RS (+EQ? +HP?) Role for Primary Workers

I was looking for a way to create a seperate (sub) role for RS women who work on Primary. I looked at adding an additional RS Group, but I don't want to pull these women out of VT in the RS Group #1 (will it? I assume so...).

Should I make a Sunday School Class for primary workers and track it that way? That would work for Primary workers who are not in a SS class b/c they are in Primary 2nd and 3rd hour, but I was hoping to do something similar for YW and YM and don't want to pull them off their regular SS class roles.

Ideas? Thanks...
John Wilkinson

(I'm trying to improve the accuracy of our Quarterly Reports).

What would the benefit of that be? Are those women with callings in Primary and YW not showing up on the RS printouts? I don't see how that would affect the quarterly reports.

I see where this would be of help. I have found that workers in Primary/Sunday School don't always get counted on the RS/Priesthood rolls. If you had a roll for these workers they could mark it and then turn it in to RS/Priesthood to be added to the roll for the report.

Since Sunday School is not held at the same time as Priesthood or Relief Society, all Sunday School personnel should be in either of those meetings. Perhaps you meant those adults with callings in Young Men and Young Women in addition to Primary along with those that have out-of-unit callings such as full-time missionaries, stake officers and such.

Also, if the RS, EQ and HP secretaries are not recording those that have callings that keep them out of those meetings, they need additional training/reminders that they should be marking those persons as having attended (see Handbook 2 page 170 & 207).

For example, when I prepare the statistical report, I click on the links within the report for Total Melchizedek Priesthood holders, Total prospective elders, Total women, Total young men, Total young women, and Total Children ages 3 (as of 1 January) through 11 years, and give these printouts to the respective organization's secretaries with the following instruction:

"Mark on these reports who attended your meetings at least once during the month of XXXX, and then return it to me. Don't forget to mark those that are in Primary, Young Men, Young Women, full-time missionaries, or stake officers as having attended your meetings. If there is anyone that is not on this list that should be, write their names in at the bottom so that I can follow up on it."

I understand that the secretaries for RS, EQ and HP should be tracking this... but it's not happening. We've done some retraining, but it is taking a long time to take hold.

Just trying to make it a little easier for them to be successful at their callings. And besides... GIGO.

So any ideas?

john84601 wrote:I was looking for a way to create a seperate (sub) roll for RS women who work on Primary. I looked at adding an additional RS Group, but I don't want to pull these women out of VT in the RS Group #1 (will it? I assume so...).

Removing a woman from the Relief Society organization will not affect her VT assignment (either as a teacher or as being taught). And creating a new RS Group won't affect VT, either. VT districts and companionships belong to a specific group, but there is no requirement that any Visiting teacher or teachee be a member of the group that owns the VT district.

So you could create RS Group 2 and use it only for members who serve in other callings during the RS block. RS Group 1 would continue to own all the VT districts and companionships. It's an unconventional idea, but it seems like it could work. I suppose you could even create Group 2 for Primary, Group 3 for YW, Group 4 for full-time missionaries, etc. if you wanted to distinguish all the different sisters who might need to be counted as attending RS without physically being there.

It appears you can do the same thing by creating a second Elders Quorum and removing any HP or Elders and placing them in EQ2 to track those who serve in YM or Primary. Again, Home Teaching could still be owned by EQ1; EQ2 would just be for rolls for those serving outside MP classes.

john84601 wrote:Should I make a Sunday School Class for primary workers and track it that way? That would work for Primary workers who are not in a SS class b/c they are in Primary 2nd and 3rd hour, but I was hoping to do something similar for YW and YM and don't want to pull them off their regular SS class rolls.

I don't see how it makes sense to use the SS organization for something that is essentially an RS issue. Like you said, it affects SS classes for YW workers, which is not desirable.

NOTE: I am by no means recommending this. I haven't thought through all the ramifications. I am merely responding to the request for creative suggestions.

Interesting solution and problem to remedy, but it sounds like a nightmare to keep current when calling changes happen in the Primary and YW, or YM...

It may just be easier to print out two rolls and highlight the sisters/brethren that are in Primary/YW/YM to remind the secretary to count them also each week.

Or copy and paste into Excel and edit the list there for a "customized" roll.

Alan_Brown wrote:So you could create RS Group 2 and use it only for members who serve in other callings during the RS block. RS Group 1 would continue to own all the VT districts and companionships. It's an unconventional idea, but it seems like it could work.

Yeah, it would work. However one problem is wouldn't it tend to lead the RS leaders to ignore the needs of the sisters whose calling keeps them out of the RS meeting? Off the rolls, out of mind is a very real human trait.

If the stats are down, the stats are down. Once training has been done, I think there's bigger issues to deal with then worrying about errors in the stats. I think the trend is more important then the actual number.

Alan_Brown wrote:NOTE: I am by no means recommending this. I haven't thought through all the ramifications. I am merely responding to the request for creative suggestions.

I think the most serious ramification is that instead of getting the RS to remember these people, you would be creating a way for them to not have to think about them at all. So many adults already complain that they feel isolated from the rest of the adults when they serve in YM, YW, and especially Primary. Training and prodding RS, EQ, & HP to remember these people is not just some ivory tower ideal. They are their brother's (and sister's) keepers.

How hard is it, really, to look at the roll and say "Oh, sister Jones wasn't in RS because she is in Nursery, Sister Jackson plays the piano in Primary, sister Potter is on a full-time mission"? When you don't make the effort to remember people, they fall through the cracks. Then you end up forgetting to invite the women in Primary and YW to things like Enrichment activities, because nobody remembers them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Another fun thing to do to the records would be to change people's
perferred name to include their calling.

Thus Smith, Mary would become Smith, Mary (Beehives Advisor).
That way, secretaries wouldn't have to remember where every
member serves.

Of course, all the other reports would look rather strange.

I'm not advocating this, just throwing out the possibilty.

- Atticus Ewig

I don't think they should be removed from the RS/Priesthood rolls. But if they could be added to the rolls of the class they are in then they wouldn't be out of sight. This way they are more likely to be counted and the other reports would not be changed.

fergie34 wrote:I don't think they should be removed from the RS/Priesthood rolls. But if they could be added to the rolls of the class they are in then they wouldn't be out of sight. This way they are more likely to be counted and the other reports would not be changed.

Could you help me understand how this helps? An example of what we are talking about is a sister who is serving as the teacher of the CTR5 class in Primary. The concern is that she wouldn't be counted on the RS roll, which is what is required for the Quarterly Report. Putting her on the CTR5 roll would do nothing to help her be counted as attending RS, and it might throw off the Primary attendance numbers.

It's pretty straight-forward; it all comes down to this...

The answer is for the RS, EQ, and HP secretaries to correctly take the roll. I'm an EQ secretary right now. During EQ, I get up out of class and walk around the building marking those in other auxiliaries as present on the EQ roll; it takes 5 additional minutes. As a secretary, you really should know every individual in your quorum/group in order to take roll correctly. jbh001 gave the references for taking roll in Handbook 2 (pages 170 & 207).

Alan_Brown wrote:Could you help me understand how this helps?

I do not think it would be worth the trouble, but I think the original proposal was not to take anyone off of their current roll, but to create a new class and populate it with members of the ward who teach or work outside of the Relief Society or Melchizedek Priesthood.

For example, Sister Jones would be on the RS roll, but would also be in the Out of RS "class". The clerk would give the regular RS roll to the RS along with the Out of RS Class Roll, which would remind the RS secretary/presidency that Sister Jones had another calling and should not be forgotten.

The question would be where to put such an extra "class", and whether to have one with both brothers and sisters on it, or a separate one for each organization (RS, EQ, HP).

That is how I understood the proposal. But, once again, I think it is complicated, difficult to keep up, and it would be better if the organization leaders knew why their members were absent, either that they were truly inactive, or rather that they never attended because they were faithfully teaching in Primary or Young Men or Young Women.

In other words, I think the current system is very good and the "know your sheep" principle might be the easiest way to handle the problem.

And yes, lots of training.

There was something to be said for the old system where we used to have to provide lists of names of those who did not attend. Everyone in our stake agonized over the requirement (and it may have just been the stake president who required it), but a whole lot of leaders quickly learned what their members were doing when they were not in a Melchizedek Priesthood Quorum or Relief Society on Sunday.

lajackson wrote:There was something to be said for the old system where we used to have to provide lists of names of those who did not attend.

No, that's what I remember. That was back in the days when quarterly reports where done on a typewriter. I still had a computer to crank out lists, but the official membership record was either stored in a recipe box or a multi-ring binder. (And my most treasured tool was a red pen. )

Later it was changed to just number the missing. You still had to identify who wasn't coming to get the count, but you no longer had to supply the names.

lajackson wrote:I do not think it would be worth the trouble, but I think the original proposal was not to take anyone off of their current roll, but to create a new class and populate it with members of the ward who teach or work outside of the Relief Society or Melchizedek Priesthood.

For example, Sister Jones would be on the RS roll, but would also be in the Out of RS "class". The clerk would give the regular RS roll to the RS along with the Out of RS Class Roll, which would remind the RS secretary/presidency that Sister Jones had another calling and should not be forgotten.

The problem with using rolls is that sometimes people legitimately show up in the rolls that shouldn't be counted in the statistical report (see Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 1 (2006), page 143-144). Once I realized that, I started using the links from within the statistical report to print the lists I needed to collect the attendance information from the various organization secretaries needed for the statistical report. In our particular circumstance, it meant that Primary attendance when from 115% to 80%-95% overnight.

That is also why when I hand them that report, I remind them: "If there is anyone that is not on this list that should be, write their names in at the bottom so that I can follow up on it." Then I can track down why they are showing up on the primary rolls, but not in the statistical report and take any necessary corrective action.

You could add a second RS group and put the adult women serving in Primary and YW in that group, but that seems like magnifying the work of maintaining it. It is simpler to regularly teach the secretaries involved correct principles and let them govern themselves. You have that opportunity to teach those principles at least every three months.

Perhaps this is an incorrect practice, but I have instructed the RS secretary to automatically mark those serving in Primary and YW as attending REGARDLESS of whether they are actually showing up at church; the should ASSUME they are fulfilling their Primary, YW, or out-of-unit callings until they are released. My rationale is that it should NOT be the RS responsibility to see if they are actually fulfilling their callings. If a Primary teacher is not showing up to teach Primary, then the Primary president should be in contact with the bishopric about a replacement (same for YW). The RS shouldn't be tasked with policing the women in Primary and YW for attendance reports.

jbh001 wrote:The problem with using rolls is that sometimes people legitimately show up in the rolls that shouldn't be counted in the statistical report

Like who?

jbh001 wrote:it meant that Primary attendance when from 115% to 80%-95% overnight.

Wouldn't that mean that you found people who should be on the rolls and weren't?

jbh001 wrote:I have instructed the RS secretary to automatically mark those serving in Primary and YW as attending . . .

I agree with this and believe it is the correct approach, for the very reasons you stated.

jbh001 wrote:The problem with using rolls is that sometimes people legitimately show up in the rolls that shouldn't be counted in the statistical report.

RussellHltn wrote:Like who?

Well, two categories that immediately come to mind are nonmembers, and 12-year-olds who are still in Primary for the Sunday School block. There are very good reason to have these people on rolls, but they do not get counted on the Primary section of the Quarterly report.

RussellHltn wrote:Wouldn't that mean that you found people who should be on the rolls and weren't?

No, it meant that that there were ~42 children on the Primary rolls, ~35 of which attended regularly, but the statistical report only showed ~30 children in Primary. (And, no, the children in Nursery weren't the cause.)

When the maximum number allowed by the statistical report is 30 children and you had ~35 children attending, what do you do? I did what I have previously stated and was eventually able to locate and address the discrepancies.

For example, our current Primary rolls for Sunbeams through Valiant 12 total 41 children. The list generated from the Statistical Report covering the same group totals 39 children. An examination of the discrepancy reveals that one child is 12 and attends Beehives, and another child is a 10-year-old child-of-record that has yet to be baptized (technically a nonmember).

An officers and teachers role may be kept to record primary workers. There is no need to be recorded on a class role in which they are not in attendance. By being recorded on an officers & teachers role upon enquiry of the Relief Society President to the Primary President it is duly noted & a record keep of their attendance in the Primary Organistion