Issue #6 of friday miscellany, links that are helpful, useful, fun & inspiring for church communicators
The newsletters sent out during the week link you to sources on the Effective Church Communications site that are primarily "how-tos" in church communications. However, there are many more resources, sites, tips, and ideas that I come across that may be useful for church communicators. Here are the ones for this Friday.
Please pass this on to your friends and other church communications groups.
Video: How I create training videos--software, process, tips
Over the last few years I've created over 100 videos on a variety of topics to help church communicators. I get great feedback from many of you on how much they help and in addition to that I've had a number of requests for questions on how I do them. Several church communicators have suggested that this type of video would be great to do to help church volunteers learn various tasks and I agree.
CLICK HERE to go to a video that is an overview of the software I use, my process and some tips.
Mobile Check-in–a new way to accommodate the needs of young families
The church management software company, By the Book. has stepped into the digital age in a big way with their new way of checking in children at church with any mobile device. Here is how they describe it:
Imagine deploying your volunteers throughout your church building, armed with iPads or smartphones ready to check folks in. Then by the time those same folks walk over to the printing station, their name tags and security tags are already printed and waiting for them. Do you have a bus ministry? Now you can check those kids in as soon as they hop on the bus. When they get to the church, their name tags are there waiting for them. Well, this is now available. . . .
CLICK HERE to read more.
Linotype, the Film…..or how typesetting was done before computers
Typography is a topic of almost endless fascination to many of us who love words and work hard to craft our messages. Though our message is unchanging, during my lifetime the methods for communicating this message have changed dramatically. One part of the history of type has recently been made into a movie and one of the ECC readers sent me this fantastic movie trailer about Linotype machines, which were extraordinary for their time in how they were able to cast an entire line of type rather than a typesetter having to assemble them letter by letter.
CLICK HERE to see the movie trailer and find out more.
Fun Illustration creation software
This is a situation where I had so much fun playing around with this, I couldn't wait to share it--even though I don't know very much about it. This software, POWTOONS is still in beta, but it is very easy to play around with and allows you to create some sketch-like presentations without actually having to draw anything. It would be great for church announcements.
CLICK HERE for more information on the program.
FREE, legal music tracks for your videos and podcasts
It isn't easy finding truly FREE music that is legal for your videos and podcasts. Though this site does not have a lot of specifically Christian music it does have many instrumentals that can be used in videos and podcasts. In addition, it is one of the most honest, easy-to-use, free music sites I've looked at.
This is the site I used for the music for the POWTOONS video I created in the article above. I simply downloaded the music from ccmixter and imported it into the POWTOONS file. I copied the attribution and put it in the YouTube video file and on my website. Super easy--I may try putting music on some more of my videos in the future.
CLICK HERE for more.
