Feature request to allow friends to be added to agenda

Looking at this thread, the suggestions provided to add a dummy member to the members list still requires a valid email address, and then someone must 'opt-in' before that placeholder member can be added to the agenda.

support.toastmastersclubs.org/2011-10-23...-to-the-agenda#77898

I don't understand the no responses to the feature request, because there wasn't any detailed explanation given for the no answers. It seems like it would be much better to allow individuals from the guest or friends lists to be added as speakers so that they are part of a separate email distribution. That way the regular messages to the club members from the agenda management tools won't be spamming these members that aren't really members until they opt back out. Is it a high level of effort to implement that or impossible to implement for some reason, or is there a reason why allowing that wouldn't be desired by the toast host maintainers?

It has very little to do with ease of implementation. It is a conscious, principled decision based on our years of experience as Toastmasters members, District officers, and past experience with clubs' bad behavior with FreeToastHost version 1.0.

While we do not want to be considered the "bad behavior police" to prevent Toastmasters clubs from engaging in bad behavior and abusive practices such as spamming guests with meeting agendas, we also do not feel obligated in any way to implement or enhance features that we are pretty confident would allow for such behavior and/or would adversely impact the email reputation of the FreeToastHost server.

For example, clubs could figure out ways to spam guests with meeting agendas, but we do not have to make it easy or sanction it.

There are just some features and enhancements that we will never implement even if we know we could. There are also some limits and functional guardrails in place in the system that will never be removed. Some limits and functional guardrails are in place to limit bad behavior and some are in place to extend the long-term functional viability of the system, which runs on only one server and is supported by a small team of volunteers.

• We will never implement automated (on a recurring schedule) bulk emailing.
• We will never allow meeting guests to be treated as if they are club members in the system. The two are distinct and will always be treated as such in the system.
• There will always be a limit to how many officers can be assigned certain admin functions.
• You must opt-in to the system to allow your personal information to be used in the system. (data privacy requirement)
• etc., etc.

I understand all of that information related to spam, but I fail to see how allowing guests to be added as speakers has anything remotely to do with spamming anyone or bad behavior. Allowing that would prevent what you might call spam since we wouldn't have to create fake members in the membership list that would then receive all of our agenda announcements. I do appreciate your response, but the logic you've given is counter-intuitive in my opinion.

I also fail to see how allowing more than three officers access to the tools has anything remotely to do with spam or bad behavior. That is a different topic, but something our club was dealing with recently. Occasionally if one officer becomes busy, we often have to change the role assignments around due to that limitation. In my experience clubs that use toast host find that to be more of annoyance then a protection against anything. The role based authorization does support the principle of least privilege, which is a good thing. The limitation of 3 officers per tool relates to the cyber security topic of psychological acceptability. When you make things two difficult or irritating to use, then people will work around it in a way that might be worse. The reality is that many clubs have officers that cross train and support one another when one person is unavailable. The results is either swapping the roles periodically or just using the tools as an admin.

Guest, Friends, Prospects cannot be added to the agenda because of privacy laws. Only club members can see who actual club members are.

Thank you, but I find that to be highly dubious. A guest simply needs to attend a few meetings to see who the members are, and simply having your name on the agenda certainly does not grant you any admin privileges to logon to the website tools to manage membership and access personal information. Club members who aren't officers can't even access that information on their own. If a "guest" were added to the members distribution list as has been suggested in the other thread as a work around then they would have access to more information then they would as a guest. The idea of allowing a guest to be selected as a speaker by another member would actually prevent guests from having access to more than what they need. Moreover every guest that attends a meeting sees member names on the agenda. The fact that one is a member of a club is not private information, nor could it ever be since the vast majority of clubs are open to the public to visit and join. If anything needs to be protected, it is the underlying data about members that only admins and officers can access. I would argue that if clubs were to follow previously recommended work arounds then there are probably clubs out there creating vulnerabilities by adding fake members just to get their name on the agenda. It would be more secure to allow members to type in a guest name as an alternative to the drop down list, or select a name from a friends/affiliates list. It would be an existing member that puts a guest speaker name onto the agenda, on their behalf. Clubs that don't use toast host do this because they probably just use a spreadsheet or some type of document to build an agenda.

You do not have to use FTH, you can move your club website to another platform and deal directly with the laws of your country and the rules and policies of Toastmasters International.

This is not open for discussion.