TOPIC:

There are a lot of great ways to enhance your club's website with already existing content from the internet...

I thought I would start this thread to encourage folks to share their favorite widgets, flash, external web content (e.g., great pages to link to), iframes, Google Docs, Google features, etc.

For my club, we are incorporating the following great "external content":

1. A Word of the Day Widget
2. A Quote of the Day Widget
3. The Official Welcome to Toastmasters YouTube video via an embedded YouTube player
4. We use a Google Voice phone number as our official club phone number and show this number on our website
5. We link to the webpage for Toastmasters Magazine --it is free to view past issues, a great resource for visitors
6. We have reproduced the Toastmasters progress charts as Google Docs files that we link to in our Members Only Area so that the are readily available for our members

I would like to hear from others what is your favorite "external content" that you are making use of on your club's website... (If I steal your idea for my club's website, it just means I am impressed by your idea. )

Steve,

Thanks for the post. There is a similar thread here: support.toastmastersclubs.org/forum/6-ti...ite-for-your-members

I use many of the the links you are using. I added in the Word of the Day widget to our Role Reminders page for the Grammarian.

Additionally, we use the professionally made Toastmasters International Youtube Videos on our home page to give it a little extra.

We also posted a FAQ for visitors and prospective members. I wish I could find a better way but, for now I just use anchors in the text so that people can skip to the part of the page that they want to read and then skip back.

We also have a Helpful Links page with links to just about every document on Toastmasters.org, like educational achievement applications, certain articles, etc... The only thing that we do not currently link to is the Member Application. We decided that we really wanted people to come and visit at least once before deciding to join.

Similar to the FAQ, we also put up a Roles Reminders page that has customized Role descriptions for our club (because every club is a little different). It also includes link to print reports, and other resources.

We are in the process of putting a New Member Orientation page together. This will have a FAQ, videos, downloads and other information that are helpful for new members to the club.

One feature I would like to add is the Educational Achievements records. But it seems like you have to be logged into Toastmasters.org to get that information...

Hi robtuttle,
I really like the logon video on your Login Help for Members Page. Would you mind if I copied & used your page?

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery" - Charles Caleb Colton

Regards,
Jackie

2346.toastmastersclubs.org/

Pearson,

Thanks for the compliment. You are welcome to use anything you can find. It is on our YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/dunedintoastmasters

Thanks
Rob

Thank you!!! I'll be sure to give you guys credit

You are welcome. I think one of the first statements is "Welcome to this video Tutorial for the Donoghue-Dunedin Toastmasters website."

I made it with a free program called Microsoft Expression.Here is the script

Hi Steve the Techie:
I think you have some neat ideas to update our website. I am having problems adding the Word of the Day widget. Can you tell me how to add that.
I clicked on the link in your article, copied the source, created a new page, and pasted the source into source. But it does not seem to be working. Thanks.

Lori
Club 4310

speakerscornerregina.toastmastersclubs.org (forgot to include that)

I just went to your website, loaded the relevant page, and the widget works fine for me...
Did you forget to refresh your cache to force the change to "take"?

Interesting... by sheer coincidence another person PM'd me about the exact same widget.

BTW, if you don't like the word that the widget proposes for today, you can hit the little red left pointing arrow at the bottom left of the widget to scroll back through prior words of the day. You will notice when you do this that a right pointing arrow shows up that lets to move back and forth through prior proposed words of the day.

Another cool tool... Virtual speech timers that can be linked into your website:

tmd55.org/timer.htm
www.d4tm.org/Speech_Timer/speech_timer_800x600.htm

Something that RogerM made me aware of...

The following shows how to create a link to your club's DCP scoreboard that you can include in your website:
support.toastmastersclubs.org/forum/5-su...p-vs-dashboard#21719

Very nice...

Another way to get the Word of the Day is just to link to the following page:

thesaurus.com/wordoftheday

I would love it if you could direct me in putting the word of the day widget on our site. I am new to being the site admi, and can't quite figure out how to make changes to the site. I did go to the site you gave and copied the link.... now what?

Whoops, am new. I asked about directions on how to add word of the day widget. I am Webmaster for Concord Toastmasters, Club # 6954.

From a recent Private Message to another user on the topic...

I am assuming that you copied the HTML code from a website somewhere...
(I am not going to cover how to get the widget HTML from the web below.)

Any HTML code can only be pasted into a FTH2 page editor box in Source view.

Basically, any of the page editor boxes available in the Admin Console really have two different views of the same page content... a visual view which is what most people work with and a Source view which shows the underlying HTML codes and allows direct HTML code entry/manipulation.

For a beginner, I recommend experimenting with Source view on an empty Custom page that you have created just for getting a feel for it. You can always delete the page later.

So... create a blank Custom page, click on the Source button in the upper left hand side of the editor (left most button of first row of icons) and then you will be switched to Source view. Delete out any codes there that the editor has inserted for you (use Delete key do not cut so you can still later paste). Then paste the word of the day widget HTML code there (do not worry about placement here). Click on the Source button again, and you should notice that you now see a box with the word Flash in the middle of it in red. This box is a visual representation of your widget... size and placement. You can right click on this box in the visual view and select Flash settings to change the size of the box. You can also treat the box like a large text character... you can put text in front of it or behind it and you can center the box as if it is text.

When you have the box sized and placed as you want it, then save the page contents. Exit the admin console, refresh your cache, and when you load the new page you should see the actual widget show up on the new page after a bit of a delay (deleting the cache causes the delay).

Steve

Thanks for your detailed directions. I thought that I successfully put the 'word of the day' widget on our site. It is there, but the word remains the same as it did yesterday. I played around with the settings, but was unsuccessful with getting it to change. Any further words of wisdom for this new, but willing, webmaster? Thank you, Leslie Alcorn, VPE Concord Toastmasters, Club 6954.

It looks fine to me. It is the same word as for my club's website. I know ours works fine.

Be patient... you will notice that it does change.
Also, you can always use the little red arrow at the bottom left to scroll back to prior words of the day.

Ok, again, widget for word of the day. Is this added through Custom Web Page?

never mind

Hello Steve,
I love your Role Reminder page. Two questions (1) May I steal the format of your page. (2) Would you mind giving me directions on how to add the links to the page, the radio buttons, basically the format of the whole page.

Your help would be appreciated.

Shore Speaker 7478
Sovanny W.

shorespeakers wrote:

Hello Steve,
I love your Role Reminder page. Two questions (1) May I steal the format of your page. (2) Would you mind giving me directions on how to add the links to the page, the radio buttons, basically the format of the whole page.

Your help would be appreciated.

Shore Speaker 7478
Sovanny W.

I am a bit confused by what you are referring to: "Role Reminder page"...

Anything I contribute on here has and is for the use of anyone using FTH. steal away.
What links to what page and what radio buttons?

Hi Steve,
Sorry for the confusion. The question was menat Rob Tuttle. I appreciate the reply.

In any event, I've implemented some of your widgets. Thank you.

Sovanny W.
Shore Speakers #7478

Rob,
I love your Role Reminder page. Two questions (1) May I steal the format of your page. (2) Would you mind giving me directions on how to add the links to the page, the radio buttons, basically the format of the whole page.

Your help would be appreciated.

Sovanny W.
Shore Speakers #7478