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30 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | FEBRUARY 2023 Did you know you can do a whole PowerPoint presentation from your phone? Neither did I until I was presented with a problem. I've been active in my temple (Congregation Shalom Bayit in Banning and Beaumont) since we moved here in 2006. I've been treasurer for over 10 years as well as editor of our newsletter. As is so often the case, many volunteer organizations rely on a few to do the work for the many. Actually, not that many considering we usually have about 30 members these days. Sometimes the "burden" of leading a group can be light. For example, I started the Four Seasons Classical Music Club in June of 2013. The only thing I've done to promote it is to write a short, descriptive paragraph for the Breeze which remains unchanged to this day. Our email distribution list has never exceeded 30; it doesn't take much to keep the group going. My biggest responsibility besides showing up each month (the second Thursday of the month at 7 pm in The Lodge Theater, by the way) is to choose a featured composer and write two emails a month. My temple responsibilities are much greater, self-imposed as they may be. Basically, the president and I do almost all the work. So, in an effort to make life a little easier for the both of us, I've changed the way we celebrate havdalah. No need to look up havdalah, I'll explain it. Most well-supported temples have a service at the beginning of the sabbath on Friday night and a Saturday morning service where the weekly portion of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament) is read. And some recognize the end of the sabbath on Saturday evening with a havdalah service. At our temple, we have one Friday night service and one Saturday night havdalah service a month. While having a dinner (in not a havdalah tradition), we have in the past had either a catered or potluck dinner just before our havdalah service. Organizing, setting up, running, and cleaning up that evening is a lot of work. So, I've changed things around by having every havdalah in the private dining room of the Bistro in The Lodge. No more having to find a caterer or organize a potluck each month. OK, enough background already. Here comes the app; well, almost. As opposed to our Friday evening service where we use prayer books and songbooks, the prayers of havdalah are projected on a screen as part of a PowerPoint presentation. In the past, that required having our rabbi bring his computer to havdalah. I wondered if we could simplify things even more by using my iPhone instead of a computer. So, I asked our rabbi to email me the service. Sure enough, I could see the service right on my phone. Using an adapter cable connected to a projector, whatever was on the screen of my phone could be seen on the projector screen. The only trouble was that it wasn't in the one-slide-at-a-time format we're all used to. (I'm sure there must be a more up-to-date word than slide, I just don't know what it is.) The solution turned out to be as easy as going to the App Store and searching for "powerpoint." Sure enough, there is a PowerPoint app for smartphones which I downloaded. Once installed, I open the app, select the presentation stored on my phone or even offline, press the Play icon, and there I go. Each slide is shown one by one with arrows going either way. In my case, I bought a cheap remote that can control my phone over Bluetooth so once it's connected, I can be away from my phone and still control the show. Among my temple responsibilities has been moving through this slide show so that won't change. But this isn't all sunshine and roses. I have to pay a monthly charge for this app. In my case, I'm happy to do it. But back to sunshine and roses, a Skype subscription comes with the monthly fee. So, next time I have to call someone in Europe (hasn't come yet in 80 years, but you never know), I'll be able to call for free. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. ~ Steve Benoff THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Powerpoint at your fingertips - L'Chayim!

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