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The WordPress for Toastmasters Project is derived from the WordPress customizations I originally created for Club Awesome Toastmasters in Coral Springs, FL. It combines the flexibility of WordPress (intro for the uninitiated here) with Toastmasters-specific functionality and branding.

When I was Club Awesome’s VP of Education and also its webmaster, I was frustrated by the limitations of the FreeToastHost web hosting platform that most Toastmasters clubs use. That semi-official default option has the undeniable advantage of being free. Still, as a WordPress aficionado, I felt like I had my left hand cut off because customization of my club’s website on FreeToastHost was difficult, and I missed all the blogging and social media integration features available on WordPress.

Some Toastmasters clubs use free accounts on WordPress.com (probably the 2nd most popular option after FreeToastHost). This is the site hosted by Automattic, the company responsible for WordPress. WordPress.com has many advantages except that it can only be customized using plugins and themes approved for use by all its customers. Hosting there also means giving up some useful functionality available on FreeToastHost, such as the ability for members to sign up for specific meeting roles.
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Update: I currently recommend downloading the Lectern theme as the best option for Toastmasters branding on WordPress. You can get it from the wordpress.org repository.

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As part of the WordPress for Toastmasters Project, I am creating a series of Toastmasters-branded Themes for WordPress, based on some of the most popular free themes in the WordPress.org repository. These are available through the service I offer here, as well as on independently hosted WordPress websites (not on the more generic WordPress.com service).

In WordPress terminology, a “theme” is a set of web templates that control the appearance and public user interface of your website — for example, templates for welcome pages, blog posts, and image galleries. As “child themes,” the themes I created inherit all the features of the original tested-and-debugged themes but add Toastmasters branding to the site header, as well as the required disclaimer in the footer.

The themes are freely downloadable for use on your own website, and you can modify them as you see fit (this does not include the event scheduling and role signup functions I’ve created, which at least for now are only available here).
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