YSA and Multiple Stake Boundaries

Hi,

First time posting here. I haven't seen anything quite like my issue so I figured I'd post here about it. I'm an assistant clerk for a YSA branch in a stake that recently was split into two stakes. Now we are being asked by one of the stakes if we can generate a list of people in the branch that are in their stake boundaries and give them that list monthly along with attendance.

Now I do know that the meetinghouse locator on mormon.org will give you the assigned ward for an address, but I'd rather not constantly go and manually enter all those addresses. My next step was going to be to get the csv file from the directory exported and then somehow script it on mormon.org. However, I wanted to see if anyone knew of some simpler method or where that info is that is already available? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

gtrimble wrote:First time posting here. I haven't seen anything quite like my issue so I figured I'd post here about it. I'm an assistant clerk for a YSA branch in a stake that recently was split into two stakes. Now we are being asked by one of the stakes if we can generate a list of people in the branch that are in their stake boundaries and give them that list monthly along with attendance.

Now I do know that the meetinghouse locator on mormon.org will give you the assigned ward for an address, but I'd rather not constantly go and manually enter all those addresses. My next step was going to be to get the csv file from the directory exported and then somehow script it on mormon.org. However, I wanted to see if anyone knew of some simpler method or where that info is that is already available? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

One idea that comes to mind is to use maps.lds.org:

1. Go to maps.lds.org and sign in.
2. Go to the My Ward and Stake tab to see your branch boundaries with the households. This idea depends on the addresses being verified, but there are lots of good reasons to make sure that is done, anyway.
3. Move your mouse over the bottom of the map to display the menu/navigation control.
4. Click on the Print button (fourth from the left) to display the Print-friendly screen.
5. Under Display Options, choose Map Numbers (map and list). You might be able to choose Name Tag, but that takes more room, so it gets pretty crowded on a typical display.
6. Print the map and associated list.
7. Note the boundary between the stakes on your map, and note which markers are in which stake.
8. To ease this process in the future, you might use the Ward Geo Code field in MLS to record the stake for each household, perhaps using a system like S1-CV for the Canyon View neighborhood in Stake 1 (start all the Geo Codes for Stake 1 with S1-).

There are a couple of manual steps in this process, but it's probably a bit quicker than writing the script you mentioned (although the script would then automate the process for all future iterations).

Thanks for the quick reply!

I didn't think about the geo code field, though I would need to update that, and as we are can get quite a few people coming/leaving weekly I'd need to update that often. Also, part of the issue is that the stake boundary line is all over the place and all I was given was a basic pdf map that I can barely tell what the roads are (it's a fairly large area covered). Would be nice if a little more boundary data was available, but I'm not sure where to find that.

gtrimble wrote:Thanks for the quick reply!

I didn't think about the geo code field, though I would need to update that, and as we are can get quite a few people coming/leaving weekly I'd need to update that often. Also, part of the issue is that the stake boundary line is all over the place and all I was given was a basic pdf map that I can barely tell what the roads are (it's a fairly large area covered). Would be nice if a little more boundary data was available, but I'm not sure where to find that.

I'm not sure exactly what permissions various clerks have, but I know that I as an assistant stake clerk can see the stake boundaries on maps.lds.org, as well as the ward boundaries (and households) for each unit in my stake. I can also the boundaries for all wards and stakes. So if your ward were in my stake I could do the entire project I described just from maps.lds.org -- I wouldn't need your PDF map at all. So you may want to consult with your stake clerk for assistance if you can't see the necessary boundaries.

Can't the stake clerk also download ward/stake boundaries in KML format?

aebrown wrote:I'm not sure exactly what permissions various clerks have, but I know that I as an assistant stake clerk can see the stake boundaries on maps.lds.org, as well as the ward boundaries (and households) for each unit in my stake. I can also the boundaries for all wards and stakes. So if your ward were in my stake I could do the entire project I described just from maps.lds.org -- I wouldn't need your PDF map at all. So you may want to consult with your stake clerk for assistance if you can't see the necessary boundaries.

Ah, no I don't see any stake boundaries on maps.lds.org. I will check with the stake clerk. The stake that wants the data is not the stake our branch is in (they just have members from there in it) so it may be that they just don't have access.

gtrimble wrote:I'm an assistant clerk for a YSA branch in a stake that recently was split into two stakes. Now we are being asked by one of the stakes if we can generate a list of people in the branch that are in their stake boundaries and give them that list monthly along with attendance.

You may want to talk with your Branch President about the workload this request entails. Particularly since they are asking for it on a monthly basis. While cooperation is good, if I understand the request correctly, unless this is coming from the Area Authority I'm not aware of anything that obligates you to fulfill this request. You might want to talk to them and see if there's another way to take care of the underlying concern.

One possibility is to simply supply a list of all the names and let them figure out who is in their boundaries. They want the data, let them do the work.

A few thoughts:

1. Is this YSA branch solely made up of YSA who grew up in the local stake? If not, I don't know why the local stake has any vested interest or stewardship over any members except those with family ties to their stake since the Priesthood responsibility and leadership lies with the branch and the stake within which the branch is a part.

2. I would worry about sending a blanket export or list of all attendance due to privacy and confidentiality issues with records. If it is going to the stake to which the branch is assigned, they should be getting regular reports anyway and be able to have the data to make an analysis themselves of which YSA members live outside their boundaries in the other stake. If it is going to the "other" stake, then they have no stewardship and it is merely a courtesy and they should have no ties to anyone but those YSA in their boundaries with family or other ties, all others would be out of their purview.

3. In general I believe that the tools available for YSA unit administration within the Church have a large opportunity for growth and development and far too much manual and localized effort is going towards administration that could be better spent on more weightier matters. I hope that some resources within the LDSTech community and perhaps within the Church development teams themselves can be dedicated towards developing useful, standardized, and effective tools to meet the challenges and opportunities unique to the YSA environments both in highly-concentrated areas (Utah, Idaho, Arizona, YSA stakes) and less-concentrated areas (wards and branches within family/traditional units elsewhere).

GreenwoodKL wrote:Is this YSA branch solely made up of YSA who grew up in the local stake? If not, I don't know why the local stake has any vested interest or stewardship over any members except those with family ties to their stake since the Priesthood responsibility and leadership lies with the branch and the stake within which the branch is a part.

My understanding is that conventional units have responsibility for all who live in their boundaries - member and non-member. I think their interest is in ensuring that any members living in their area are active in a unit and not falling though the cracks. (Or if the YSA is saying "Oh, I'm attending the other ward" and attending neither one.) When a member identifies another member living in the neighborhood, they want to know if they're attending the YSA ward.

I see the coordination effort as valid, but like you I'm concerned about the workload of the proposed method.

gtrimble wrote:Thanks for the quick reply!

I didn't think about the geo code field, though I would need to update that, and as we are can get quite a few people coming/leaving weekly I'd need to update that often. Also, part of the issue is that the stake boundary line is all over the place and all I was given was a basic pdf map that I can barely tell what the roads are (it's a fairly large area covered). Would be nice if a little more boundary data was available, but I'm not sure where to find that.

It is extra work, but I find that 9 times out of 10 the address needs to be formatted anyway. I just add the geocode as part of the process. A long time ago I made a map of my ward showing all of the geocode boundaries. It's hanging on the wall next to the computer for easy reference.

Having been a YSA Clerk (non student area), a Home Ward Clerk and now a 2nd Counselor my experience has been as follows. 1st I need to preference that our YSA ward covers 5 Utah stakes, approx 375 "households" in Eagle Mountain UT. I say approximately due to turnover. We regularly read in anywhere between 5 and 10 names a week, we often reorganize our EQ and RS ministering assignments up to 3 times a year due to this. We have in the past also instituted a "finding" time 2x a month with our ward counsel and members of local home ward and stake leaders in addition to our welcoming and missionary efforts. I've spent weeks researching ways to aid our visits, record our progress, and break down local Stake boundaries I have worked with local YSA Stake Clerks, and together have not found resources that help us here. My YSA ward typically focuses on 1 stake a month and go pound doors with any leaders of the home stake and our ward council. The following month we would coordinate times with another stake, rinse and repeat.

I ended up creating an excel spreadsheet, import the household records for the YSA ward, on a second sheet, use "unique Street names or numbers" for each stake in a separate column create a formula that would search the address for each record and "match" the appropriate column of "unique street names" on the separate sheet. I would then update the "import" records, the match formula would update and I could easily "filter" records based on the local home stake. This worked great for a time.
Issues came because of city growth, now I am in the process of again researching a way to update this method because of city growth, google maps (which is what I used to find street names) cannot keep up with the streets, and housing that is being added, about a 6mo to 1 year leeway, yet local stake and ward boundaries change almost every 2 years. I believe with the process the church has for re-aligning wards and stakes there is potential for these resources to aid YSA wards and local Stakes overcome these challenges but I haven't been able to reach the right people.
This a really, really long post but a huge frustration for coordinating efforts with YSA ward and local home Wards and Stakes.

What's your goal, with the spreadsheet? Is it just to keep track of which home stake a given ward member belongs to?