Music To Listen To

Music to listen to while reading this blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPhqU--Mq1A

Rules

Like any speedrun of a computer game, I think it's important to establish what rules I'm using for my speedrun of the Toastmasters Dynamic Leadership Pathway. Here are some thoughts on that: 

• Duration. The duration is just a few hours over two weeks: that is, to succeed, the speedrun needs to be completed between the beginning of Cardiff Toastmasters' meeting on Wednesday 21st September 2022 and the end of Cardiff Toastmasters' meeting on Wednesday 5th October 2022.   
• Non-Presentation Activities. Where a project involves some activity followed by a presentation, it is only the presentation that needs to be completed within the speedrun. For example, "Lead in Any Situation" requires volunteering for six months. For this I intend to use my last Toastmasters' committee role: Deputy VPE of Cardiff club in 2021/22. For that to count towards the speedrun, I only need to give the presentation in the period.
• Other Toastmaster Meeting Roles. In contrast to the previous rule, where the project involves taking a role at a Toastmasters meeting other than speaker, that only counts if done within the speedrun. For example "Evaluation and Feedback" requires taking the evaluator role and "Active Listening" requires taking the table topic master role.
• Planning, Organising, Writing. Only the presentations themselves need to be done during the speedrun. All planning and organisation needs to be done in advance. Also speeches can, and should, be written in advance too. Similarly any administrative tasks (level completion and path completion on BaseCamp, for example) don't need to be done during the run.
• Originality, Uniqueness and Exclusivity. I may write a separate essay on originality in my blog. However for the purpose of having a rule, is is simply that there is no rule that any speech needs to be original, no rule that any speech needs to be unique, and no rule that any speech needs to be exclusive to this path.

Speech Topics

Here are some preliminary thoughts about speech topics.

I've decided NOT to give my speeches an overarching theme. I did toy with the idea, though, and it might have been easier to put the whole list together if they had all been about, say, Shakespeare. I'm shelving that idea for the moment.

Another problem I hit was whether some topics would be suitable for audiences in different countries. I've made a deliberate effort to avoid controversy - I don't plan to talk about politics, identity, religion or war. But I still have practical issues. Would talks on UK tax, for example, be relatable for anyone outside the UK? (Frankly I get this problem when I talk to UK audiences about it too.) On the other hand, that topic might be particularly suitable for speeches which are about research or about presenting an audience with unfamiliar material

Anyway, I've got, broadly, two areas of specialist knowledge, which I plan to draw on as much as I reasonably can:

• In my day job I am a lawyer, with a specialisation in inheritance tax planning. I trawled through the powerpoints on my computer to see if any talks I had given to colleagues or client groups might be suitable to use in this pathway: and some of them were.
• I know a lot about the works of William Shakespeare.

Some ideas are suggested by the project. Indeed some, mostly the level 2 speeches, require specific subject matter.

Then beyond that there are a few favourite speeches that I particularly wanted to include (e.g. The Limerick Toastmasters Club) and I've already established that one of the rules of my speedrun is that there is no rule that any individual speech is original, nor that it is exclusive to this path. However I want to rely on that really rather sparingly. I need to feel that this path is genuinely earned, not just a repetition of existing speeches done at speed as a kind of gimmick. 

In a similar vein, I've given a speech on Henry V before which, while not the same in terms of its other content, used the same three extracts from the play as I am this time. Not only am I doing it because I'm especially passionate about it, but also because it gives a context to my very different take on the subject matter in the new speech called Harfleur.

Next, some of the challenges I face in life, or specific ones that I face in this project, will provide material for some of the talks. Indeed the opening and closing speeches - Icebreaker and Reflect on Your Path - I can reasonably hope will effectively "write themselves" just through the process of doing this exercise.

Two Spreadsheets

So far I've been working with two spreadsheets: one for my schedule and one for the pathway.

I'm going to continue to use the two, but, as of this evening, they now correlate with one another.

Here are the relevant extracts from both:

I expect some further clubs will be added, but I do have enough meetings scheduled to complete the run, if nothing goes wrong. I've also built-in a few alternatives to cover for contingencies.

It's all looking possible from where I'm sitting!

Schedule as at 26 July 2022

Here is a screenshot from my spreadsheet as it currently stands.

I'm still expecting a few more dates to be confirmed, but I've now got enough dates to cover the whole path, so I've stopped asking anyone new.

My intention is the put speeches into all the meetings I'm offered during the run. I'm fearful I'd be on a bit of a knife-edge if I only had the same number of spaces as I need to give speeches. If that happened my plans could be thwarted if I lost my zoom connection, or miscalculated a timezone, or if my car broke down on the way to a live meeting. This way there's a contingency.

Don't worry, by the way, I'm committed to attending every meeting on my schedule and giving a speech, whether I need it for the path, or not.

Schedule as at 22 July

 I thought you might all like to see how this is shaping up:

It's brilliant to have so many invitations to speak, from so many corners of the world.

However I do still need more invitations in order to complete an entire pathway. So if you are - or know of - a Toastmasters club with an online or hybrid meeting at any time, day or night, during the period of my speedrun - 21st September 2022 to 5th October 2022 - or a live meeting within reasonable driving distance from Cardiff UK, then please get in touch!

What I Need

At this early stage in the planning (I'm posting this July 15th 2022) what I'm most in need of are speaking slots at Toastmasters clubs.

So if you are a member of, or know of, a Toastmasters club meeting online or hybrid at any time during the period of my Speedrun (7pm British time on Wednesday 21st September 2022* to 7pm British time on Wednesday 5th October 2022) in the English language, anywhere in the world - or a live meeting within reasonable driving distance of Cardiff UK - then please put me in touch with your VPE.

And if you are that VPE, can I have a guest speaking slot, please?

Pleeeeeeeease?

Kind regards

Andrew Jones

* ...although thinking about it, that slot's already filled.

Explanation

For the benefit of those who aren't Toastmasters, or who don't understand what I'm planning, here's some background.

Firstly, a "Speedrun" is a term from gaming. A player who gets very experienced at a game will challenge themselves to play the entire game as fast as they possibly can.

Here are about a squillion examples:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Speedrun

Here is a guy explaining what speedruns are and "why they are awesome":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5auJOBC828

And here (for the moment anyway!) is the current top Google hit for the name of this blog, "Pathway Speedrun":

But I'm not speedrunning a computer game.

I am a Toastmaster, that is to say, a member of Toastmasters International:

https://www.toastmasters.org/

Toastmasters is a club for people who want to learn, or to improve at, public speaking. It is organised into over 16,000 clubs all around the world. (That statistic predates the pandemic so it may have changed.) 

I belong to Cardiff Toastmasters, in Cardiff, South Wales, United Kingdom. The flag of Wales looks like this (except I added a black border so you can see it more clearly):

Do not confuse Wales with England. Wales is a small country to the west of England, and is shown bright pink in this image:

.

Wales is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. It is lush and verdant. Mainly because of how much it rains. 

Cardiff is the capital of Wales, and is on the south coast.

Cardiff Toastmasters' page on Facebook is here:

https://www.facebook.com/CardiffToastmasters/

And their page on EasySpeak is here:

https://toastmasterclub.org/portal.php?c=383

I expect we'll be talking about EasySpeak a lot if you stick with this blog. 

[Andrew takes big deep breath.]

Now, the educational program followed by Toastmasters is called "Pathways". More detail can be found here:

https://www.toastmasters.org/pathways-overview

There are currently eleven pathways. Every Toastmaster chooses a pathway and pursues it through their Toastmasters career. It is quite common to start another pathway while still pursuing the first one.

The pathways all consist of five levels. Each level requires the completion of several projects, most, but not all, of which are speeches to be presented at a meeting of a Toastmasters club. Generally the projects become more difficult and time consuming as you work through the pathway.

One of those pathways is called "Dynamic Leadership". There is an overview here:

https://www.toastmasters.org/pathways-overview/pathways-dynamic-leadership-path

It's hard to be precise how many speeches are required to complete the entire Dynamic Leadership pathway (i.e. all five levels) because some of the projects are electives and some of those electives are not speeches. So it depends which electives you choose. 

There's no set amount of time a pathway can take. Here's what you get if you google the question:

Anyway, I'm setting myself the goal of doing it in two weeks. I will be posting much more here about the logistics as the project progresses.

I think it will be fun. Wish me luck!

Introductory Video

 

Thank You

This isn't a solo effort. Nothing at Toastmasters ever is.

Huge thanks are due to the following, for providing practical help or encouragement:

Helyn Ashford

Jean Gamester

Rick Cooper

Alexander Cardoza

CC Oh

Matt Albiges

Liliana Defta

Martina Fisk

Reil

Tom O'Keeffe

Mary Robson

Georgia Panagiotopoulou

Erica MacKay

Jane Jones

Shannon Miller

Julia Goodfellow-Smith

Stephanie Lee

Nuch Aumpradithpun

Steve Miller

Andy R Hessey

Marta

Slava Slavik

Rose Kirland

Veniece

Anne Taylor

Marian Jones

Ken Jones

Nick Jones

Bethan Walsh

Michele Jellings

Alan Idler

Nimesha Wickramage

Sherrie Simmonds

Nishoran

Ariel Elboim

Tsutomu Mano

Ramanand Bhatt

Krishna Subramanian

Carly Gerlach

Rebeca Perea

Sherry Qui

Alex Thomson / Keedwell

Irene Sanchez

Bianca Magbujos

Sylvia Fruichantie

Mayur Shah

Anita Tipton

Alisa

Martha Archibald

Rob Jessett

Prasath

Chee-Hoong Wong

Robin Lonsdale

Heather Perkins

Alistair Driscoll

Matt Dudbridge

Dalong Pang

Aki Yoshida

Alex Kindred

Aggeliki Chrisopoulou

Aisha Jaddoh

Maria Luisa Guerra

Jonathan Bohm

Michael Lawlor

Kohji Uraguchi

Dalong Pang

Kay Barnes

Lucille Smith

Aangeeras

Komal

Mario Rozario

Mackentorch Jean-Baptiste

Nodira Akhmedova

Ken Evans

Jerin Thomas

Geldards (solicitors)

Victoria Park Pub

Once the speedrun started I quickly realised it was going to be impossible to acknowledge, by name, all of those who helped and encouraged me along the way, and probably really unfair to single out any individuals. So I now express my thanks to:

Everyone at Cardiff Toastmasters

Everyone at Voice of Wales

Everyone at In Camera Online

Everyone at Toast of the Coast

Everyone at One Country One World

Everyone at Creatively Speaking

Everyone at SpeakEasy Toastmasters

Everyone at Advancing Alaska

Everyone at Valleys and Vale. Well, almost everyone. Well, some of you, anyway.

Everyone at Sapporo Pioneers

Everyone at Wye Knot Speakers

Everyone at Westlake Toastmasters

Everyone at Mumbai Toastmasters

Everyone in attendance at my Trust Taxation seminar at Geldards

Everyone at Didcot Speakers (with a special shout-out to Gertrude and Polonius)

Everyone at New York Toastmasters

Everyone at Santa Barbara #5

The organisers, and everyone who attended my Tax Benefits of Charitable Giving talk at the All Wales Charity Governance, Law and Finance Conference 2022

And everyone I've forgotten to mention above

Introduction

I'm Andrew Jones of Cardiff Toastmasters Club in the UK.

This blog charts my attempt to achieve a speedrun of a Toastmasters pathway.

My intention is to give an Icebreaker in the Dynamic Leadership pathway at my home club, Cardiff, on 21st September 2022, and to give the Reflect on Your Path talk at Cardiff club's next meeting, on  5th October 2022.

In the intervening two weeks, my plan is to give all the other talks in the path: some of them live by driving to other clubs, some of them overseas through the power of Zoom. 

I'll be vigorously blogging and vlogging the whole story, as I go.  

It'll be a challenge, but I'm looking forward to it!