Deletion

I was the admin of a forum, it was a relatively new appointment, but I thought it was going well. I did everything our founder wanted of me.

This afternoon something fishy has been going on. First my account was demoted back to member, then deleted altogether. Then everyone else's accounts were deleted, then finally the forum seems to have been deleted.

One of the items on my "job description" was to get us some more members, so I emailed various sites that might be interested in us asking for a "link exchange". Now I'm going to have to email them back and look like a total wally.

I suppose my question is, can the founder just do that? And why would they?

Its the founder's forum, he has rights to open or close the forum at his own discretion in my opinion.
Why he closed the forum, thats a question you should ask the founder himself.

I would but as the forum doesn't exist I can't PM her or look up her email address and I stupidly deleted the last email I got from her, so I don't have her address.

Just and pain and I'm annoyed I've been made to look like a fool.

Even if you deleted her mail, it must have gone into the trash folder. Check into that.

Auto empties after 7 days

Oh okay, so its been 7 days since you deleted.
So i don't think there is any other way, until she contacts you herself for some reason. Sorry.