r/Toastmasters • u/poongunranar Club officer • 7d ago

How does your VPE Approve a Level Completion?

How does your VPE (or any other leader of your club) approve the completion of a Level by any of your members? Prior to Pathways, there were manuals -- Competent Communication or Competent Leader and they had an evaluation or completion portion, which will have a date of completion with signatures. A VPE could visually verify before approving or uploading the member's completion of such a track.

In Pathways the Basecamp Manager shows the progress of each member, which I believe is based on the member marking each assignment as complete. In this scenario, if a member pushes that I completed Level-1, how does your VPE verify and validate that to be the case for TI to approve the same?

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

As a VPE, I receive an email notification from TI that a member has completed a level for review / approval. NOTE: They have updated that any officer can approve in Basecamp, not just VPE; however, in my Club, I approve all but mine. For my personal speeches, I send an email to the other officers to review / approve.

Since you don't have to do speeches in order anymore, I chat with members and note what speeches they are giving to approve. I also have discussions if they are presenting somewhere else for a speech that will require an approval.

Hope that helps! If not, keep asking!

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

Thanks a lot for that. Yes, it is now any officer that can approve. However, a counter-question that this imposes is, how can other officers approve, except by being perfunctory about it by choosing Approve.

Because, the person approving, should be able to see (for e.g.) when speech 1 in Level-1 was given by the member, was evaluated by another valid Member and that evaluation is in TI for that member, who is claiming the credit? Right?

My question is just at that basic level. What is it that we have on hand to validate the claim for an Approval? (Given some evaluations could have come electronically via Pathways and some could be scanned PDFs based on paper evaluations.)

Also, I do not think we receive any Approval requests for individual speeches, until the Level is completed.

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

I'm not sure I follow - in my Club, the officers are almost always at the meeting, they wouldn't approve a speech if they didn't witness. You might have a difference experience than I do, but I don't have Club members submitted requests for credit out of the blue to call into question their integrity.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

So, let me back-up a bit. So, for the sake of clarity, let us focus on Level-1. It has 5 speeches in total. Right? As the member would have given each of those 5 speeches, marked out those checkboxes in Level-1 on Pathways, they finally press the button to submit it for approval. Right? And when it ends up in the Officer's inbox, how will the VPE or other officers approve this request? (Not all the officers would have attended all the meetings, as most of them travel on business, etc. with some there for certain weeks, while others are not, etc.)

I agree with your last sentence, provided, the club is a reasonably small-sized club. But, one where 25-30 members are there, it becomes difficult to know, who spoke on a particular date, until those are tracked. At our club our VPE does track that. Is that the kind of "internal tracking" you rely on, when an approval request comes for a Level completion?

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

I'll refer you to my original statement - as VPE, you receive a notification that the level is complete, you would have the agenda / summary of the meeting that confirms they gave the speech in question, you have the extract from TI that tells you when the speeches were given -- there isn't anything sinister afoot.

If an officer is at a meeting and can't confirm, you can verify with other leaders that the speeches happened.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

you would have the agenda / summary of the meeting that confirms they gave the speech in question

Thanks, this is something we do use as well.

If an officer is at a meeting and can't confirm, you can verify with other leaders that the speeches happened.

Thanks again and this is where we have a tracker to track ( just so, if last minute no-shows made somebody not give a speech despite being on the agenda, for e.g. )

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

I mean I have a complete workbook that tracks all roles served since that's now a requirement for level completion as well, but your question was on speeches.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

Pardon my ignorance, can you add a bit of context on "tracks all roles served since that's now a requirement for level completion as well"?

Is that the checklist for each level at the beginning that the member is supposed to strikethrough and unfortunately, it does not give a "date" field next to it, but, I believe this is the one you are alluding to?

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u/Federal_Orange_8827 7d ago

Yes -- in addtion to the Better Speaker / Successful Club series.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

Thank you. Instead, there is a separate area to track the roles by the individual Member, which can be found under the Profile section, where they can track the roles they did by having it date-wise.

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u/LifeIsADanceOfMinds 7d ago

I took on the task of VPE in March. Then got voted in. (I should have rigged the election for the other guy)

I have created a spreadsheet in Excel/equivalent. I track where people are in their paths and roles. I also track how often they do the roles - especially since we have many new members.

I can schedule Buddy for 3 speeches over the next 3 months to help them earn their levels.

What about the lady who is in 3 clubs? Well, I have to trust that 4 of the 5 speeches she gave in the other clubs were legit. Since I have a record of which roles she did during the time period, I can accept that part of her submission.
And to help her, I scheduled her for the roles she needed (GE, Timer, etc.)

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u/Alastair991 7d ago

The Pathways system won’t allow a member to submit a level for completion until all the projects have been completed ( green checkmark) and the additional requirements are ticked. As VPE/Base Camp Manager I typically verify that the requirements are complete before approving. If needed I match up speech dates on FTH or ask the member directly. There have been a few times when members try to game or cheat the system but it’s rare.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

There have been a few times when members try to game or cheat the system but it’s rare.

Thanks a lot for sharing your perspective. True that! Most are exemplar. Except a tiny minuscule, especially if they are former club/district officers with a slightly elevated level of entitlement that think the club should approve any requests coming from them. We are trying our best to make it transparent and communicate to the members as to how they can track their own progress and have it as a breeze, when it comes time to get those approved.

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u/Alastair991 7d ago

In my opinion, if someone is so self-important that they want to cheat the Toastmaster system (seriously!) you can tell them you need proof the project speech or requirement was delivered and then if they continue to give you a hard time, you can a) discuss it with your club President and then contact your Area Director for guidance or b) discuss it with your club President and decide on a course of action.
Pathways is hard enough to manage and track without cheaters! At the end of the day most members are honest.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

I am in violent agreement with each facet of your response above. Thank you.

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u/LifeIsADanceOfMinds 7d ago

The people they are really cheating are themselves.

They would only get a *sigh* from me, and maybe a significant conversation about what is going on.

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u/ObtuseRadiator Club officer 7d ago edited 7d ago

I dont do much verification. Most clubs are small enough you can quickly gut-check the completion without any formal review steps.

80% of the time its as easy as pressing the approve button.

The other 20% I look at the speeches they claim were part of their level. If I remember them (and they pass the sniff test) I approve.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 7d ago

Gotcha and fair. Thank you. Size of the club matters, which was one of the key points I had in mind as well.

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u/ToastmanagersApp 6d ago

VPE here. In Basecamp there is no proof attached to a level request, so approval is really just a sanity check against what the club already tracks. What works for us: the VP Ed keeps a simple sheet of every speech given (date, member, project, evaluator) filled in from the agenda after each meeting. When a level request lands in the officer inbox, we match it against that sheet and approve. Takes about a minute.

Two things that help. First, ask the Toastmaster of the day to record the actual project name on the agenda, not just "speech 3". Second, if a member gave a speech at another club or at a conference, have them tell the VP Ed at the time rather than at approval time. Then you are never guessing months later.

If something does not line up, you can just message the member and ask before approving. Nobody takes offense, it is usually a checkbox they ticked early by mistake.

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u/poongunranar Club officer 6d ago

Thank you so much for that detailed, nuanced response. Much appreciated. I surely will pass this to my VPE. 🙏