halsteadscouts.org.uk

3rd September 2010

We're very sorry but the Halstead Scouts website is still unavailable. We've just received details that Escouts, the company hosting the site, are no longer going to continue offering free hosting for Scout Groups. For the reasons behind this please see the press release posted at the end of this article. It is perfectly understandable why they take the position they now do and I'd like to thank them for the service they provided and money they saved for large numbers of Scout Groups throughout the UK.

Fortunately for Halstead Scouts, we have good backups of the site data, so we are now actively looking for free / sensibly priced Joomla-based hosting for our site and I hope to be able to restore it's operation in the not too distant future. This is obviously a source of great frustration and inconvenience given the significant amounts of work both I, as Webmaster and Incy have put into the site and has been a blow to the vision we had for the site being a central contact point for data about the group.

Your patience is greatly appreciated and it will take some time, given the voluntary nature of scouting, for me to locate a hosting company and get the site data restored.

On behalf of the group please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Boris (Webmaster)

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Escouts Announcement: -

Closure of Free Web Hosting

During its existence, Escouts has provided free hosting to UK Scouts for around 8 years, (we've been in existence over 9 years). During that time we've saved UK Scouting somewhere in the region of £100,000 - £150,000 and thats a conservative estimate.

Over this significant period (measured in internet years) the importance of an online presence has increased, and website availability has become more important. The Escouts Management recognise the inconvenience caused with the recent down time, but have consistently pointed out the limitations on time we have. Whilst we can point out that was the deal, its free, we do not like disappointing people.

Reviewing what has happened and the major technical issues we had, and the fact that it could happen again, we have decided to end the free hosting on Escouts.

We want Escouts to be a force for good, not bad and that is why we have decided to close free hosting

Richard Fairbairn 
Escouts Management