Move Member Records In/Out for Bishopric Councilors

What happened to the menu options for Councilors in LCR? Since this beta has become a thing it looks like they have removed access to many things that were there before.
I would assume a councilor should be able to move people in and out?

hanchan07 wrote: Wed May 18, 2022 8:13 pm I would assume a councilor should be able to move people in and out?

For quite some time now, counselors have not been able to make changes to membership records. That responsibility belongs to the clerks.

Yes it does belong to the clerks, but there is absolutely no reason to take it away from the Bishopric Councilors. It proves a problem when the clerks are not available or simply don't do their job, things pile up. It doesn't make any sense to take it away just because its not our main responsibility. If that is the case then why do we have the ability to make changes to members callings or enter sacrament attendance, sign off on financial reports etc. Please bring the functionality back.

No one here has the authority to make that change.

If you feel strongly about it, I'd suggest asking your stake president to take it up with his coordinating council.

Of the clerks can't keep up, then it's probably time for a change.

To the councilor, in the Church Tools app' if you can access the Manage Records / Move Records In and Out feature, it should be a good resource.

From a background of serving with many bishoprics, it's been rare for a bishop or councilor to directly move records in or out. However, with related features being available on the Church's website and in the Tools app' one councilor (or two) and a bishop in recent years were willing to handle some such changes themselves. My current bishopric prefer delegating clerical tasks.

Having been an all-in-one clerk (no assistants), as well as membership clerk at times, I'm very comfortable with the move processes. Yet, when I have a membership clerk I teach them and am available, then let them founder as needed. Some brothers find their way quickly, and others don't. Some excel, and some don't. Having patience and expressing faith in assistants works well, though development can take time. Our current membership clerk has moved way beyond me in ability to find brothers and sisters not caring or not wanting to be found, and though conditions in his personal life can delay or slow task completion he gets the work done.

Encouraging organization leaders to interact directly with membership clerks also helps with their development.

I've struggled with some of the Church's technology design decisions, at least because they've complicated operations. However, moving member records in and out used to take months for each instance.

Finding the right resource for sharing concerns/opinions helps, at least by 'getting it off my desk'.

As a YSA presidency member with high turnover and understaffed clerks we asked the stake clerk to enter us as clerks as well on the stake system so now we can request record transfers in real time.

ldswpmd3lds wrote: Sat Dec 16, 2023 5:37 pm As a YSA presidency member with high turnover and understaffed clerks we asked the stake clerk to enter us as clerks as well on the stake system so now we can request record transfers in real time.

The challenge with that approach is that a stake clerk cannot move membership records. Only a ward clerk can do it. And there is a limited number of clerk positions (three*) available in each ward, besides the busy bishop. But I would think that three clerks should be enough even in a unit with high turnover.

* Ward Clerk
Assistant Ward Clerk
Assistant Ward Clerk--Membership

As a former clerk in a student ward (without assistants), just one person can do that - as long as everyone feeds him the information. Likely that would take a locally created form to capture the necessary information and route it to them.

With a number of people doing the moves, you can quickly run into the classic "too many cooks in the kitchen". Someone gets moved in, no one knows or remembers them, no one will take responsibility for having talked to them. There might be reasons why someone shouldn't be moved in/out, but unless that's communicated to all of them, it might happen anyway.

As a YSA presidency member with high turnover and understaffed clerks we asked the stake clerk to enter us as clerks as well on the stake system so now we can request record transfers in real time.

Moving records in-and-out is only part of what is needed. Organization leaders need to be made aware of each new move-in. Often contact with a previous Bishop is desired to get background on a new-move-in member. Bishops will want to meet with the new-move-in member. And other logistical aspects you can likely relate to, that a clerk might be well-suited to help out with.

I've seen places where clerks are experts at getting records moved in, but then those records just sit there for weeks/months and nobody is acting on following up or personally contacting them. Perhaps you've already taken that into account, so just a separate observation that while the records moving is definitely a priority for high-traffic units like yours, for every record moved, there's follow-on work required that sometimes can get overlooked once the records are successfully moved. And back to the O.P., if a Bishop Counselor were to move a record, that's a potential short-circuit in the system that might create an oversight and allow a new move-in to slip through the cracks. Just my two cents