Book – Under the Southern Cross

Posted by: Go Mission
Church:
Date: December 13th, 2012

This 105-page book shares the memoirs of Jerry and Marjorie Hildebrand and their 15 years as church planters in South Brazil from 1961 to 1976.

Under the Southern Cross-Hildebrand

Posted in: Books/Ideas,

Supportive Care in the Congregation – resource

Posted by: Lil Goertzen
Church:
Date: August 24th, 2011

Supportive Care in the Congregation

New book addresses ways to help persons with significant disabilities.

Posted in: Books/Ideas,

Cheap software & “e” tools.

Posted by: Jacob Friesen
Church: Nassau Street Church Winnipeg
Date: August 8th, 2011

Occasionally we run across a wonderful resource or deal that is so good we must share it.  Below is a wonderful deal for our Canadian churches.  There might be similar opportunities in other countries.

Computers, good software and web pages are becoming important tools in ministry.  Let’s help each other find the right tools for the tasks before us.

What have you found helpful?

Techies – this is your place to shine and offer your insight and service.

A great example of help……

Hi to all fellow EMMC’ers,

Recently we upgraded our computer software here at our church and we were able to get Microsoft Charity Status as a church.  This allowed us to purchase licenses for Windows 7 Professional and Office 2010 Professional Plus (way more features than you will ever need) at greatly reduced prices.  How much you ask?  Well, Windows 7 cost us $17/license and Office 2010 cost us $113/license.  How good a deal is that?  Well, at Future Shop you can get Windows Home premium for $225 or the upgrade for $130.  Windows 7 Professional costs $250 for the upgrade and $330 for the new install.  So in other words you are saving at least $113 and up to $213 per license!  Office 2010 Home and Student Version which has Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote(good for three installs, but technically not for charity of business and it doesn’t include Outlook) is $130.  For Office Professional (not plus) if you buy the product key you pay $470 and if you buy the discs and all you pay $670.  So you save at least $357.  Of course you have to add tax to all of these prices.  How do you go about getting these deals?  Here’s the process.

First try to get registered as an accepted charity under their program.  You have to go through a licensed reseller of Microsofts Products.  In our case we went through Powerland Computers of Winnipeg.  They told us what to submit and a few days later we were approved.  Here is a link to the list of resellers in Canada:  http://www.microsoft.com/canada/licensing/charity.mspx
By the way, it is not automatic that you will get approved.  Powerland’s rep told us that it’s a mystery as to why they approve some churches and not others.  But considering the savings it’s definitely worth trying.

Once you are registered, you place your order with the reseller, and via credit card payment you will get your product keys.  Once that happens you go to the website and download the products you ordered, burn your own DVD’s and install your programs using the product keys provided by Microsoft.  This latter part is often left best to the techno geeks in your congregation.

I can answer questions as to my experience, but you would be far better off asking your questions of the reseller you choose.

All five of our computers are now running on Windows 7 and two have Office 2010 all for only $348.22 including tax.

p.s. you might want to first check which of your computers can handle Windows 7.  On one of our machines we had to add more RAM and put in a new video card for the wider screen that we purchased.

Darrell Dyck,
Pastor at Gospel Fellowship Church,
860 Main Street,
Steinbach, MB  R5G 1H1
(204) 326-3315
[email protected]

Posted in: Books/Ideas,