Here is the sketch:
You have to make two main observations:
First, that in Arena ( free chess GUI ) it is very easy to export a position to the clipboard as an image.
Second, that in the Open Office Presentation maker ( part of the the free Open Office package ) you can create an animated GIF by pasting images from the clipboard.
These two things added together mean that creating an animated position is nothing else than making a move in Arena, exporting the position to clipboard, pasting it into the animation in the Presentation maker and start all over again.
To export from Arena click Position, Export then press OK:
In the Presentation maker create a blank presentation, then paste the image into the sheet ( Ctrl+V will do ):
Here click the button circled in red.
Now the first frame is pasted:
Here make sure to select Bitmap object.
Now you can paste your subsequent positions to create a slide.
When finished click Create:
Now click File, Export, select GIF format, and check the 'Selection' checkbox. Now you can export the image and you are done:
For my team vote chess game I have created an animated position because I have noticed that team members don't take the pains to go through the variations if they are promoted to them in the analysis board.
This is an example of such an animation ( my favoured way of playing the Sicilian as white ) :
The interesting thing that you need only free tools to create such an animation and it is not hard at all.
If anyone is interested I'm willing to help you through to create your own animation.