Are you on the road to achieving your Distinguished Toastmaster award? At times, it can feel like a long and winding trail. However, it’s fairly straight forward when it’s broken down into milestones.
Currently, there are two ways to achieve your DTM – either through the Pathways Learning Experience or through the Toastmasters traditional education program. Please note that if you are working on the traditional program, you must file your award by June 30, 2020.
Below we break down each of the two roads to the Distinguished Toastmaster award and provide downloadable PDFs.
DTM via Pathways
The DTM through Pathways involves three categories of projects: Education, Leadership, and Club Extension & Support.
For your education, you must complete two full paths and a Distinguished Toastmaster project. You can work on projects in more than one path at a time if you choose. Some of the projects in levels 4 and 5 can take weeks or months to complete. Since you may have speaking opportunities at your club before you can complete these longer projects, it’s convenient to have another path ready to go. The DTM Project should appear in your Pathways transcript after you complete level 3 of your second path. If it doesn’t, just contact Toastmasters International (link to Toastmasters’ website) and ask that it be added.
You fulfill your leadership service by serving your club as a club officer for either one 12-month term or two 6-month terms. If your club elects officers annually, you must fulfill a full 12-month term in any one office. If your club elects officers for 6-month terms, you must fulfill the two 6-month terms. This service does not have to be in the same office.
Club extension and support is made up of two roles. The first is to extend the reach of Toastmasters by successfully sponsoring a new club, serving as a Speechcraft coordinator, or serving as a Youth Leadership coordinator. The second is to support a new club by serving as a Club Mentor or aid a struggling club by successfully serving as a Club Coach. Of course, you can perform these two roles in any order.
DTM via the Traditional Program
Please note that the last day to file a Distinguished Toastmaster award under the traditional program is June 30, 2020. As of this writing, there are only 4.5 months remaining to complete all of the projects.
The traditional program’s DTM requires the completion of four communication and three leadership awards before a Toastmaster can file the paperwork necessary to achieve their Distinguished Toastmaster award.
Communication Awards
The communication awards are:
The Competent Communicator (CC) – Earning this award requires a Toastmaster to complete all ten speech projects in the Competent Communication manual. The club’s VP Education can then file the awards.
The Advanced Communicator Bronze (ACB) – To earn this award, a Toastmaster must complete a CC and any two advanced communication manuals. Each advanced manual includes five projects, so, this award requires another ten projects.
The Advanced Communicator Silver (ACS) – A Toastmaster must earn an ACB, complete two additional advanced communication manuals, and complete two educational presentations selected from the Better Speaker Series and/or Successful Club Series. These educational modules are available for download as PDFs from the links provided.
The Advanced Communicator Gold (ACG) – For the final communication award, a Toastmaster must earn an ACS, complete another two advanced communication modules, and complete one of the extended modules from the Success Communication, Success Leadership, or Youth Leadership programs. These programs run from 2 to 8 hours in length and can be purchased from Toastmasters though the links provided.
Leadership
The Competent Leader (CL) – This award requires a member to complete the Competent Leadership manual. The manual includes a variety of projects, most of which can be completed by simply participating in club meetings.
The Advanced Leader Bronze (ALB) – To earn this award, a Toastmaster must complete a CL and a CC, serve a full term (either a 6-month term if the club elects officers every six months or a 12-month term if the club elects annually) as a club officer, attend at least one club officer training, participate in preparing a Club Success Plan, and conduct two education presentations selected from the Successful Club Series and/or the Leadership Excellence Series. These are available to download as PDFs from the links provided.
The Advanced Leader Silver (ALS) – Along with earning an ALB, a Toastmaster must complete a full 12-month term as a district officer, complete a High Performance Leadership project, and serve as either a successful Club Sponsor, Club Mentor, or Club Coach.
Once the ACG and ALS have been completed, a member must simply file the paperwork necessary to receive their Distinguished Toastmaster award.
The featured image is of Jeff Miller receiving his Distinguished Toastmaster plaque at Taylor Ranch Toastmasters.
