Ever since the installation of the forum we have been experiencing rather slow performance of the server and despite our repeated complaints with the web-hosting company it has not improved.
So we have finally decided to move the forum (as well as most of our domains) to a different server. Hopefully it will have better performance. The logistics and the formalities of moving the domains will take some time and effort, so please bear with this server for a little longer, hopefully not more than a couple of weeks.