I have made a few changes to the forum again and it is back online.
I know from the number of emails I have been receiving that people really like having the forum. I have worked hard to delete all the spam posts and update the phpBB security settings.
From now on, all users will have to manually verify their email addresses and their first three posts will have to be manually authorised by an administrator.
I hope that will be enough to stop the spam bots, but we will see.
We are having yet more trouble with our forums. They are getting spammed like crazy and the posts keep coming faster than I can delete them. The spammers seem to be able to bypass the Captcha and the email verification too.
I will look into a more robust forum solution that will stop spammers, but if anybody has any ideas let me know.
You can email me chris.charlton[at]gmail.com if you need any support.