Using church-provided communication tools

Over the decades, we have seen local leaders use every tool they can find to facilitate communication with members. Some tools have security and privacy downsides. The church has tried to provide an assortment of safe and secure communication tools, which have been met with varying degrees of adoption and acceptance. I am just trying to develop a list of church-provided communication tools for my ward council to consider.

• Ministering network: Our network of ministers can provide a calling tree network to quickly notify members of breaking news. This network can also be used to collect valuable feedback from the members to the leaders.
• Calendar: In addition to reserving and scheduling various resources (buildings, rooms, and equipment), the calendar can be used to send notifications to the members who subscribe to and actively use the calendar. But we have seen problems with calendar notifications either not being sent or not being received. And while calendar events are visible on the church web site and in the Member Tools app, each member must routinely sign in and check the calendar.
• Send a Message: The LCR Send a Message function allows leaders to send email messages to large and small groups of members. This assumes that the individual email addresses on membership records are correct, that members regularly read their email messages, and that all members desire to receive such messages from church leaders.
• Gospel Living app: The Gospel Living app is very new, and is still being adjusted to meet the needs of the members. It is only available on mobile devices, and not available on browsers, thus limiting its availability and usefulness. As messaging apps go, it has a very limited feature set, and members must install it and join their desired circles. The adoption rate so far is pretty low, but perhaps it will increase as features are added and refined.
• Postal mail: We have the ability to print mailing labels to attach to envelopes for mass mailing efforts. But postal rates are ever increasing, so the number of mass mailing events is limited by our available budget.

Did I forget any other standard church-provided tools?

There's over-the-pulpit announcement and Sunday programs, but both neither will reach members who were unable to attend that particular Sunday for whatever reason. Likewise, there's announcements in the various 2nd hour meetings, with the same limitation.

There's also SMS via the Member Tools app, but most cell phone system limit the number of recipients that can be messaged at one time. Usually around 10.

I have created a reoccurring event for our Elder's Quorum Zoom meeting.

I have set this event to send an email reminder each time the event occurs, however, the email NEVER goes out.

Very frustrating! This would be such a nice feature to have if it worked!

https://www.loom.com/share/3e50997033c9 ... d4bfce60a3

robbagley wrote:I have created a reoccurring event for our Elder's Quorum Zoom meeting.
I have set this event to send an email reminder each time the event occurs, however, the email NEVER goes out.

The email notification "feature" of the Calendar has never worked for me, whether at the time the event is set, or as a reminder a few days before it occurs. Many others have had success with a notification at the time the event is set. And a few have had intermittent success with the reminder emails.

I agree that it would be wonderful if it worked. I no longer send feedback because my feedback was never acknowledged over the years and the problem was never fixed. But I would encourage you to do so, especially if you are experiencing the problem for the first time, because for some folks it does work occasionally.

Agreed. It only works if I edit the calendar event and select an email reminder NOW.