Received 20 Old Membership Records

I received 20 old membership records that I previously had done the research on and sent them to the unknown file in SL. I know that the First Presidency announced an effort to reach and rescue for these families and individuals (October 29, 2012 letter). I also know that it was announced in the June 21, 2013 that we would be receiving up to 20 membership records previously moved out of the Ward. What I don't understand is what else they want us to do. We made a concerted effort this past year involving Priesthood and Relief Society to get our membership records up to date. So nothing has really changed. The Bishop told me to go ahead and move these back to SL which I did. What is diconcerting is that these move ins where done just before the quarterly report was due which now is inflated by 20 members that we know are not here which makes a difference in our percentages from 1% to 3% in some cases. That doesn't sound like a lot but we are a small Ward and we would prefer not to look worse that we really are. Finally, as everyone knows, this ties back into the amount of Budget we receive.

How does one send them back to SLC? We also got 20. Some we know are not here, others we are investigating.

Please see the letter from the First Presidency, this isn't something that should be a surprise to wards and branches.

bgant wrote:I also know that it was announced in the June 21, 2013 that we would be receiving up to 20 membership records previously moved out of the Ward. What I don't understand is what else they want us to do.

They are asking that we follow the eight steps in the June 21 notice and then send the records back. The notice says that they will not return them again.

If you followed the first nine steps before sending the records the first time, this should be the last time you need to deal with these records.

bgant wrote:What is diconcerting is that these move ins where done just before the quarterly report was due which now is inflated by 20 members that we know are not here which makes a difference in our percentages from 1% to 3% in some cases. That doesn't sound like a lot but we are a small Ward and we would prefer not to look worse that we really are.

Since the records were sent after the end of the 2nd quarter they should have no effect on the total number of members for the 2nd quarter report.

bgant wrote: Finally, as everyone knows, this ties back into the amount of Budget we receive.

The total number of members in a unit has no effect on the amount of Budget you receive. With the exception of the primary and YSA the Budget allowance is base strictly on attendance numbers only.

Gary_Miller wrote:

bgant wrote: Finally, as everyone knows, this ties back into the amount of Budget we receive.

The total number of members in a unit has no effect on the amount of Budget you receive. With the exception of the primary and YSA the Budget allowance is base strictly on attendance numbers only.

And those last two items you mentioned do show that having extra members on the records will have a slight effect on the budget allowance. But it could be higher or lower, depending on whether there are YSAs or children aged 8-11 among the records moved in.

• Having extra records will lower the percentage of sacrament meeting attendance, which will have the effect of lowering the YSA component of the budget allowance. But if extra records are for YSAs, then that would have the effect of increasing the budget allowance.
• Similarly, if extra records are for Primary-aged children, then that will have the effect of lowering the Primary attendance percentage. But if some extra records are for children aged 8-11, then it could have the effect of increasing the budget allowance.

But in any case, the idea of sending the records out to the wards is for them to act reasonably promptly in determining if the members are actually in the ward, or where they should be sent. Certainly it could be the case that some extra records are in the ward right at the end of the quarter, but as I explained above, it's not obvious whether that would increase or decrease the budget allowance.

Our goal is to get the records turned around as quickly as possible all the records were assigned to one of the quorums except two. Out of the two one of the Bishopric members knew the family as they were one of his patients in his practice, which has been sent to the new ward which is in our stake. The other had no address so the clerks took that to investigate the best they can.

I agree that the effect on Budget will be minimul but why even make that an issue? Just send the old membership records to the Wards after the quarter so that they can work on them or send them back or whatever before the next quarter.

bgant wrote:I agree that the effect on Budget will be minimul but why even make that an issue? Just send the old membership records to the Wards after the quarter so that they can work on them or send them back or whatever before the next quarter.

I thought that is what CHQ did. At least for my ward we did not receive these records until after July 1st.

Check your quarterly report. All 20 of mine were included in the quarterly report totals. You can drill down on each data point in the quarterly report to check. The easiest is the total number in the Ward. It will bring up all the names and just check it against the list of 20 that was sent back to you.

I can't seem to "drill down" at least on the on line report that was submitted earlier today.

However here is my current numbers from Clerk Resources.

Total in the ward today 465.

Total on report 456 submitted today.

I don't think it counted the records received since the end of June. Never the less I don't think it really matters much. It is what it is.

Edit: On further review it did not count the 10 moved in within the last month, using today as the default date.

I can confirm that at least some of my wards received records before the end-of-quarter membership was calculated. Two of the wards in my stake are dormant during Summer term (Wyview on-campus BYU housing) meaning they have no members. The clerk of one of the wards (an out-of-unit member, so he and the bishopric are not included in the count) made a special effort to get everyone sent where they should go – he had it down to zero by the end of the last day of June... But a couple of records snuck in from Address Unknown just in time to be counted in the report. So he had to mark that 0 of them attended their meetings, giving his unit 0% attendance instead of 0/0, which would've been 100%... Granted it would've been somewhat skewed either way.

Hopefully they wait till the second day or something after this next quarter ends, to send any more records.

Someone in-the-know can correct me- but the understanding from our ward leaders and stake clerks (that I’ve met with in our priesthood leadership meetings) indicate that the quarterly statistics are generated based on the membership numbers on the actual date the clerk runs the report- NOT necessarily on the first day of the quarter (ours for instance was run on July 9th this time). So these “second-chances” AU records that were sent to us on July 1st decreased our report percentages (attendance and HT and VT), unless the ward membership clerks were Johnny on the Spot in either getting them returned to CHQ, or in very rare cases quickly find some additional info that would lend them to finding these people’s new addresses. Granted, attendance and HT/VT percentages are not the most important membership records concerns. But suffice it to say that CHQ’s timing of these mass-returns of Address Unknown records seems rather inappropriate. They could have waited until about any other time within the quarter, other than at the first two weeks of the quarter.

jhigbee wrote:the understanding from our ward leaders and stake clerks (that I’ve met with in our priesthood leadership meetings) indicate that the quarterly statistics are generated based on the membership numbers on the actual date the clerk runs the report- NOT necessarily on the first day of the quarter

No, that's not correct. The base numbers of members in the various categories of the Quarterly Report are generated based on the last day of the reporting quarter. Those numbers cannot be changed, and do not change depending on when you run the report. Any other approach would be chaotic -- you would have numbers changing as updates to the QR are made, and you could have cases where you could have greater than 100% in some categories.

That certainly does make sense to have them set on the last day of quarter, thereby avoiding such a “chaotic” situation. But are you 100% sure that is the actual set protocol? It is in conflict to what our Stake Clerk told us in our last priesthood leadership meeting.

jhigbee wrote:That certainly does make sense to have them set on the last day of quarter, thereby avoiding such a “chaotic” situation. But are you 100% sure that is the actual set protocol? It is in conflict to what our Stake Clerk told us in our last priesthood leadership meeting.

In my experience, what aebrown said is correct. The first time you open MLS after the end of the quarter, you will see a popup asking you to do a Send/Receive. That S/R sets the membership statistics in MLS for the previous quarter based on the last day of the quarter. Those numbers are used as the basis of the quarterly report.

sbradshaw wrote:I can confirm that at least some of my wards received records before the end-of-quarter membership was calculated.

Ours showed up on June 30.

sbradshaw wrote:So he had to mark that 0 of them attended their meetings, giving his unit 0% attendance instead of 0/0, which would've been 100%...

Divide by zero would probably not have been 100%, but that's irrelevant.

sbradshaw wrote:Hopefully they wait till the second day or something after this next quarter ends, to send any more records.

Hopefully so. I'm just trying not to get discouraged over the whole thing...

mfmohlma wrote:I'm just trying not to get discouraged over the whole thing...

Every time I tell one of our clerks "all in a day's work," I get referred to Abraham 3:4. [grin]

Some of our wards received the records a few days before the end of the quarter. Some received them after the new quarter began. I do not think they all went out at exactly the same time. Some of them had them included in their quarterly report; others did not.

jhigbee wrote:That certainly does make sense to have them set on the last day of quarter, thereby avoiding such a “chaotic” situation. But are you 100% sure that is the actual set protocol? It is in conflict to what our Stake Clerk told us in our last priesthood leadership meeting.

I believe that's true for MLS. Not so sure about the on-line tools.

I think you guys are getting all up tight over nothing.

In the Eternal scheme of things what does it really matter when the records were sent down?

What really matters is that we do our best to find these lost souls and get their record sent to the proper place so the unit where they live can help them. See Luke 15: 3-7.

Does anyone know if we're getting records back this quarter? None have shown up in my stake as of yet. I called Salt Lake a couple of days ago and the brother I talked to there said it was the plan for another batch to come out but he didn't know exactly when.

There is a notice posted at letters.lds.org that states that the next batch will be coming on November 1st.

Thanks. I will keep that in mind.

Has anyone heard when this quarter's batch from Address Unknown will be coming in?

notchback wrote:How does one send them back to SLC? We also got 20. Some we know are not here, others we are investigating.

Send them back to SLC (i.e. Unknow Address) the same way they were sent the first time. Use the "Move Records Out" option, and indicate no known address.

deuel wrote:

notchback wrote:How does one send them back to SLC? We also got 20. Some we know are not here, others we are investigating.

Send them back to SLC (i.e. Unknow Address) the same way they were sent the first time. Use the "Move Records Out" option, and indicate no known address.

I don't know if others reading this are aware that the idea is not just to bounce the records back to headquarters but to follow the steps outlined in the 21 June 2013 letter (access limited to certain callings) before sending records on to Address Unknown. For those interested, those steps are included in the wiki article Locating members.

Does anyone know of a way to indicate that these people no longer live in our ward? I have multiple requests from the High Priests, RS, and Elders to somehow indicate this because it gets confusing, especially when we keep trying to assign them home teachers and visiting teachers.

mpeter71 wrote:Does anyone know of a way to indicate that these people no longer live in our ward? I have multiple requests from the High Priests, RS, and Elders to somehow indicate this because it gets confusing, especially when we keep trying to assign them home teachers and visiting teachers.

Just run the check list and get them gone to were they need to be. Have the ward council help.
In my opinion the HP, Elders and RS organizations should be the ones doing most of the work in running the check list. It is their stewardship to keep track of the members of the ward. Notice I did not say the presidency of those organizations although they should be the starting point.

Has anyone else experienced this move creating duplicate records?
I've got two membership records in my system for the same person. Everything is the same except for the membership number and the birthday (which is off by 6 months compared to each other).
Anyone have any idea how to deal with this, I don't want to just send the wrong record away for someone else to deal with

joachimvalgren wrote:Has anyone else experienced this move creating duplicate records?
I've got two membership records in my system for the same person. Everything is the same except for the membership number and the birthday (which is off by 6 months compared to each other).
Anyone have any idea how to deal with this, I don't want to just send the wrong record away for someone else to deal with

I'd suggested the Wiki article Duplicate membership records

joachimvalgren wrote:I've got two membership records in my system for the same person.

I would figure out which record is correct, and then follow the instructions in the link russellHltn provided to remove the other record.

If their membership numbers and birthdates are different, it's possible you have two different people with the same name. Did you check other things, such as their baptismal date?