Sacrament and Class Attendance

Being new to the WC calling I was shocked at how much paper we use for attendance rolls.
I know that towards the end of 2014 we will be able to enter our HT/VT activities into LCR and I wondered if we could do the same for Sacrament and Class Attendance, especially if these can be rolled up on the system to automatically create the quarter end reports?

Good suggestion. However, the forum is primarily user to user support. Those that make the decisions necessary to implement this may not see the thread. The best method to get your suggestion seen is to send feedback using the feedback link on the main LCR page or on the main LDS.org page (light blue banner near the bottom of the page that says "Do You Have Feedback on This Page?").

Please post back on the forum with any reply you get- you definitely aren't the only one thinking this way.

Unless you plan to pass around a tablet or have just one person record the roll, I can't see how you'd go completely paperless.

I think our Sunday School Gospel Doctrine class is maybe 6 sheets of paper. Even if you updated it every month, I don't see it as all that excessive.

Maybe I'm missing where all the paper is being used.

The paper benefit is nice, but I want it so that everyone that is present is marked and properly classified- it would save people from having to go back and determine who was teaching, which people are YSAs, prospective Elders, etc.

If all the leaders had access to a roll section in LCR then it wouldn't matter which leader took the roll and reporting could automatically go clear to the quarterly report. The clerk would only need to intervene if there was missing information. It would also allow for automatic flagging of problems to leaders just like the seminary roll stuff does.

As for paper use it takes more paper than you would think although in the scheme of things it is small. By the time you get each member of the presidency a copy of the roll for each organization in hopes someone will bring it and take roll each time it is takes more. Then you need to do it monthly rather than quarterly to try and keep people in the habit of taking roll. Those have to be handed out individually to each member of each presidency at the end of the month with a reminder you need the current month back in. Some you will get immediately and some you will spend the next month regularly nagging till you get it back in. But that means for example say YM is 1 page each for each priesthood level. That means you print 4 adult leader copies at 3 pages each and 12 ym presidency copies at 1 page each for 24 pages a month for YM. Same for YW with another 24 pages. Say EQ is 2 pages for copies giving 8 pages. HP is 4 pages for 16 total. RS is 7 pages for 28 total. Primary is each individual class x 5 copies(4 leaders and 1 teacher copy) Say some classes combined you and you have 30 pages a month here. Already without SS or YSA included you have 130 pages per month. Since it has to be done monthly in hopes of being able to get the quarterly info in you are talking basically 3 to 5 reams of paper a year per ward for rolls. It actually isn't quite that bad because some leaders will do their calling so not all of those have to be handed out. But it is still a fair amount of paper to hand out.

jirp wrote:Those have to be handed out individually to each member of each presidency at the end of the month with a reminder you need the current month back in.

I've never seen any ward that hands out four rolls per organization. One roll to the secretary should be sufficient. That cuts your calculation of paper usage by 75%.

Some of the classes in my ward do forget to bring the roll, but rather than each presidency member having a copy of the roll what they do is just pass around a blank piece of paper and everyone writes their name. This works just as well.

That said, I'd love to see a roll in LCR, potentially that could be brought up on an iPad and passed around.

aebrown wrote:

jirp wrote:Those have to be handed out individually to each member of each presidency at the end of the month with a reminder you need the current month back in.

I've never seen any ward that hands out four rolls per organization. One roll to the secretary should be sufficient. That cuts your calculation of paper usage by 75%.

I wish it was that easy. It took me 3 years of failures to build up. Plain and simply put one roll won't do it in our ward.

I just saw this thread because I wanted to give some input on the color scheme of the attendance reports on LCR (the light blue color does not photocopy). I saw the post on how to give feedback about LCR and I have done that - the reason I am posting now, however, is because of the portion of this post regarding Sacrament Attendance.

I use LDS Tools on my iPad to count how many members attend Sacrament meeting. There is an option for "Lists" where you can click on each member who is there and it will total it up for you. I then will write down any investigators, out of unit members, family, or friends (basically, anyone else who is there) and add them to the number. I then email this list (members and others who attended) with the total number to the bishopric.

I am in the process of developing a spreadsheet system where I can dump this list into an Excel sheet and have Excel generate a report for me of who has and hasn't attended Sacrament meeting in the last month (I may expand that to a quarter if the bishop wants it that way - right now, he only wants it for the last month). So far, I have three weeks of data under my belt and it looks like it is working just fine.

After I am done compiling the report, I PDF it and email it to the bishopric.

Regarding the class attendance portion of this post, I would be very interested if there was any feedback on if they plan to include this in LCR. Then, as it was pointed out, attendance reports could be generated automatically from LCR - wouldn't that be awesome!!!!

Anyway, I just wanted to post about how I have been doing Sacrament attendance in case it will help someone else or if someone else has a better way - they will post that so it can help us all.

Regards.

CWatsonJr wrote:I am in the process of developing a spreadsheet system where I can dump this list into an Excel sheet and have Excel generate a report for me of who has and hasn't attended Sacrament meeting in the last month (I may expand that to a quarter if the bishop wants it that way - right now, he only wants it for the last month). So far, I have three weeks of data under my belt and it looks like it is working just fine.

I'd have to go back over the manuals, but I'm leery of tracking sacrament meeting attendance. I thought that was a no-no and we were only to get a headcount.

Class attendance is fine and should be sufficient for spiritual leadership.

russellhltn wrote:I'd have to go back over the manuals, but I'm leery of tracking sacrament meeting attendance. I thought that was a no-no and we were only to get a headcount.

Handbook 2, 5.2.4 says that leaders track specific attendance of new members at sacrament meeting. I don't know why that couldn't apply to any members – I think it would be helpful for ministering, in the same way that keeping track of attendance in the classes helps leaders minister.

It's not a requirement to keep track of individuals who attend sacrament meeting, probably because it's difficult to keep track accurately with so many people. Passing around a roll would distract from the spirit of the meeting, but I don't think there's anything that prohibits leaders from keeping track of individuals who attend.

Handbook 2, 18.2.2 is the guidelines for sacrament meeting and doesn't mention attendance. The guideline for clerks recording attendance (not very specific) is in Handbook 1, 13.5.1.

He's not writing down names, but uses the listing tool to capture numeric data, but not taking down the names.

The count at Sacrament meeting is a key indicator (see that part of LCR for the bar graph and you can select that one alone and compare the percentage with other lines where needed). June is quarterly report month so this is the month that will count for the 2nd quarter of this year.

Best thing is to try to get a count during either the business part of the meeting and sacrament hymn part (although a few hymns like 'Upon the Cross at Calvary' are rather short), or just after the sacrament is complete, walk up the aisle and count all that are in the rows and any in the foyers if they go out to pass it to members who are there for whatever reason. Count each row on a line then go back and add up everything after the meeting. or if there is a calculator app on your device use that.

JamesAnderson wrote:He's not writing down names, but uses the listing tool to capture numeric data, but not taking down the names.

I am getting the impression he is working on tallying by name:

CWatsonJr wrote:I am in the process of developing a spreadsheet system where I can dump this list into an Excel sheet and have Excel generate a report for me of who has and hasn't attended Sacrament meeting in the last month ...

(Bold added for emphasis.)

That is significant effort for something not required, or even needed. I would have to ask, what is the purpose for tracking by name other than for recent converts?

JamesAnderson wrote:He's not writing down names, but uses the listing tool to capture numeric data, but not taking down the names.

That's not how I'm reading it:

CWatsonJr wrote:I use LDS Tools on my iPad to count how many members attend Sacrament meeting. There is an option for "Lists" where you can click on each member who is there and it will total it up for you.

Using lists just to generate numbers is far more complicated than simply counting. Great for class, but more work than required for sacrament.

In my ward we have generally about 400, and about 220 or so attend sacrament regularly. So the going from row to row, counting just the number of people in the row, not noting names unless it is a recent convert (and even then that may not be necessary as the bishop may be aware and may see or hear from others in the ward council who may otherwise inform him of the investigator or new convert attending or not attending, sometimes that will appear on the progress record as missionaries also keep track of investigators attending church for purposes of preparations for the baptism interview).

Attending Church multiple times prior to baptism is mentioned in Preach My Gospel. But the missionaries watch that generally on account of what I noted above. And they are often involved in the teaching of the lessons again after baptism so they will be working with the convert for the short term.

As a clerk in a BYU-I YSA ward attendance (both Sacrament and class) are critical for the ecclesiastical endorsement. We only provide count and do NOT try and track names for sacrament, leaving that up to the individual and their priesthood leaders.
Class and Quorum attendance is very important and difficult to track in a timely manner. We need to track attendance week by week. some kind of on-line tool the would really help. any ideas?

bill

Right now the only thing in LCR would be the class rolls. You can print them out but you can't input data for a good idea of attendance for stats.

Largest class in any ward is gospel doctrine, then elders quorum. Usually, Sunday School classes are not tracked, but aggregate attendance at priesthood usually is and that varies from stake to stake what they do there. In smaller classes like most primary classes, young men/young women, and optional courses, the instructor will know who was there and who wasn't as far as who is in the class at the time the class is being run.

An online tool that you could print a roll the night before and take it in to class then input who came to that class that day would help. If your unit is anything like mine members come and go and so being able to print a roll based on what is actually in the membership data for your ward would be a huge help, but you would want to be sure that the data held even if a member moved out for the statistical part of it, particularly with priesthood based on what some stakes may want.

I don't see such a tool right away, the LCR developers have a lot of other fish to fry before they can get to this, and even then it will depend on what the brethren want to do in this regard.

I know the Church is working on an app for sacrament attendance that would allow you to do the things you mentioned and report who has not been to sacrament meeting for awhile. It is being piloted now, so who knows if it sees the light of day, but the Church seems to recognize that this information is helpful in letting leaders know who is struggling and could use some more support. Perhaps it would someday be expanded to class attendance, but I don't think that is in the plan right now.

silus99 wrote:I know the Church is working on an app for sacrament attendance that would allow you to do the things you mentioned and report who has not been to sacrament meeting for awhile. It is being piloted now, so who knows if it sees the light of day, but the Church seems to recognize that this information is helpful in letting leaders know who is struggling and could use some more support. Perhaps it would someday be expanded to class attendance, but I don't think that is in the plan right now.

I can't even... can't even imagine tracking weekly attendance and having that data centrally located. Wow.

johnshaw wrote:I can't even... can't even imagine tracking weekly attendance

I can't either.

Now, I could imagine checking on people who aren't showing up on the other rolls. In other words, assuming that if they show up for Sunday School and/or PH/RS that they'd also be there for sacrament. (Not 100% accurate, but sufficient for spiritual purposes.)

Wow... I didn't think I would stir the pot so much.

I am keeping track of names and the bishopric uses this report for shepherding purposes. The handbook of instructions tells us (as clerks) to give sacrament attendance reports to the bishop but it does not say how detailed the report is or is not to be. My bishop has asked for this information so I am providing it to him.

We have a small ward (less than 300 members) and the attendance of members is usually below 90. Our visitors and investigators usually brings the attendance above 100. This is a very easy task with such a small ward but I don't think it would be that much more work in a larger ward. I am not using LCR for this but I am using the LDS tools list option where all I have to do is touch a radio button to indicate they are there. When it comes to a family, I know whether the whole family is there or not so it makes it pretty easy to go through the list and then the app counts it for me. It is much more work to document the investigators and visitors. One thing that is really good - I have gotten to know each investigator and when we have visitors, I will get their names so the bishop will have that.

There is nothing in the handbook that prohibits this and if my bishop wants the information, I will follow my leader.

Is there a place in the system to record weekly sacrament meeting attendance count? or is this number only input at the time of the quarterly report? (and in the mean time clerk keeps a separate record of weekly attendance outside of the systme?)

rfolsom wrote:Is there a place in the system to record weekly sacrament meeting attendance count? or is this number only input at the time of the quarterly report? (and in the mean time clerk keeps a separate record of weekly attendance outside of the systme?)

The only place to record sacrament meeting attendance is in the quarterly report.