Contacting less active Members on Social Network

The seventh step to move a missing member out of the ward is to look for them on social network sites. I'm in a situation where I found a less active member that has a different city listed as her residence on facebook. I'm fine writing her but and am hesitant to ask her for her mailing address. What woman gives her address out to strangers online? Is there an email I can refer her to so she can write the church without sending it to a some random guy (me the ward clerk)?
Thanks so much!

Ideally, she'd use maps.lds.org to figure out who her bishop is and make her presence known.

But since that requires initiative on her part - something that most less active members are not known for, I'm not sure as that's a good strategy.

Bishops do not have "church" email addresses. Only stake presidents. So unless she see it on a church webpage, or emails the stake president, it's still some "random guy". Depending on the size of the city she is in, there may be only one stake president for that area.

If anyone in your ward knows her, I'd have them contact her. Perhaps you can ask for the assistance of the Relief Society president - that way she's not sending her address to some random guy.

I would just write her in your official capacity of Ward Clerk explaining you need her new address so that you can send her membership records to her new ward.

Sign it using this format.

Your Name
Ward Clerk
Ward
Stake
Your phone number

A the most you will get what you need at the least you will get nothing.

If you don't receive a response within a week then check the box on the list as done and move on.

That might be my best bet then. Thanks for your advice.

Gary_Miller wrote:If you don't receive a response within a week then check the box on the list as done and move on.

When I've been in this situation, I put any information I found in the comment box. At least the folks in Salt Lake will have a place to start.

What do you think about using some of those paid websites to find addresses on moved out members?

I've been the ward membership clerk now for two months and I have a stack of names going no where fast.

I'm just getting to use facebook. Will I have to friend all these moved out less actives in order to communicate on facebook with them? If so, many may have things I don't want to be associated with.

flintcrump wrote:What do you think about using some of those paid websites to find addresses on moved out members?

I don't think the church expects anyone to spend fund on websites just to find addresses.

flintcrump wrote:I've been the ward membership clerk now for two months and I have a stack of names going no where fast.

Don't forget you are not alone in the task of finding where members are. You have the whole ward council who should be working on this, I feel they are just as responsible, if not more so, for helping find where these members have move than the ward clerks.

flintcrump wrote:I'm just getting to use facebook. Will I have to friend all these moved out less actives in order to communicate on facebook with them? If so, many may have things I don't want to be associated with.

No you don't have to friend them. However lots of time people have information that is available to the public that may be helpful. Also you can sometime see people who are their friends you may recognize who are still living in the area. Just do a Google search using the information you have on the membership record you may just be surprise what you may find. Also don't count out looking for parents or children of the member as they may provide a link to were the member is, especially on social media.

Regarding contacting parents: Couple of weeks ago I was chasing names on white pages for skipped members and/or their listed parents. I actually found a father that had a phone number on his daughter and an address on his son. While it was the only hit I got out of some twenty searches on whitepages.com, it turned out to be a twofer.

That instance caused me to suggest that the Church make available all contact information for not only parents of members to show on the membership record for ease of contacting them, but also all contact information for their children who maybe active or willing to help. In effect, let's display their living family tree for bishoprics.

Why do we have to search non-church sources prior to Church sources for the helpful family members when the Church may have that info for us to use in finding the skipped member?

flintcrump wrote:Why do we have to search non-church sources prior to Church sources for the helpful family members when the Church may have that info for us to use in finding the skipped member?

The church expect us to try and find out what we can locally. If that's not possible then we send the record to CHQ where they have people working that has access to the family members information, the will call a family member or send them a card to fill out and send back I've seen it done both ways.