Organization/Ward emails

Does anyone know if there is a way for RS Presidents, EQ Presidents and other organization presidents to send an email to the members in their organization or to the whole ward? As a clerk I can use the "Send Messages" link under Leader Resources or Clerk Resources to send emails to various groups and have done that on their behalf for various announcements, etc. But am I correct that they don't have access to Leader Resources and if so, is there another way that they can send email announcements out directly without having to send them to me and then have me forward them on?

dbdarrough wrote:Does anyone know if there is a way for RS Presidents, EQ Presidents and other organization presidents to send an email to the members in their organization or to the whole ward? As a clerk I can use the "Send Messages" link under Leader Resources or Clerk Resources to send emails to various groups and have done that on their behalf for various announcements, etc. But am I correct that they don't have access to Leader Resources and if so, is there another way that they can send email announcements out directly without having to send them to me and then have me forward them on?

You're correct that auxiliary leaders don't currently have access to Leader Resources. They will at some time in the future (see What tools and resources are currently available?), but until they do, there is no reasonable workaround that actually uses lds.org for sending the emails.

My ward still uses the classic stake and ward websites. It's more work to keep the administrators list up to date, but it gets the job done.

aebrown wrote:there is no reasonable workaround that actually uses lds.org for sending the emails.

Maybe forwarding them through your ward clerk isn't a "reasonable workaround..." but many of us do it.

And the following isn't either, but it works in some cases.
If you need to email for an event on your calendar, any editor can go to the event and edit it, then select "send an email now," and re-save, which will send a reminder of the event right then. The email includes the description you entered in the calendar for the event, and a link to the calendar, to everyone subscribed to that calendar. I heard this technique recently called "pinging the members," so I know it is done by others, and is better than calling it spamming!

Make sure your description on your calendar is the content you need to deliver via email, with the 5 W's: who, what, when, where, and why. Change the description as the event is close to more of a reminder...
I've even made-up events, just for this emailing purpose. Don't choose "send an email later," as it is not working reliably yet, and may send it 5 minutes before the event starts regardless of what you specify. These emails come from the church system, but in your name, so your email company won't accuse you of spam.

Thanks for the ideas. I'll probably just keep forwarding emails for them and I'll let them know about the calendar edit idea.