I love the new technology we have to disseminate information. I really hate announcements, making them and listening to them too. However, they are a necessary part of an active congregation. We use an announcement PowerPoint before and after services. That’s great for our folks who actually come into the auditorium and sit down before the service starts.
Recently I discovered that PowerPoint allows you to save your whole slideshow in jpeg format. This will allow you to use the slideshow on an electronic picture frame. These can be purchased for $50 to $150. Put those jpegs on the frame and they will scroll your announcements anywhere you can set the frame. Many of these frames are battery powered so you can even put them in an area with no power outlet.
Put one in the foyer, classrooms, restrooms, anyplace people congregate. Many of the newer frames are wifi. This will allow you to save your slides to a website and assign it an rss feed and voila you never have to sync the frame by hand again.
The frames are usually small. Don’t bother buying one smaller than 8 inches or you will struggle reading text on the slides.
Nice flat-screen monitors are getting less expensive too. You can pick one up for less than $100 at BestBuy or Wal-Mart. Drag that junked out laptop or desktop and hook it to your nice new monitor and use it to scroll announcements in remote locations that allow you to hide the tower.
