by Greg Pick DTM Pathways Coordinator
You have begun your term as Vice-President Education, which means you are one of the Base Camp Managers for your club. Base Camp Managers facilitate member progress by encouraging them to work their path and educating them on the Pathways Program. This is best done by demonstrating how to navigate the websites, verifying member education achievements (i.e., approving level completion requests), and tracking member progress.
This article focuses on the necessary task of tracking and verifying member progress and provides a few recommendations. We will review using Base Camp to identify how your members have recorded their progress, using other resources to identify member progress along their path(s), and recognizing when you may need to contact members to gain clarity on their progress. There are several likely challenges that a Base Camp Manager may encounter. For example, where exactly are members on their path(s)? Do the members properly complete their projects after delivering a speech? Do members read the project before giving a speech?
Before getting to the details, I recommend that the incoming Base Camp Manager obtain a turnover document from the outgoing Vice-President Education of club practices and tracking member progress.
Using Base Camp
Base Camp Managers have reports to assist in monitoring member progress. However, the reports will only be as good as the data provided by each member as they progress down their path.
Below is a list for obtaining reports related to member progress as reflected in Base Camp.
Common (for individual & multiple-member assessments)
- Login to toastmasters.org
- Click on your greeting “Welcome, <name>”
- Select the appropriate home club, if needed
- Select the box for Login as Base Camp Manager
- Select the Go tile
- For individual members:
- Type their name in the search window (upper right of screen). If they are a member of more than one club they may not be found if their selected home club is not the same as yours. Only the member can change this, so they will need to change it before you can access their information for your club.
- Once their Base Camp Profile opens, select the Paths and Learning tab.
- When you select the Paths and Learning tab, the screen will display their paths and other educational resources.
- Select the Open Curriculum tile for the path of interest.
- When the path opens, you will be able to see the levels completed and the overall percent complete for that path.
- If you select View Details for incomplete levels, you can see individual projects which have been completed and which projects have been activated.
- To see how far they have progressed or to troubleshoot challenges they face, I recommend that you get on a video call and have them share their screen.
- For multiple members:
- Select the member progress tile
- On the new page, Select 1. Individual Progress tile
- Refresh the page to ensure you have the most current data – you can do this by selecting refresh from the dropdown on the Options button
- For each level, select View Details or Export to Excel. Exporting the data will allow you to work offline and track member progress for each level. If they are a member of more than one club they may not be found if their selected home club is not the same as yours. Only the member can change this.
Usefulness of a club website and/or meeting minutes
Why would I worry about meeting minutes or the club website when Base Camp records all the information that I need? In a perfect scenario, members will always have their Base Camp details current. However, this may not be the case. Another way to monitor progress involves using information from the club website or reviewing meeting minutes.
Free Toast Host websites keep a record of roles performed and speeches completed for each meeting. If your club has the habit of reconciling the meeting and speaking roles, then this is a reliable source of information related to completed projects. Similarly, club meeting minutes of what occurred and who gave a speech on what path/project can be extremely helpful.
We all make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes relate to completing project(s) in Pathways before completing the activities and/or speeches required by the project. The club website and meeting minutes provide an independent record that can help the Base Camp Manager monitor member progress along their Path.
