Verifying households - Stake Clerk???

My Stake recently split 2 Wards into 3. As a result the new Ward needs to have all of the members verified on the lds.org map. I am the Stake Clerk, and thought I would help with the effort, at least to help verify the households who have already verified their own location. Unfortunately, I found that I do not have access to do this. I could verify my own location as a member, but I am unable to verify as a leader. Anyone know if this functionality is going to be opened up to Stake Clerks?

caj36 wrote:My Stake recently split 2 Wards into 3. As a result the new Ward needs to have all of the members verified on the lds.org map. I am the Stake Clerk, and thought I would help with the effort, at least to help verify the households who have already verified their own location. Unfortunately, I found that I do not have access to do this. I could verify my own location as a member, but I am unable to verify as a leader. Anyone know if this functionality is going to be opened up to Stake Clerks?

This topic was discussed in this post (and the remainder of the thread).

I sort of doubt that it would be opened up to stake clerks, but it doesn't hurt to ask. I am an assistant stake clerk, and have often wished that I could verify addresses. It's not that I want to take over the role necessarily, but it seems like it should be like editing profiles in the Directory. On occasion, I make changes to the Directory (when requested by the member or stake president), and sometimes verifying addresses is also needed. It's a lot easier to just make the change myself than to ask the ward clerk, particularly when I know exactly what needs to be done and it can be a bit tricky to communicate that to someone else.

aebrown wrote:It's a lot easier to just make the change myself than to ask the ward clerk, particularly when I know exactly what needs to be done and it can be a bit tricky to communicate that to someone else.

Also, it's our job to support the ward clerks. But that can be difficult when we can't access the function they are requesting help on.

I am a recently released membership clerk. In my entire stake of 10 wards I am the only clerk that has verified any addresses on the map. Our stake offers NO local training for clerks and most are either unwilling, or don't know about all the training they can get online--so most are likely clueless that they are supposed to perform this function. From my experience I saw that Google placed about 5%+ of the addresses incorrectly--some by miles. Still, if a location only needs a correction of a hundred yards it will, thus, allow better use of the functionality enabled by maps.lds.org. For example, one of the bishopric periodically downloads the lat/long coordinates and uses them on his smartphone to get specific directions to any member's home he needs to visit.

So, since technically the ward clerks are assigned their stewardship by the Stake, the Stake President can direct the Stake Clerk to encourage/expect all the ward clerks to get this done.

An alternative: Why couldn't SLC use the database of callings (and the associated database of email addresses which most clerks would have entered) to send an encouragement to all membership/ward clerks?

rogersp wrote:Our stake offers NO local training for clerks...

That's a pity, since the stake clerk is specifically instructed to provide training to ward clerks.

rogersp wrote:So, since technically the ward clerks are assigned their stewardship by the Stake, the Stake President can direct the Stake Clerk to encourage/expect all the ward clerks to get this done.

That's true. I imagine it's a question of priorities, but if the stake president wants to do that, he certainly can.

rogersp wrote:An alternative: Why couldn't SLC use the database of callings (and the associated database of email addresses which most clerks would have entered) to send an encouragement to all membership/ward clerks?

That's technically possible, but I would think that CHQ is careful about sending out too many messages. Again, it's a question of priorities.

I have found, that the training from a stake clerk, and encouragement from a stake clerk, doesn't always work in a stake. The Stake President must make the assignment to the Bishops to drive this in their wards...

With good training from a stake clerk in my stake (on multiple occasions), with education on where to find the information for additional training, Clerks know this should be done, and they still choose not to do it. This must be a culture we adopt in wards, it can't be driven from a stake level, unless it's the stake president driving it with Bishops.