Tracking hybrid sacrament mtg attendance

Our stake has resumed in-person sacrament mtgs. They are also simulcasting the meeting for those who aren't ready to meet in person due to health concerns.

How are you tracking sacrament mtg. attendance in this situation? We can count who is in the room, and we have a total number of remote mtg. connections. But we don't necessarily know how many viewers are behind each connection, e.g. someone could connect as cheeseblock42

I see the notice on LCR that we aren't doing the quarterly report this Oct, but I'm looking to the next quarter.

We have been holding sacrament services, in the meetinghouse, with limited member attendance because of local Covid-19 regulations. We also stream to those not able to attend in person for whatever reason. To find out how many persons attended the virtual meetings, we send out an email to all Adult Members asking how many were attending the virtual meetings. We send this request on a monthly basis, but ask purely for numbers (Not names). Similarly to what is usual in a ‘normal’ sacrament meeting!

I ask EQ & R/S Presidents to asked those whom Bishop/Branch Presidents will have given the names of those authorized to bless the Sacrament at home. Also in our Stake Bishops/Branch President will have asked their clerks to give those numbers to me the Stake Clerks until such times as the numbers are inputted in LCR. I have notified the Executive Secretary of the Area President in the Europe when we can use LCR for Sacrament Reporting but have not yet received a reply.

On the Church web site at Leader and Clerk Resources > Reports > Quarterly Report, the following statement is posted at the top of the page: "Due to COVID-19 and the disruption in Church meeting schedules, wards and branches do not need to submit a Quarterly Report for this quarter. Church headquarters will automatically complete the reports using the attendance percentages from the same quarter in 2019. This pattern will continue until normal Church meeting schedules are reinstated." For now, there is no need to track attendance, at least as requested from SLC. The timing is outlined as "...until normal Church meeting schedules are reinstated." I guess local leaders could ask,...

In addition to that guidance, our stake clerk has told us to combine the attendance numbers of our "A-L" Sacrament meeting with those of our "M-Z" Sacrament meeting, and record the total in LCR. We only hold one Sacrament meeting per week, so every other week, I do not record a count at all. For other weeks, I record the combined attendance of the past two weeks. I do not make any effort to record the number of viewers at home.

Thank you for your responses. We are aware that this isn't being tracked for the quarterly report, but we would like to have a sense of how things are going in our stake until we are past the COVID situation.

We are simply tracking in-person sacrament meeting attendance, looking for general trends (are there wild fluctuations in attendance? Is there a general trend in more or less members attending?). Nothing with virtual attendees, mostly because as mentioned it's difficult to ascertain who is logged on, and how many eyeballs are actually behind each login.

We're not reporting anything (as was mentioned above), but hope to get an idea of how Sept compared to Oct, and then Nov., etc. Obviously lots of variables involved during Covid that impact in-person attendance, but at least if we have some data, we can see if it's useful.

What we do in our Ward is when people sign in to the Zoom/Church platform the also add the number of people watching with them at home for example Cooke-2, Jones-5, Anderson-12, etc. The ExSec sent an email to all the members asking them to do this and it really gives us a more accurate record of how many people are actually attending and watching the meeting so that Bishop can see the numbers just as in pre-Covid days.

I add a text bar to the bottom of my image (using Logitech Capture) that says, "Please report in the chat window the number of people viewing from your location." During the meeting, I transcribe the names and counts into an email message to myself, then tally the count viewing remotely and the count of those physically present. If anyone doesn't provide a count, I just use the number of people in their household from the membership records.

On a side note, I am surprised at the number of "active" members who have never connected to our online Sacrament broadcast. We also have other formerly active members who have just gone missing since March 2020. They sometimes chat on the ward Facebook group, but that's it.

drepouille wrote:On a side note, I am surprised at the number of "active" members who have never connected to our online Sacrament broadcast. We also have other formerly active members who have just gone missing since March 2020. They sometimes chat on the ward Facebook group, but that's it.

Heard a talk in sacrament today about ministering to an individual who had canceled their internet due to the economic hardship when they lost their job. I have to wonder how many have suspended "unnecessary" services. Their phone may or may not be sufficient.

Our broadcast is done using the Livestream service. We have many members who either have incorrect emails in their member profile, don't have emails or don't use email (age). We also have a Facebook page for the ward. Each week, I (Ward Everything Clerk) post a link to the Facebook page reminding everyone of the upcoming broadcast and reminding everyone to report to me their attendance numbers by family. I also send out emails to any/all who do have emails using the "send a message" function in LCR. If the church had an easy method for sending out mass texts (without coming from my number) I would probably use that too. We also have a slide that precedes the broadcast reminding everyone to report to me. During/after the meeting I typically get a flood of messages to my SMS, my Facebook post, by email or by Facebook messenger with the numbers by family. Bishop, or one of his counselors, will send me the total actual attendance from church if I'm not able to attend (regulations in our country limit participation to strict guidelines). I tally them up on a spreadsheet to keep track of possible duplicates (multiple people from the family reporting) and non-reports (so that we can have the ministering couples follow up) and then report the numbers in LCR.

Despite the message previously mentioned regarding quarterly reports, our stake has asked that we continue to track attendance on a weekly basis. It sounds like a lot, but I've gotten it down to a simple process which only takes me maybe 30 minutes to complete at the end of the day.

I add a test message to the bottom of my video stream, which asks everyone online to report their numbers in the chat window of the virtual meeting. I also walk around the chapel and use a tap counter on my phone to count heads.

As usual, our area authority has asked us to count "visitors" for our Christmas program, both in the chapel and online. I have always found that to be a challenge. How can I tell a visiting non-member from a visiting family member? I don't expect any non-members to join our virtual meeting, but if they did, how would I know whether they are members or not?

I understand the reason for the tasking, but I don't understand the process to be used. It assumes we will chat with every unfamiliar face and name. As a clerk, I don't do that.

drepouille wrote:How can I tell a visiting non-member from a visiting family member? I don't expect any non-members to join our virtual meeting, but if they did, how would I know whether they are members or not?

I would not think it mattered whether a visitor was a member or not. If they showed up at the chapel, they would still be counted for sacrament meeting. I would expect that the same rule would apply for virtual visitors, based on the fact that sacrament meeting attendance has always been anyone present, member or not.

lajackson wrote:I would not think it mattered whether a visitor was a member or not. If they showed up at the chapel, they would still be counted for sacrament meeting. I would expect that the same rule would apply for virtual visitors, based on the fact that sacrament meeting attendance has always been anyone present, member or not.

That's true for standard church policy. But apparently the Area Authority has made a request. Probably to get an idea of how some missionary efforts are working out.

Either one does the best they can or they push back to the Area Authority.

We received the following:

The Area Presidency would like to know how many friends and acquaintances, (just the number) were in attendance, or virtually participated in the “Come and See Sunday” sacrament meeting.

drepouille wrote:We received the following:

The Area Presidency would like to know how many friends and acquaintances, (just the number) were in attendance, or virtually participated in the “Come and See Sunday” sacrament meeting.

Since it's just for one Sunday, I'd suggest comparing that Sunday against the prior Sundays. Anyone new who isn't clearly a member would be part of the count.

In our 'in person' meetings, we vary from 50 to over 70 from one Sunday to the next. Also, one could ask the missionaries if they have any investigators attending that week. Fortunately we don't have to worry about that.

We came up with a ballpark estimate that every log-in to the virtual stream represents 2 people. We're currently holding sacrament meeting in person and then simulcasting via YouTube Live. I track the attendance where each peak concurrent viewer counts as 1, and then I track it with each peak concurrent view counting as 2. I have a spreadsheet monitoring the week to week trends compared to a rolling 4 week average for both views. You can see it and copy it here if you'd like:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing