Quarterly Reports- Membership Statistics

I plead guilty of using you well-informed brethren as a crutch for my not having to research question on my own. But could someone direct me to a possible thread on details concerning quarterly ward reports as far as determining accurate membership statistics? As a stake membership clerk, I would like to give all our clerks some definitive direction as to whether they can make adjustments to their their membership stats to be more accurate in their reports (for instance when they're having delays in getting new addresses to move records out of their ward, etc.). Or does the system only allow you to use the membership statics that are actually in their ward's MLS system at the time they prepare their reports? Can I assume that the statistics used in the report calculations are the ones in ward systems at the exact time that the clerk prepares his report? (i.e not necessarily at the date of the close of the quarter- yesterday, Dec 31st for current consideration)


Being as how we'll now be doing our year-end reports, I think this is a good time to make sure we're all on the same page with these questions. Thank you, and Happy New Year.

The fixed statistics (total number of households, number of members in certain categories, etc.) that are the base numbers in the Quarterly Report cannot be changed, and are the numbers as of the end of the quarter. They are not the numbers at the time the report is prepared. So clerks can't make any adjustments to those numbers, even if they wanted to.

jhigbee wrote:As a stake membership clerk, I would like to give all our clerks some definitive direction as to whether they can make adjustments to their their membership stats to be more accurate in their reports (for instance when they're having delays in getting new addresses to move records out of their ward, etc.).

Speaking as a ward clerk, my suggestion (as the best thing you can do to help the ward clerks) is to train them to be prompt and accurate in the record keeping. It is easy for someone to be left on the membership list for longer than they should be. Knowing that inaccurate records can negatively affect the ward's budget only helps support my plea to the ward organizations to get me move-out information promptly.

davesudweeks wrote:Knowing that inaccurate records can negatively affect the ward's budget only helps support my plea to the ward organizations to get me move-out information promptly.

How so? The funds are based on attendance, not percentages.

I suppose in the case of YSA, a married member who is no longer in the ward distorts the percentages that are used to estimate the attendance of the YSA, but I'd think it would be too small to worry about. And probably more then compensated by all the inactive "YSA" whose records haven't been updated since they married that non-member.

Thank you Brother Brown, et al. That's kind of what I was afraid of (and had remembered was the case from years past). So only the move-outs, etc. that the clerks had recorded as of Dec 31st will be reflected in the quarterly reports. That should give us added emphasis to be more vigilant towards the ends of the quarters, and especially thru December with our records updating. Yes, all clerks should be more vigilant throughout the year, and not make it a practice to “go in spurts”. But seeing as how it is our nature is to emphasize various aspects of our callings more at some times, and less at others, I might suggest a periodic “all-clerks” reminder MLS message be sent around the first part of a few “quarter months” (say June and Dec this year) to remind all to try and get their record move-outs (getting new addresses) more up-to-date. Then again, it's a bit low-brow to send records out of your ward to another, right before the quarter's end, thereby unfairly dropping the percentages of the their new ward.
We should all resolve to do better in 2012.
Thanks again.