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Temple Caravan Administration System

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 11:31 am
by MorettiDP
In our stake, we have a big problem. We live two hours away from the nearest temple, the Campinas Brazil Temple. We travel to the temple weekly in "caravans" every Fridays and/or Saturdays. These caravans are formed by one or more bus chartered from a regular travel company.

Members who administer the weekly caravans has a major problem in your hands. Check the travel payment of each member is another a big problem.

I wonder if it would be possible for the Church or the community to develop a web application where members could access the application via the internet using username and password (can be the username and password of the LDS Account, which would be great), then the person see a calendar. This calendar shows highlights of the dates where there will be caravans in our stake.

By clicking on each caravan day, it adds your name to that travel and can print a ticket for the travel scheduled for that date and time.

The dates available in the system would be introduced by a member of the stake presidency after receive the annual calendar of caravans from the temple presidency. When member pay the travel costs to the Leader of Group of High Priests of the ward, the leader login to the system with his username and password and add a mark in a checkbox saying that the member has made payment for the trip. The money then would be deposited in the "other" field from your own unit, then transferred to the stake funds to pay the travel company a week after.

A system like this will help members of the stake presidency, the leaders of the group of high priests and bishoprics in the administration of the caravans to the temple, and allow members to make an annual or monthly program that when will travel, including in facilitating see what members are not visiting the temple regularly and interview them to know what happens (a report could be generated by the leaders of the group of high priests to the bishops of his own ward with this information).

It will save some time and money to members and units of the Church in Brazil (where this system is widely spread in all temples districts) and in other countries (I believe in major part of the world, but I believe that in the United States there are no caravans, as the temples are usually near the members and the travel costs are relatively lower).

Can any of you help us? Or can ICS start a new product like this?

Thanks

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:52 pm
by marianomarini
the leader login to the system with your username and password and add a mark in a checkbox saying that the member has made payment for the trip.
I think you means "with his ".
It could be an interesting project!

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:13 pm
by MorettiDP
Thanks, marianomarini_vi. I changed the word in the original post to be more easy to understand the text.

I'm don't have the technical background needed to built a system like this for my own stake and I believe that problem is present in other stakes of the world too. If a simple system like this can be setup, will benefit us so much.

In Italy, marianomarini_vi, you go to temple in "caravan" trips like us in Brazil?

Thanks for the reply.

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 6:39 am
by marianomarini
MorettiDP wrote:Thanks, marianomarini_vi. I changed the word in the original post to be more easy to understand the text.

I'm don't have the technical background needed to built a system like this for my own stake and I believe that problem is present in other stakes of the world too. If a simple system like this can be setup, will benefit us so much.

In Italy, marianomarini_vi, you go to temple in "caravan" trips like us in Brazil?

Thanks for the reply.
Because nearest temple is in Swiss, the are some Stake who do and some not.
I live about 550 Km far from it. We don't use caravans, but half of Italy (means south) do.
Waiting for HQ, you can use a local site to do that. I can start to develop such a program.
I can do it in italian and portugues.

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 8:06 am
by WelchTC
That is a very interesting project. The challenge to this project would be getting the money handled properly. The scheduling would not be too hard. I'll share your idea with the temple department and the priesthood department to get their interest. Thanks for sharing.

Tom

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:01 am
by MorettiDP
In my opinion, Tom, the money transactions are not the biggest problem in this case. In our stake, for example, there are two ways to pay for travel to the temple:
(1st) Members pay directly to the "other" field using the form Tithes and Other Offerings, which the ward clerk then transfers the money for the stake and notify the leader of group of high priests that the payment was made by each member (the more practical way, in my opinion); or
(2nd) The member pays directly to the leader of group of high priests of the ward, then he delivered all the money to the ward clerk (which had already noted who had paid), the clerk deposited the money in "other" field of the unit as the unit as "donor" and then transfers the money usually for the stake.
Since the financial Church rules varies from one country to another, "the way that money road to get into Church bank accounts" isn't the principal problem at this product. The real problem here is how to correctly identify those who will go to each caravan, if the person has paid or not, and how many buses are needed for that caravan.
With this system will bring the work of the stake high counselors, leaders of group of high priests of units and members of the bishoprics more easy because this leaders will know in advance up to a week on who will go in the caravan, will have adequate time to interview young members who will travel to the temple and need a recommend, will clearly identify who go on each trip, will identify who have an active recommendation and is not attending the temple regularly, see approximately how many times a member is attending the temple, see who is more likely to be called temple worker in each unit, will have reports of total of members who attended the temple in a given period (one year, for example), among many other possibilities.
Thanks for the reply!!! I hope Temple Department and Priesthood Department like the idea and help us in this great feature to easy the work of Church leaders.
Thank you too for your ideas, marianomarini_vi! And sorry for this English.

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:45 am
by jdlessley
So as to not fork this thread much further in regards to the handling of the finances for these caravan trips to the temple, I have started another thread in the Local Unit Finance forum. The title of the thread is Handling Finances for Temple Trips. All comments regarding financing temple trips not related to the development of the temple caravan administration system should be posted there.

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:08 pm
by MorettiDP
Thanks, jdlessley!

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:34 am
by marianomarini
So, going back to the project. I think it must be a Web Application hosted into Stake site.
With a link you can access the program.
First of all the login.
We have two different level: 1. Member. 2. Leader.
Leaders could do: 1.Insert/modify Date, time and Number of seats of Caravans. 2. Delete Caravan (only if there are no reservations or travel expired). 3. Insert payment done.
Members could do: 1. Insert/Delete reservation.

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:46 pm
by MorettiDP
YES, marianomarini_vi!!! You could put the text exactly as I wanted to say and my English will not let me express!

Only two small things more:

1) If access to the system were done using the LDS Account credentials, CDOL could give the correct leadership informations to the system allowing Church leaders login to the "level 2" access (management level).

2) Some reports can be generated to help leaders see more easy when a member goes to temple and when a member need be interviewed (see some reports I quoted before in my first post).

Thank you, marianomarini_vi!!!