Use of personal email addresses for club-related 3rd party services is discouraged.
(domain registrars, Zoom, Paypal, find a club, social media, etc)

FreeToastHost cannot provide support with issues related to using 3rd party services. We can only advise best practices for using FreeToastHost.

Using personal email addresses for these things can (and occasionally does) create issues when a former club member is no longer available and the service can no longer be accessed. The only way forward is to create a new account for the external service and utilize the recommendations in this document to avoid similar problems in the future.

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The FTH Archive email

If direct control over a standard email account is preferred for external service subscriptions, you have the option of using your club's archive email address.

This offers several benefits;

• Emails from external websites are captured as club business related emails.
• The archive email account could be set up to forward emails to someone if needed.
• This circumvents occasional issues encountered when using the FTH email forwarding system for external accounts. (domain registrars, Zoom, Paypal, find a club, social media, etc)

It is IMPERATIVE that your admin console contains the login credentials for the archive email account. USE OF A MEMBERS PERSONAL EMAIL FOR THIS IS EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN! 

Your club must always have access to this account. If archive email account access is lost your external accounts may not be recoverable. FreeToastHost cannot help with this.

Reference document:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/email-settings

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If you prefer more flexibility with email access, review the following tips for using FTH email addresses.

FTH email addresses

The FTH forwarding email addresses (often referred to as aliases) offer benefits and limitations that are important to understand with regard to their use outside of FreeToastHost.

A key point to understand is that any email sent to a @toastmastersclubs.org address does not arrive at a server within FTH. It is simply passed on to the personal email(s) related to that particular @toastmastersclubs.org address. The nature of this process is why @toastmastersclubs.org cannot behave as ‘from’ addresses and why these FTH email addresses cannot be configured in an email client (or accessed directly via a web portal). There’s no mail server to access.

Troubleshooting a missing email is usually an issue of ensuring the external service address is whitelisted in your FTH site. Occasionally an address must also be whitelisted in your personal email client.

Remember the FTH server does not receive email, it's an intermediary between the sender and the personal email of the club member.

Reference documents:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/ensuring-that-members-receive-email
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/reducing-spam

Which address format to use?

Each club has a set of email addresses that never change and are always usable.

Your club number addresses always work even if your club uses a website alias or custom domain.

[description]This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. (replace xxxx with your club number)

FreeToastHost recommends these versions of your email be used for external subscriptions and services. (domain registrars, Zoom, Paypal, find a club, social media, etc)

Reason: club numbers do not change, and if you use officer aliases or the admin email address, the email address automatically gets switched to the new person when new officers or a new admin takes over. Website aliases and custom domain names are very convenient for quickly accessing your website and for regular club emails, but for things that you need to have reliable access to well into the future, you need to use email addresses that are less likely to become invalid or unusable; the club number versions.

Reference document:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/email-lists-and-aliases

Which FTH email addresses are best for these things?

Public FTH addresses are officer aliases, contact address, custom one-member groups with public option enabled, and the admin email address.

Be aware that officers have the option to disable their FTH email alias.

The admin email address

Only the admin email address cannot be disabled and is very likely to always work. (assuming the admin's personal email address is still good.)

The club contact address

Use of the contact address is optional. If you believe this address was used for an external account, be aware of it's status (enabled/disabled) if you are trying to retrieve email from an external service.

A benefit of this address is more than one recipient can be assigned. Keep in mind these officers will also receive submissions of the Contact Us form on your website.

Using the club number version of this address is recommended. Especially in your Club Central contact information at Toastmasters International. This will ensure that your club will receive potential new member contact info regardless if there are issues or changes with your website alias or custom domain.

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All clubs have at least one external location that contains an email address for your club; Find-A-Club at Toastmasters.org
FTH recommends using a club number version of an email address to ensure continuity regardless of changes in officers, website alias or custom domain.

Reference document:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/updating-club-contact-on-toastmasters-international-site

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Our admin is gone and their personal email still receives club emails

If you cannot access your site’s admin panel, follow the procedure to change club site administrators;

https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/when-previous-administrator-is-no-longer-available

Once your club has a new site admin, check your site’s admin console for stored login credentials of external sites.

• See the section below ‘Where to record login information”.

If none are found you should be able to run the password recovery procedure on the external site to restore access for your new administrator.

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Where to record login information

Your FTH site contains three areas to store login credentials of external services. Site administrators must ensure these are maintained to help avoid issues with losing access to them.

Website Settings module

1. Basic Settings: Registrar Information (for Custom Website Domains)

2. Social links: Login Details / Notes for the Above Websites

Email & Contact forms module

3. Email settings: Club Archive Email Address & Club Archive Email Login Information/Password

Keep track of external site accounts

A good habit is to include a review of these when preparing for the new Toastmaster year and anytime an officer change-over occurs.

Reference document:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/officer-changeover-checklist

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Short term unavailability of an officer

The following is a trick that can be used by someone comfortable navigating Membership Management.

You need to receive something from (external account; Zoom, Paypal, etc) and the contact info is (for example) This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. but your treasurer is not available.

The first point to remember is that officer email aliases are tied to the role, not the person. You can temporarily change the recipient of email sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;

To accomplish this, temporarily change the Officer Role in Membership Management to someone who can manage the external service. (Treasurer for the purposes of this example)

Ensure everyone involved is notified when doing this so officers do not get anxious if they see a different name for their role in the website.

Reference document:
https://support.toastmastersclubs.org/doc/item/main-membership-panel#officer-roles

 

Occasionally the investigation of a support topic on the FTH forums will require additional technical information from the email in question.

If you are requested to provide the 'email header' this means the FTH support team requires technical information that usually isn't visible in the normal inbox view of the email message.

1. Providing your email header to the FTH support team.

Copy the entirety of your email header to a text file (.txt) and attach it to a message in your forum topic for the issue.

Please continue reading for help understanding the location and purpose of email headers and why they are important for some FTH troubleshooting activities.

2. What is meant by the term "email headers"?

Header is information contained in the email that describes how it moved between the sender and recipient(s).

Additional terms relevant to this topic;

Server is a device designed to move email messages around the internet.

Client is the program or web page where you read and write emails.

Body is the content of the email.

3. What is contained in the email headers?

Typically a portion of the Header is visible in your inbox; From, To, CC, Subject...

The header also contains everything the sending and receiving servers must know in order to properly transfer the email between them. Language and font encoding, security protocol, server addresses, etc. Imagine how all this information multiples with the number of recipients.

4. Why can't you see email headers from your email inbox? 

Headers contain a substantial amount of information that isn't necessary for day-to-day reading and managing your emails.

5. How is what is in the email headers related to what you see in your email inbox? 

Each email message must contain all the information required to move it between sender and recipient email servers & clients. Email clients are designed to conceal all this information that isn't necessary for you to manage your email.

6. Why are email headers even used or needed?

Before an email leaves your outbox the sending and receiving email servers must communicate with each other and agree to transfer the message. The wealth of behind-the-scenes information contained in the header enables to the servers accomplish this.

7. Why do we ask for email headers?  Can't we just go by the information we already have in the email logs?

The formats and methods used by countless email servers and clients is practically unlimited. FTH email logs are limited to basic success/fail delivery information. The substantial amount of information in various formats contained in an email header can not reasonably be collected or retained.

If you are requested to provide the email header the FTH support team needs to study information found only in the header.

8.  How do you get the email headers for different email systems?

The way to find these email headers varies widely by system and email client.

You may see terms such as internet headers, message headers, raw email header, etc. Various similar terms refer to the same thing. Sometimes other terminology is used. For example, in Gmail it's called 'Show Original'.

You can do a web search for 'how to find email header for [the name of your email client]'. 

9. Suggested resources:

https://mxtoolbox.com/Public/Content/EmailHeaders/

https://www.mailjet.com/blog/deliverability/how-to-read-email-headers/

There are two forms for contacting the club directly from the website. The Contact form allows a member of the public to get in touch with the club, while the Mentoring form is for members only.

Contact form

Contact form redirects can be set by officer role OR by member name.

 

Enable/disable This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. email address. This is a publicly accessible email address and sometimes is the target of spam. If you're getting a lot of spam, you might want to turn this address off entirely.

Contact form greeting and closing

This setting allows you to personalise the greeting and closing to suit your club.

 

Saving information entered in the form

If you enable this setting, the system stores the person's details in a group, which saves having to add them manually later on.

If the person leaving the message has not clicked the "opt in" box on the contact form, their details won't be recorded.

 

Creating a link to your form

At the top of the Contact Us Form setup tab, there is a NOTE: that shows you how to link directly to your Contact Us form from any other page.

In the screenshot above, it shows "xxxxx.toastmastersclubs.org". If you go to the same place in your club website, you will see the real link that you should use, with your club alias replacing the xxxxx. Use this text in the URL field when you create the link on your page. 

 

Mentoring form

This setting selects the person to whom the email gets sent. This is usually the VP Ed, but may be another officer or a specific member if necessary.

 

Access to Assign Mentors tools

Click on the box (arrowed) and save if the person who is handling mentor/mentee requests doesn't otherwise have access to Membership Management.

This gives them access to the Assign Mentors tools only, not the whole Membership Management area.

 

Website anti-spam settings

FreeToastHost already has spam protection built in. If you're happy with the way it's currently working, you don't need to do anything.

This tab allows you to fine-tune the settings in case the defaults aren't working for your club.

 

White list

You can enter email addresses here that are allowed to send to groups that ordinary members can send to. You may want to add your club coach or club mentor to this list, for example.

You can also enter email addresses here that are "exceptions" to the Email Black List or the Crowd-Sourced Black List. For example, if you enter "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." in the Email White List, and "@baddomain.com" in the Email Black List, every email received from "baddomain.com" would be blocked, except those from "This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.".

Enter each name or domain, separated by commas, and save.

Black list

If you are getting unwanted emails from just a few places or people, you can put the names in this list.

They can be specific email addresses, or whole domains. Entering a whole domain in a blacklist will stop email from anyone whose email address ends with that domain. For example, it will block This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and everyone else from bannedaddress.com That applies even if one of those addresses is in the white list.

Enter each name or domain, separated by commas, and save.

 

Use "Crowd-sourced" Email Blacklist

Using this option checks your email sender addresses against the blacklists of all other clubs and districts using the system (the "crowd").

It is enabled by default. Uncheck the box if you don't wish to use it.

Two points to note:

• Mail may take slightly longer to be processed
• If you're likely to get legitimate emails from some of the blacklisted sites, you may want to add them to the Email White List (see above). Notifications from social media sites would be an example.

To determine if an email address or domain has been blacklisted via the "Crowd-sourced" blacklist, click on the "Search Crowd-Sourced Black List" button. The screen excerpts below give some examples of how this works. This search can help you to determine which email addresses you wish to receive email from are black listed by some club or district in the "crowd", and may need to be included in your Email White List.

 

Add "Is this SPAM?" links to publicly accessible email addresses

If you check this option, all emails sent to publicly-accessible email aliases will acquire a "Is this SPAM?" link at the bottom.

This makes it a lot easier to add addresses to the club blacklist, as it can sometimes be difficult to decide where a spam email actually originates from.

A notification will be sent to the site admin, who can check that the link hasn't been added by mistake (because of a misdirected click or other reason).

If you choose not to check the link, you will need to use the method below to determine where an email has originated.

How can you tell where a spam email comes from?

Emails may appear to come from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., which of course you can't blacklist. However, they really come from somewhere else, which is the address you want to include in your blacklist.

To determine this address, click on the "reply" button (BUT DO NOT SEND) and the spammer's address will appear in the address bar. Copy this address and add it to your blacklist. Then close the email reply without saving or sending.

 

Add "Not a Member?" links to Emails sent to Members via FreeToastHost

It can be easy to forget to remove members who have left the club or have chosen not to renew. We do recommend to review your Membership Management lists after each dues renewal cycle. However, even if you forget to do this, enabling this feature can help by inserting a link at the bottom of most emails to members to enable them to remove themselves from the member emails if they are no longer members. If they click the inserted link, they are automatically moved to the Former Members list. This is preferable to them sending the emails to their spam filters, which can adversely impact the email reputation of the FreeToastHost server.

WARNING

It appears that some email link-checking systems are clicking on these links, plus the link in the resulting "are you sure" email. This results in removing members from the list without their assent, which isn't the desired behaviour.

If you find that this is happening to your members, disable the setting so that the link isn't added to emails.

Note that this won't affect existing emails. If you need to forward an existing email, edit out the link before you send.

 

Anti-Spoofing phrase

This is a phrase that will be attached to emails that come through your FTH website. That is make it clear that a particular email did come via the club site, and not from some other source. Make sure that your members know what it is and why it's there, or it might even have the opposite effect to what's intended!

However, be aware that it doesn't guarantee that the content of the message is OK. If a member's email is hacked, for instance, it will still show the phrase.

 

The choice of the phrase is yours, up to 250 characters long.

 

SpamAssassin setting

SpamAssassin is a spam filtering service that gives email a spam score depending on certain characteristics. The more items associated with spam that it contains, the higher the score will be. These can include Subject lines, a questionable domain of origin, and phrases that you would expect to see in a scam message.

A setting of 5 is the default for FTH, and is also common on other email systems. A lower setting stops more questionable email; a higher setting lets more of it through.

It's not perfect, though, and sometimes legitimate messages get mistaken for spam.

If you are finding that a lot of legitimate emails are getting blocked, you might want to raise the setting a little.