I was called the day before my family and I were supposed to travel to another island for our family reunion.
Knowing my entire presidency would feel overwhelmed with the new calling, especially since this would be the first time any of them served in this capacity, (and obviously since I was leaving), I charged everyone with the simple task of reading all that the handbook has on our new positions.
As I’m sure you know, there’s a lot.
And unfortunately, if you’re not reading the handbook with a question already in mind, all the new information can be hard to retain.
Thankfully, it’s always there to refer back to.
Our first Presidency Meeting didn’t happen until almost two weeks after we were called, but when it did, we took of running.
The Relief Society Digital Binder
I spent a good amount of time the day before coming up with what I call, “The Relief Society Digital Binder”. I had served in the Young Women’s Presidency before and remember how much I hated printing and re-printing papers for physical binders. The next presidency was completely digital and I knew if I ever served in a presidency calling again, that’s the way I wanted to do things.
Easily shareable, easily editable, easily transferrable when I get released. (Not that I’m thinking about that already hehe)
In my Digital Binder, I included:
- Our Relief Society Directory with all the sisters in our boundaries. This included their names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and the semester they graduate since we’re in a married student ward and graduation means their moving out. Other ideas or information you could put here could be their current calling, occupations, or children’s names.
- Relief Society Callings. Starting with the Presidency, I again included the names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails, as well as each position. Then I created similar tables for Relief Society Teachers, Relief Society Ministering Secretaries, Relief Society Activities Committee Members, and Relief Society Service Committee Members.
- Relief Society Responsibilities by Person. At the top of this table, each member of the RS Presidency is listed as their own column and underneath is a list of their tasks directly quoted from the handbook. We did this to help each member know what their responsibilities are and have an idea on how to execute those responsibilities.
- Birthdays. We listed them by month with each sister’s day of birth, name, and address.
- Sunday School Teaching Schedule. In the top part of this sheet, we listed again the Relief Society Teachers, as well as their names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails. Then, underneath, we have a table for each month with the date of each Relief Society Meeting during that month, who will be conducting from the presidency, opening and closing prayer assignments, spiritual thought or council topic, who will be teaching, and the lesson assignment from the most recent general conference. Underneath that, we also included a list of topic ideas the sisters shared they have interest in discussing, to help us decide which talks to use. Under that, there’s a master list of all the talks given from the last General Conference so we can check off which one’s we’ve used and not repeat assignments or lessons.
- Ministering Assignments. We have these listed by districts and then include each companionship, their assignments, and a category that allows us to track quarterly ministering interviews.
- Expecting Mothers. In this list, we include the names of the women that are currently pregnant, their expected due date, the gender of their baby (if they know), and how we can best serve them.
- Upcoming Activities. This includes the ideal date of the activity, what the activity is, what type of activity it is, and who’s taking lead on it.
- Service Opportunities. Here we have a master list of things we hear people needing help with around the ward. We decide from there whether it’s something their ministering sisters, the service committee, the RS Presidency, or the ward that should step in to help.
- Bishop’s Storehouse list. We have a list of approved families that can receive Bishop’s Orders, and here we keep track of how they’re progressing in becoming self-reliant.
- Ward Council Notes. This is where members of the RS Presidency who attend Ward Council take notes, so it’s all in the binder and any of us have access to it.
- Relief Society Presidency Meeting Notes. This is where the notes taken during our RS Presidency Meetings go.
Dividing up the responsibilities:
During that first meeting, I listed out the main tasks we as the presidency will either have to do or supervise. This list ended up including:
- Bishop’s Orders
- Ministering
- Activities
- Teaching
- Service
- Missionary Work
- Temple and Family History
- Self Reliance
After creating the list, I also included what the handbook says in regards to each category. Then, when our meeting took place, we read each one as a presidency. Once we finished, I invited each of them to pick which categories they’d like to be over. I. made sure they knew that all this meant was it would be their responsibility to oversee these committees or responsibilities, they would not have to do everything on their own. If there was anything they needed help accomplishing, they can still call on any of us or any committee members to help.
Here’s how it ended up splitting up once everyone chose:
- President – Bishop’s Orders, Self Reliance, and Activities
- 1st Counselor – Missionary Work and Teaching
- 2nd Counselor – Temple and Family History and Service
- Secretary – Ministering
This ended up working wonderfully for us. If anything comes up that involves another category outside of my responsibilities, I simply send it to them and they take care of it with their committees.
