District Website News
Website visitors
Analysis of the District Website visitors for the year ending 31 December 2007 has revealed the following interesting facts:
There were 217,100 visitors to the Toastmasters New Zealand website.
56% of our visitors come from search engines, 30% directly, and 14% from referring sites (eg club websites).
Visitors came from these countries in this order:
- USA
- New Zealand
- Canada
- Australia
The main operating system for users is Windows XP (80%) with Browsers - Internet Explorer 77% and Firefox 17%.
Top search engine keywords were:
- toastmasters
- wedding speeches
- wedding toasts
- table topics
- introductions
Top search terms within the site were:
- speechcraft
- table topics
- icebreaker
- Toastmaster of the Year
- grammarian
- Spirit of Success
- policies
- convention
- debate
- club coach
Monday to Wednesday are the most popular days, with Saturday and Sunday being the quietest. People spend on average 3.18 minutes on the site.
Death 2 Spam
Say Death2Spam - your email is protected!
All emails sent to an @toastmasters.org.nz address are being filtered through Death2Spam, a spam and virus filtering service. This means all email is automatically checked for spam or viruses and if any is found, they are stopped by the server and eventually deleted, with only clean or good emails being forwarded to Toastmasters. The service is currently stopping over 110,000 spams and 200 viruses a month (1.1million spams and 2000 viruses from 15 September 2006-10 February 2008) for a 99.77% accuracy level.
Clubs are voluntarily contributing $12 per year to help pay for the service. Download and print a Contribution Request letter from the District Executive.
Read this Case Study about the Toastmasters website.
Contact webmaster@toastmasters.org.nz for more information.
See also the Anti-Spam Law information below.
District Directory
The District Directory will not be placed on the website due to the ability of spammers to harvest personal email addresses from this document. Therefore it will be only available by email request in the meantime. While this places an administrative burden on me, it is necessary to protect your email addresses from spam and viruses.
You can obtain most details using the Club Finder on the District website so please use this as your primary source of information. The only extra details in the Directory are the President, VP Education and VP Membership contact details.
Otherwise please email webmaster@toastmasters.org.nz with your request.
Club Finder Details
Please also take a moment to check your club details on the Toastmasters International Club Finder listing. I have noticed many incorrect or out of date email and website addresses, and insufficient contact phone numbers. The club email address should be the generic toastmasters new zealand email address, not a personal address, as this is another way spammers can get your details. You can find this out using the NZ Club Finder.
While most people would probably use the New Zealand Club Finder to locate a club, they may initially go to the WHQ website. Having out of date details there or broken links creates a very bad impression of our organisation.
In order to update these details, a club officer must login to the club business section of the website using a login and password.
Double check your details with the NZ Club Finder to ensure consistency.
Speechcraft Courses
If your club is planning a speechcraft course, please let me know so it can be entered in the Online Calendar and on the Speechcraft page. Speechcraft is the number one enquiry so make sure you publicise your courses early. Many clubs now report that most of their participants come from seeing the course advertised on the website.
Online Photo Gallery
Check out the new online photo gallery for photos of recent Toastmaster events. If you have photos of a club event or activity, please email them to webmaster@toastmasters.org.nz with suitable captions for inclusion in the gallery.
Search Google
If you type "toastmasters" in Google, you will see that Toastmasters New Zealand is Number One!
Search for your club - does it appear at the top of the search results? Your club needs to be listed on page one of the search results to ensure you are found. Email webmaster@toastmasters.org.nz to find out how to improve your search result rankings.
Toastmasters New Zealand - Number One in Google!
New Anti-Spam Law
The Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 aims to prevent New Zealand becoming a haven for spammers by prohibiting unsolicited commercial electronic messages and requiring senders of commercial electronic messages to include accurate sender information and a functional unsubscribe facility. The act prohibits persons from using address-harvesting software or a harvested-address list in connection with the sending of unsolicited commercial electronic messages. It applies to all emails, texts and instant messages that market or promote goods, services, and other schemes of a commercial or dishonest nature.
Around 80 per cent of all email traffic worldwide. Spam clogs networks, reduces productivity and is often used for scams and malicious cyber-attacks
The legislation will have three direct benefits:
1) It will allow those NZers involved in spamming to be prosecuted. Because our ISPs are all intolerant of spammers, little or no spam is directly sent from NZ, but a number of NZers are involved in the spam industry and use overseas parties to do the sending for them.
2) It allows the Govt enforcement agency to monitor where spam is coming from and for domestic sources take direction action, and for overseas sources work with overseas counterparts to target the worst offenders. This international co-operation has led to prosecutions and some of the worst US spammers have gone out of business. And if we don't have a law on the books making spam illegal, we can't have our government working with others to target spammers.
3) It removes the incentives for spammers to move to NZ, as almost the last remaining OECD country to have an anti-spam law.
The law doesn't take effect for until 1 September, and there will be an education campaign for consumers and businesses on how the law will work, and how to make sure what you do isn't spam.
The new law will give the Department of Internal Affairs the ability to go after spammers located in New Zealand and prosecute them. Spammers face a maximum penalty of NZ$500,000 for organisations and $200,000 for individuals.
Webmaster receives Presidential Citation
District Webmaster Dale Hartle received a Presidential Citation for services to Toastmasters, particularly her management of the District 72 Toastmasters New Zealand website.
The award was made at the Toastmasters International Convention in Toronto in August 2005, and presented to Dale at the Division E Conference on 1 October 2005 in Wellington.
This is a very prestigious award for one Toastmaster per district each year.
Netguide Finalist
Fantastic news! The Toastmasters New Zealand website was one of four finalists in the 2004 NetGuide Awards for the Best Lifestyle Site. While we didn't win the grand award, we were stoked that we made the finals, and thank all the Toastmasters, friends and family who voted for our site. We know what to do next time in order to win - GET MORE VOTES!
The awards ceremony in Auckland on 12 November 2004 was attended by the District Webmaster Dale Hartle and Lt Governor Education and Training Kevin Warwood.
The evening kicked off with champagne and nibbles, followed by an explosive start to the awards ceremony itself as you can see from the photos below. After that there was more food and entertainment, and the opportunity to meet others in the internet industry from around New Zealand, to learn some new tricks and trade some secrets.
The annual awards, which acknowledge the best websites produced in New Zealand across 16 categories were hosted by Jaquie Brown from TV channel C4, and featured guest speaker Ralph Norris, managing director and CEO of Air New Zealand.The results are available on the NetGuide website. The whole event was a wonderful publicity occasion for our organisation and we hope we have lots of interest in our site. Our website statistics have already gone up with visitors via the NetGuide website.
Anyway, here's some photos from the explosive opening of the awards ceremony. We were lucky the sprinklers didn't go off!
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Website Survey Results
Results of the Online Website Survey show that the majority of visitors to this site are current New Zealand Toastmasters or first-time visitors. They come to the site regularly (at least weekly) and are looking for information about Toastmasters, current Toastmaster news and event information, and resources and good ideas.
First-time visitors are looking to find a club and for information about the benefits of Toastmasters, how to join Toastmasters, and Toastmaster success stories.
Regular Toastmaster visitors are looking for club administration information and news, and have suggested online credit card payments for District Supplies, and Toastmaster Events such as Conventions, and these options are being considered by the District Executive for the future.
Toastmasters are also seeking contest rules and forms, policies, contents of manuals, booklets and forms, Distinguished Club progress results and other Toastmaster resources. Unfortunately most of this information is copyright to Toastmasters International and cannot be included on this website, so links are provided to relevant pages on their website or other websites where appropriate. Most of this material should also be available from Club or District Officers.
Interest in club and Toastmaster success stories is always high, and articles and photographs on public speaking and leadership are always welcomed from submitters.
Club Webmasters: Update your Club's website links
A reminder to all club webmasters to update your website links and club information. You'll need to check all your links carefully. There's nothing worse on the web than broken or dud links! Refer to Toastmasters International guidelines on club websites.
