In 2008-2009 Toastmasters year, Hobart Richardson was District 16 Governor. His vision included having an active and updated website. He selected Edward Engelke as the District's Public Relations Officer and the task of designing and developing a new district site was assigned to him. The District's site used two domain names oktoastmasters.org and d16toastmasters.org.
When the District moved to the FreeToastHost system, the website created by Edward Engelke was moved to a personal domain d16history.com. The information from May 2007 through June 2014 is accessible as a historical document owned and maintained on the personal website.
The site included news, photos, calendar items, historical information and marketing suggestions. The site had a public and a member's side. Members could (with credentials) submit stories to the Public Relations Officer for use in new releases, in the District's newsletter, and on the site.
The site was active until June 2014 when District Governor Jieliang Pan (2014-2015) moved the District's website to the FreeToastHost system using the name d16.toastmastersdistricts.org.
Other History Notes
The domain names oktoastmasters.org and d16toastmasters.org were not renewed and the district lost ownership during the leadership year of District Director T.A. Jones.
As district leadership changed, the next couple of years resulted in a continued erosion of leadership and the District's social media suffered. (see note below about competing Facebook pages)
Note: When the District's social media suffered so did the membership!
Competing personalities allowed the FreeToastHost site to fail due to mismanagement. Various district leaders attempted to recreate a standalone District website. One site, using oktoastmasters.com, was partially created. It did not remain viable as the webmaster resigned and the site was locked to District leaders. (Details answering "why?" are not available to this author.) That domain name was purchased by another entity and is not available for our organization's use.
In 2021, under the leadership of District Director Louanne Marshall, District Public Relations Manager John Dobberstein, contracted for a new site and that d16toastmasters.org domain site became live in January 2022. When that new site became live, the old (forgotten and mostly useless) FreeToastHost site was turned off January 21, 2021.
District 16 Facebook
This may be the real one. Who knows. Nobody is promoting education of district's social sites. |
There are competing Fecebook pages. |
Facebook District 16
This may be the one that doesn't get updated.
I can suspect mismanagement and love of self causes duplication of social media sites. |
There are competing Facebook pages. |
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