You can always set up an announcements category and set your members to be watching that category. Unless they change their user preferences from the default they will then get an email. There is quite a bit of flexibility.
Not exactly, though you could always create topics where you can keep and share files. Easiest is probably for you to spin up a free trial at Discourse pricing | Discourse - Civilized Discussion or explore our demo site at https://try.discourse.org.