The Newsletter function on LDS.org will be discontinued effective February 28, 2017.
The Newsletter (lds.org/member-news) provides the ability for ward and stake leaders to post a newsletter for members of their wards and stakes to read. Because of low usage, outdated technology, and widely-available alternatives that units can use to distribute newsletters, the newsletter function will be retired.
Wards and stake may consider the following actions to migrate from this Newsletter tool to another means of distributing information to members.
On December 14, 2016, an email was sent to bishops and stake presidents of units that had used the Newsletter in the last two years. It encouraged them to make plans to use other means to distribute information to members, such as printed newsletters, information in Sunday bulletins, email, or online programs. Guidelines for using online resources in Church callings may be found at internet.lds.org.
By February 15, 2017: Units should retrieve from the Newsletter any information they would like to keep. If they don’t already have a copy of what has been posted, they may:
- Download text by highlighting and copying it into a word processing document.
- Download images by right-clicking and saving them.
- Download attachments by clicking the download icon to the right of the names of attachments.
On February 28, 2017: The Newsletter section will be removed from LDS.org and any information in it will no longer be available.
If you have questions or problems, please go to the Newsletter section at lds.org/member-news and click the “Do You Have Feedback about This page?” icon at the bottom of the page. Any feedback submitted by February 28, 2017, will be monitored and replied to. Or you may leave a comment below which I will monitor and respond to.
That is unfortunate the newsletter function is going away. Our ward just started using it and it seems to provide some very useful functions (historical for one) that can’t be accomplished through any other means. I suspect it wasn’t used because many people didn’t know it existed. All of the other means suggested, “such as printed newsletters, information in Sunday bulletins, email, or online programs” are really old technology and don’t replace it. We already send e-mails but those get lost in the volume of e-mails everyone receives daily. It was nice having a repository where newsletters could be stored and everyone knew where to go to find them. We were finally getting members trained to go there.
Yes, this is rather unfortunate. It is a great idea. The problem with the Newsletter functionality is that it never was advertised to the point that the members knew it existed — that certainly is the case in our ward and stake. And if no one knows about it, no one can use it.
Our stake uses the newsletter function as a repository for stake forms, schedules, lists, leader directories and other items that can only be accessed by stake members. This will not be good to have to devise other means to leave this information accessible on demand while having the necessary security.
A new system is being developed to share documents within a ward a stake.
I’m looking forward to document sharing if the newsletter is going away. I put a .pdf of the ward bulletin on it for the benefit of ward members who are filling stake callings, missions, serving in a veteran’s home branch and a singles ward. I don’t want to have to maintain an email list of ward members to send it out.
What is the status of this? How do we communicate within our wards?
The document sharing option was never implemented because there are so many free ways to share documents today, such as Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.
Leaders can also use the Send a Message function in the Leader and Clerk Resources (LCR) system to send an email to members.
I agree, Bruce.
“… low usage …” I wouldn’t have guessed this is or has been used as criteria to discontinue Church programs or online resources.
“… outdated technology …” The internet?
“… widely-available alternatives that units can use to distribute newsletters …” Is there another way to make announcements available online for the specific audience of ward members?
D.G.
Only about 500 wards out of 30,000 currently use the Newsletter. The outdated technology refers to the software platform it was built on.
Our Ward will lose some efficiencies, security, and have increased administrative burden without the Newsletter. The most significant benefit is reduced complaining and service requests to the 3 Bishops in our Building. For several years, the Newsletter has provided:
1) Building Use Schedule for the Units sharing the building:
a. Room assignments for Auxiliaries: youth, cubs, Scouting, closets…
b. Agent Bishop assigned snow removal Schedule
c. General Ward unit Building Cleaning Schedule for Tue, Thur, and Saturday cleaning
d. Building lock-up plan and unit assigned
e. Link to Building Snow Blower training video
2) Emergency Preparedness Plan: Describes process, plans, Tips, FRS and Ham Radio Channel for emergency communications
3) Building Cleaning Team assignments
4) Humanitarian Project description, materials list, and on-going, Bishop-approved projects
5) Relief Society Newsletter
a. I argue that a pile of paper RS Newsletters is less secure than the current Ward Login.
While it is possible for each of these 5 scenarios to be published by Social Media sites within the guidelines of internet.lds.org. However, this introduces 5 different implementations with 5 different assumptions about Privacy, IP, Public vs Group Invitation. Each of the 5 scenarios carries independent burden of administration (adding/removing members to private groups, posting new content, etc.
I can imagine a Sacrament Meeting Bulletin will begin including lists of URLs possibly for each Auxiliary. A paper-based URL statistically has a 1% chance of being used [example name within guidelines]:
blogspot.com/southrivertonforestsprings2ndwardevents
myfreeweb.com/southrvrtnfs2ndYW
hangouts.google.com/southrivertonforestsprings YSA
wordpress.com/srvtnsecondwrdYMandScouting
weebly.com/southriverFS2ndWrdRSNews
Or perhaps worse, a Unit buys its own registered domain.
Consider a single scenario: The awesome RS President receives Bishops approval for her site. What are the chances the Bishop will EVER visit the site again? And what happens 3 months later when the admin is delegated and private information gets accidentally posted? Because the Bishop approved the site, is he liable? Is the RS President liable? The Church?
In the early introduction of LDS.org, units were provided a limited “home” or landing page for their Ward. That would provide most of the function we need. I am interested to learn how other units handle Building coordination with sharing units.
I understand and support the decision. I simply wanted to provide feedback on how we used the newsletter.