An Inclusive Bytes project
The noticeboard that keeps itself up to date.
ScreenPool puts a community noticeboard on the screens in libraries, village halls and surgery waiting rooms. Notices come off on their own, neighbouring venues fill the quiet weeks, and it reaches the people your newsletter and your Facebook page never do.
The information is all there. Nobody goes looking for it.
Councils, the NHS and housing providers all have things that everyone needs to know. Mostly, they put it on a website, or post a leaflet and hope.
Nobody checks a council website unprompted, and the newsletter goes to whoever signed up years ago. The people who most need that information are, however, very likely to be standing in a library, a surgery waiting room, a housing office or a community centre — often because something could not be sorted out on the internet.
Those buildings have walls, and more and more of them have a screen showing not very much.
One screen, four kinds of notice
A ScreenPool screen shows one notice at a time. Each notice is one of four kinds, and the mix is what makes it work.
Your own notices
What is on in your building. At least half of the screen is always yours, whatever else happens.
Shared with nearby venues
Show a notice for the hall down the road, and one of yours appears on their screen. No money changes hands.
Public information
Messages from councils, the NHS and emergency services, clearly labelled as theirs. This is what pays for ScreenPool.
Your local supporters
Thank the businesses that back you, all on one card. You arrange it, and you keep every penny.
Paid messages can never take up more than a quarter of the screen. That limit is built into how ScreenPool works — not written into a contract that someone can quietly change later.
A noticeboard that fills itself — and can pay for its own screen
- Free to usePublic information on part of the screen covers the cost. There is no bill.
- Nothing complicated to installIt should work on any reasonably modern smart TV, or on a small, low-cost Raspberry Pi that we can set up for you.
- Keeps going when the wifi does notOnce it has loaded, a screen carries on showing your notices through a dropped connection, and catches up when it is back.
- You stay in controlTurn down anything you do not want, block organisations outright, and keep private notices inside your building.
- Easy to keep up to dateAdd notices from any phone or computer. Sign in with your email or a Google account — no passwords to remember.
Reach residents where they already are
If your message has to reach people your own channels miss, ScreenPool puts it in front of them at the moment they are dealing with it — in the waiting room, at the counter, in the hall.
- Choose areas, not individual screensReach every venue in a district without arranging each one.
- No app, no account, nothing to scanEverything a card says is readable from across the room. The code is there for booking or applying, never for the information itself.
- Clearly labelled as yoursYour organisation’s name is on the card, so people know it is genuine.
- In good companyNo gambling, payday lending or anything similar is ever shown, anywhere on the network.
We are building the network now. If you would like to be involved early, we would like to hear from you.
Run for the community, and required to stay that way
ScreenPool is a project of Inclusive Bytes, a community interest company with an asset lock.
That means any money left over has to be used for the benefit of the community. It cannot be taken out as profit, and the company cannot be sold off to someone who would. It is a legal requirement you can check, not just a promise on a website.
We started ScreenPool because we had the same problem as everyone else: how do you tell people something when they are not reading your newsletter, your Facebook page or your website?
Get involved
We are looking for our first venues, and for organisations who need to reach people their own channels miss. Tell us a little about yourself and we will be in touch.