Weekly Sacrament attendance App

[cchang]

Is there an iPhone app that is good for keeping a weekly log of the Sacrament attendance? I use to have the LDS Clerk Tools app that did this but it has been removed since I upgraded my iPhone. How have others been logging their weekly Sacrament attendance?

[lajackson]

We write the number on a calendar in the clerk's office.

[drepouille]

We use a generic Tap Counter app.

[Mottzzz]

I just put the count in a note in my phone. There was an app for this?

[chriswoodut]

We use a general app for counting things. I use ThingCounter I think in android. Then, we enter the info in a google doc spreadsheet. We then graph attendance over the past 3 years and can see trends. We calculate averages by month/quarter/year. It's more of an FYI for the Bishop. Our ward is aging and families are becoming empty-nesters with kids moving out to college and adult life and you can see the slow decrease in attendance simply from an aging ward with almost no move-ins with kids.

[davesudweeks]

We use *gasp* a pencil and a slip of scratch paper or the back of the ward bulletin. Then we write the number in the space on the sacrament meeting minutes the assistant clerk-membership records, which is filed in a binder in the clerks office. It would be easy to graph, but none of the past 4 bishops I have served as clerk for have desired it.

[chriswoodut]

We use *gasp* a pencil and a slip of scratch paper or the back of the ward bulletin. Then we write the number in the space on the sacrament meeting minutes the assistant clerk-membership records, which is filed in a binder in the clerks office. It would be easy to graph, but none of the past 4 bishops I have served as clerk for have desired it.

Admittedly I'm probably the only person that looks at the graphs. I created them simply because I already had the data and it's super easy to do. The collection of the data and trend on the chart did cause the question about "why" the changes. Then in ward council they reviewed the list of those attending/not attending and a discussion of who could be ministered to.

[Mottzzz]

So, here's a tangent...
Are we supposed to be taking sacrament attendance counts every Sunday? I've only been doing it every three months for quarterly report. I figured if it doesn't have to go in a report, then why bother? I guess unless just as an FYI for the bishop, or something.

[drepouille]

Some bishops and stake presidents ask for more reports than are required by the Handbooks and other official guidance. Long ago, we had monthly reports. When the Church changed to quarterly reports, some stake presidents continued to ask the local units for monthly reports, even though the software had been changed to make monthly data collection quite difficult. I think the most important question is whether all the metrics are actually used by leaders to do anything significant.

[chriswoodut]

To tangent a little further (I'm going to use tangent as a verb, yep)....

I think the quarterly report needs changing with the introduction of 2 hour church. We are tracking the same attendance in YM/YW/Priesthood/RS but those events now only happen twice a month. If we're only tracking and reporting one month a quarter, it's pretty easy for a person to miss those 2 weeks and be counted as 'not attending' even if they were there the other two weeks of the month.