The old FreeToastHost website platform, which is now being called FTH 1.0, is being phased out. The FTH staff have stopped supporting it, and the host servers where the current sites are located will be shut down in February. If your club currently uses FTH, you must do something by then, or you won’t have a website at all.

The new, rebranded, FreeToastHost look!

To continue using FTH, you must sign up for a new FTH 2.0 site. Because the two are so different internally, it is not possible to simply upgrade your current site. You must start over. It is not possible to automatically transfer data, files, pictures — whatever you now have on your old site, to the new site. You must start over. So anything on that old site that you want to keep, save it to your computer or copy and paste it to the new site.

Do that first thing. Here’s why. When you sign up for that new site, you are given a new website address. Once your new site is ready to go live, you should go back to the old site, log into the admin console, and have traffic redirected from your old site to the new one. So if someone uses a bookmark or link to the old freetoasthost address, they will be automatically be sent to the new site. This is good; but you won’t be able to access that old site now, either! So be sure you’ve gotten everything off it that you need.

Click on picture to enlarge.

This automatic redirect will only work until February 17, 2012. So it’s important to quit using the old address on printed material, on other web pages like Facebook, and to notify D25 so we can update the Find a Club page. Very important: change it on the TI Club Information page by logging into Club Central and clicking on “Update my club meeting information.” While you’re there, check the rest of the information for accuracy.

You can get more help with FTH questions on their support site. This website platform has been designed specifically for Toastmasters clubs so it has many useful features and it’s free.

The interface may seem a little daunting at first; just remember you don’t have to do it all at once. Special computer or programming knowledge is not necessary; just someone with the patience to sit down and learn how it works.

Jodie Sanders

District News Editor