WordPress for Toastmasters*
WordPress for Toastmasters is the creation of David F. Carr, DTM, a writer, editor, and web consultant. While serving as VP Education and then President of Club Awesome Toastmasters, he created what was originally a custom solution just for that club. In 2017, he leveraged the software when leading Online Presenters Toastmasters to charter.
This WordPress for Toastmasters website went live in late summer 2014, and an open source version of the RSVPMaker for Toastmasters WordPress plugin was released in November. It builds on David’s RSVPMaker events scheduling plugin, which is used by website operators all over the world schedule events, record RSVP signups, and accept PayPal payments. The Lectern theme adds a website design that meets Toastmasters International branding requirements.
Anyone with the skills and confidence to set up a WordPress website can install the software for free. As a simpler option, club leaders can create a site on toastmost.org, a service managed by David’s company Carr Communications Inc.
Much of the strength of this website solution comes from WordPress, a blogging and web content management system used by everyone from small time bloggers to major online publications such as websites of The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. You can take advantage of this standard platform, with Toastmasters-specific features layered on top.
About David F. Carr
David F. Carr is a writer, editor, and web consultant. As an Editor at Large at InformationWeek, he has covered social media and collaboration, as well as IT leadership strategies for higher education, healthcare, and government agencies. He is the author of Social Collaboration for Dummies, a primer on using social networking withing organizations for project management and team collaboration. At InformationWeek, he also stood out by driving more traffic to the publication website from social posts than any other editor and coached other staff members on social media tactics. He has put his Toastmasters skill to work as a conference speaker and panel moderator, serving as social business track chair for the Enterprise 2.0 / E2 conference series. The book tour for his For Dummies book included travel to a conferences in Lisbon, Portugal, and Stockholm, Sweden, as well as many more local events.
David has covered business uses of the Internet since the mid-1990s, when he served as Technology Editor at WebWeek (later Internet World). He was part of the founding team of editors at Baseline Magazine, producing in-depth case studies on the effective use of Information technology.
During periods of self-employment — and on a moonlighting basis at other times — he has consulted as an digital strategist, web developer, writer, and editor through Carr Communications Inc., which he runs with his wife, Beth Anne Carr. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to CIO Magazine, CIO Insight, Defense Systems, and Forbes.com.
Follow David on Twitter @davidfcarr, connect on LinkedIn and like the Carr Communications Facebook page.