Nearly 3 months ago I made mention of a fallout between myself and the theatre group with which I’ve been associated with for about 9 years. Part of this was my decision to no longer look after their website – something I’d put a lot of work into but had very little feedback or general help with.

I gave the committee a list of the skills required to run the site and, to my surprise, it was handed over to a new committee member within days. I don’t know her background but events have now unfolded which has possibly damaged the site forever.

Last week it was reported to the sites host, Memset, that a phishing site was present on the BMTG site. It was residing in one of the sub-directories of a third-party application. I believe this application must have had a security flaw which allowed someone to deposit a fake banking site in place. Memset immediately disabled the hosting account and the website went down. The new website manager was informed and, unfortunately, responded by suggesting that it was maybe something I did.

I took a sharp intake of breath, I have to admit, when I read this. This site is also hosted by Memset and so the suggestion (probably not intended) that I created a phishing site could have had a serious repercussion on me. Thankfully it hasn’t. But I don’t think she understood what the problem was.

The upside of all of this is that Memset have now informed them that they will NOT re-enable the account unless they move to an expensive server host account (at the moment it’s on a shared server, and they’re concerned that future issues could impact other users). Bear in mind that the society is a non-profit making charity and their current hosting is provided for free – basically, they wouldn’t be able to afford such a move.

I’m guessing that the current website manager not understanding the issue is why Memset are rightly worried about future occurrences. Oh dear. If asked, I could do what I can to resolve the issue, but I suspect I won’t be.

Long-standing members appear to be leaving the Society in their droves and one such ex-member (who’s been involved far longer than myself) believes that this may be the death-knell. No website, performing on a stage in a school-hall, no publicity, poorly produced and expensive show programmes… it’s not looking good. The ex-Chairman has recently been caught wondering aloud why so many people are leaving. Maybe they should ask?