training). Then our member who evaluates the person (whose doing the external training) can go into the website retrieve the evaluation like we do now for an in meeting evaluation/project then it is captured on the report as being done.

Valerie

Steve already gave you a solution, please use that.

Good day Steve,
Thanks. I was at work and already in my reply box when I sent the last message and I think you were sending a reply too. I appreciate your reply. I will use that technique.

Valerie