Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

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CWatsonJr
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Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#1

Post by CWatsonJr »

As the clerk, my initial instruction to the Ward Council was to review their rolls before 3/31 and to give me the number of those members who attended their respective meetings.

It was brought to my attention by the primary, young women's, young men, and relief society that we had two families that moved out of the ward towards the end of the quarter. They asked if they should be counted. My gut said no but then I gave in and said let's count them. Now I am doubting that and think I should go with my gut feeling. Which is more correct (since the instructions don't specifically cover members who move during the month).

The other thing is I am thinking is to request names of members who attended their meetings and not just the numbers for future reports.
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aebrown
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#2

Post by aebrown »

CWatsonJr wrote:It was brought to my attention by the primary, young women's, young men, and relief society that we had two families that moved out of the ward towards the end of the quarter. They asked if they should be counted. My gut said no but then I gave in and said let's count them. Now I am doubting that and think I should go with my gut feeling. Which is more correct (since the instructions don't specifically cover members who move during the month).
The attendance lines on the quarterly report cover all members who are members of the ward as of the last day of the quarter. If you think about it, there has to be clarity as to which ward will report on each member, and each member can only be reported on by one ward. That must be the ward that has its membership records on the last day of the quarter -- there is no other reasonable cutoff date. And the fact is that the base numbers are calculated on that date.

Yes, that means that some members may attend one ward most of March and then move on March 30, but the new ward has the responsibility, not the old ward. The new ward actually has the bigger challenge, since they have to report attendance on new members -- but that's no different from a young man who turns 12 on March 30, and so the ward has to report whether he attended his priesthood meetings in March, even though there were no Sundays in that month when he was 12 years old.

Consider a hypothetical scenario where you have 12 YM and 10 of them attend meetings most of March, but one family moves out on March 30, taking 3 of those active YM with them. You now only have 9 YM, and that will be the "Total number of young men" number on the quarterly report. Are you going to report that 10 of the 9 attended meetings? Of course not. You will report that 7 of the 9 attended, since of the 9 YM whose records you have on March 31, only 7 attended in March.

So the bottom line is that you report attendance (except sacrament meeting attendance, of course, which is based on all persons actually in attendance, regardless of membership) for all members whose records you have as of the last day of the quarter. It's that simple.
CWatsonJr wrote:The other thing is I am thinking is to request names of members who attended their meetings and not just the numbers for future reports.
That is exactly what you should do. In ward council meeting, you should be focused on ministering to individuals. You can't help unnamed "2 YM didn't attend their meetings in March" but you can counsel together about how to help "John Jones and Sam Smith who didn't attend their meetings in March".
eblood66
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#3

Post by eblood66 »

CWatsonJr wrote:The other thing is I am thinking is to request names of members who attended their meetings and notjust the numbers for future reports.
Personally I asked for the list of names who did not attend any meeting that month. For us the list was smaller and it was the list we were more concerned about. I was also able to remove names that had callings that prevented them attending that the organization didn't know about or had forgotten about.
scgallafent
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#4

Post by scgallafent »

aebrown's explanation is sound.

You can view the names of the members associated with each line by clicking on the baseline numbers that were created when CMIS initially populated the quarterly report. For example, line 18 (Young men attending priesthood meetings) shows 51 young men in my ward as of the end of the quarter. If I click on the "51" link, I get a list of the 51 young men who make up that statistic. That is the best place to check to determine whether a member should be counted in a specific category. By design, this is only available for the most recent quarter.
CWatsonJr
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#5

Post by CWatsonJr »

The problem with this thinking is if they move after the last Sunday, which was 3/29, then they aren't counted on anyone's quarterly report as attending.

I understand the principle, it's the technicalities that are hanging me up. The one family that moved on the 22nd comes to church about every 3 months or so. So I can be pretty sure they didn't attend the last week Sunday of the month (but it would only be a guess) and the family that moved on the 30th wouldn't have a chance to meet in their new ward during the quarter, so how are they counted?

If it is cut and dry that the church doesn't care about them being accounted for, then I can handle not counting them but I just don't see the church being that way.
russellhltn
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#6

Post by russellhltn »

CWatsonJr wrote:I understand the principle, it's the technicalities that are hanging me up. The one family that moved on the 22nd comes to church about every 3 months or so. So I can be pretty sure they didn't attend the last week Sunday of the month (but it would only be a guess) and the family that moved on the 30th wouldn't have a chance to meet in their new ward during the quarter, so how are they counted?
Let's step back and ask "why are they counted?". Is it to "grade" the member? No. To "grade" the ward? No. To serve a higher need for "stats"? No. To determine who the ward may need to focus on? I think so.

Once a member/family moves out of a ward, the old ward is no longer responsible for their spiritual nourishment. It's off the table. There's nothing they can do. Numbers for that family is no longer relevant. (Because we're not grading the ward, nor are we conserned about church-wide stats.) Is it really such a bad thing for the new ward to be concerned about someone who moved in March 30th? One would think it would be covered by the new member move-in report, but it's not necessarily a bad thing they show up as not having ever attended a Sunday meeting.

As for that this does to the over all stats, unless there was a ward boundary re-alignment, it's not significant. I believe a change of a few % amounts to "noise" and not representative of any real change. The real value in the stats is coming up with that list of members who haven't attended any meetings - and perhaps noticing a new name added to that list. That should trigger some action. The numbers reported is more for assurance to the stake and church that the information has been compiled and looked at - as well as spotting any significant trends in the unit. The absolute accuracy of the numbers isn't important.
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scgallafent
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#7

Post by scgallafent »

CWatsonJr wrote:The one family that moved on the 22nd comes to church about every 3 months or so. So I can be pretty sure they didn't attend the last week Sunday of the month (but it would only be a guess) and the family that moved on the 30th wouldn't have a chance to meet in their new ward during the quarter, so how are they counted?
In your case, you don't count the families. Their records are not in your ward at the end of the quarter, so you should not be reporting information for those families.
CWatsonJr wrote:The problem with this thinking is if they move after the last Sunday, which was 3/29, then they aren't counted on anyone's quarterly report as attending.
Their new wards will need to determine how to account for these families on the quarterly report. If I were the clerk in the ward that had received the records, I would attempt to determine if the family had been active in their previous ward. It may be possible to make a reasonable assumption after meeting the family. If all else fails, I could contact the clerk of the previous ward and ask him for information.
CWatsonJr
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#8

Post by CWatsonJr »

Their new wards will need to determine how to account for these families on the quarterly report. If I were the clerk in the ward that had received the records, I would attempt to determine if the family had been active in their previous ward. It may be possible to make a reasonable assumption after meeting the family. If all else fails, I could contact the clerk of the previous ward and ask him for information.
This is the best answer yet. Thank you very much! This I can explain to the Ward Council without having their eyes roll back.
mljohns2
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#9

Post by mljohns2 »

I am a new Ward Clerk. I just submitted my quarterly report. I was surprised to read the explanation that the numbers we report are only for the last month of the quarter. Is this correct? I thought it was the averages for the 3 months of the quarter. Do you know the reason why we only report the last month of the quarter numbers?

Marc Johnson
Ward Clerk
Spring Canyon Ward
Ogden Utah
CWatsonJr
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Re: Quarterly Report - Members Moved 3/20 & 3/30

#10

Post by CWatsonJr »

mljohns2 wrote:I am a new Ward Clerk. I just submitted my quarterly report. I was surprised to read the explanation that the numbers we report are only for the last month of the quarter. Is this correct? I thought it was the averages for the 3 months of the quarter. Do you know the reason why we only report the last month of the quarter numbers?

Marc Johnson
Ward Clerk
Spring Canyon Ward
Ogden Utah
It is indeed only the last month of the quarter that is counted and not the average of the quarter, except for Sacrament Meetings, that is averaged over the quarter. Another thing the Ward Council likes to do is count if individuals showed up any time during the quarter. As Ward Clerks we need to be sure the report is correct before it is submitted. You still have time to correct it if you need to.
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