Guides

FreeToastHost 4 Migration Checklist for VPEs

Toastmanagers Team Updated November 8, 2026 9 min read

FreeToastHost 4 is rolling out in phases, and you don't get to choose when your club moves. Migration is one-way, and old admin passwords stop working. This checklist keeps your meetings running through the cutover by moving roles, reminders, and agendas to Toastmanagers first.

What you should assume about FTH4

Migration is phased. Clubs are notified when their turn comes; you usually do not pick the date.
Your public URL is intended to stay the same after migration.
Content, members, meeting history, and settings are meant to carry over, but admin workflows can feel new.
FTH4 brings new officer tools, including Pathways report cards, automatic evaluator pairing, and an Agenda Forecaster.
Migration is one-way. There is no switching back to FTH3 once your club moves.
FTH3 admin passwords do not work in FTH4, so make sure every officer can sign in after the move.
FreeToastHost describes FTH4 as still being built out, so some screens may change during the rollout.

The FTH4 timeline so far

December 2025: The FreeToastHost team said its review of club suggestions laid the groundwork for FTH4.
August 2026: A beta with 108 clubs; FreeToastHost said other clubs would follow over the next one to six months.
Late October 2026: FreeToastHost ran FTH4 training sessions for officers.
November 2026: The FreeToastHost directory listed 8,752 club sites on FTH4, with more added as clubs migrate.

The recommended ops path during migration

Keep the public club website on FreeToastHost if that is working for guests. Run scheduling, role reminders, and printable agendas somewhere that is not mid-migration. Toastmanagers is built for that second job and is free for core club ops.

For the product split (website vs meeting ops), see Toastmanagers vs FreeToastHost.

Checklist: two weeks before your cutover (or as soon as you are notified)

Export a current roster. Pull names and emails from FreeToastHost, Club Central, or your existing schedule sheet. Save a local CSV you control.
Write down your meeting pattern. Day, time, timezone, cadence (weekly / biweekly), and the role set you actually use (not the ideal template nobody follows).
List the next four locked meetings. Speakers, evaluators, Toastmaster, and any committed speech titles. These are the meetings you cannot afford to lose in a tooling shuffle.
Decide the source of truth for roles. Pick one place officers will edit during migration week. Dual-editing FTH and a spreadsheet at the same time creates missed reminders.
Tell the officer team the plan in one paragraph. Example: public site stays on FreeToastHost; role schedule and reminders move to Toastmanagers for the next cycle.

Checklist: set up Toastmanagers beside FreeToastHost

Create the club at toastmanagers.com/signup. Set timezone and meeting cadence first.
Import members. Use CSV import from the members tools (roster-style export with name and email columns). Prefer silent import if you want to announce later in one email.
Generate upcoming meetings and manually fill the next one or two with known assignments from your pre-cutover list.
Turn on the opt-in public page if guests need a simple next-meeting link that is not your FreeToastHost homepage. Path shape: /c/your-club-slug. Keep FreeToastHost as the SEO homepage if you already rank there.
Copy the tokenized iCal feed from Settings, under Sharing, into Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, or Outlook for officers who live in calendars.
Confirm export works. Download the club data ZIP from Settings (members, schedule/assignments, attendance CSVs) once so you know you can leave anytime.

Checklist: migration week

Do not rebuild next week's agenda from memory. Copy the current Toastmanagers (or Sheet) assignments into whatever public agenda view you still show guests, if you show one.
Send one member email with: public website URL (FreeToastHost), schedule URL (Toastmanagers), and who to contact if a role is wrong.
Confirm roles early for the next meeting so people are not relying on a website feature that may look different after the cutover.
Spot-check Pathways speech details for speakers on the next two meetings. Titles and projects are easy to drop when tools change.
Keep a paper or PDF agenda backup for the meeting immediately after migration. Generate it from Toastmanagers once roles are stable.

Checklist: two weeks after

Retire duplicate schedule tabs or old FTH agenda habits that officers still edit by mistake.
Add a "Members: view schedule" link on the FreeToastHost site pointing to Toastmanagers.
Regenerate the calendar link if it was pasted into a public channel by accident.
Export club data again and store it with officer transition files.
Ask members one question: "Did you get the right reminder for your role?" Fix the workflow, not the blame.

Why run scheduling outside the cutover

A website migration is the wrong moment to depend on that same system for next week's roles. FreeToastHost describes FTH4 as still being built out and migration as a one-way trip. Toastmanagers keeps your roles, reminders, and agendas steady whatever happens to the website, and it is free for core club ops.

Quick link map

Run the next schedule outside the website cutover

Import a roster, fill two meetings, and keep FreeToastHost as the public site if you want.

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No credit card. Export and iCal included.