Administration

(last updated 01 Mar 2003)

What You Need:

The key to improving a Family History Center is to distribute the load.  To handle its administration, a Family History Center needs officers and specialists.  There are many ways to organize an administration, and the following model is not intended to address the needs of all FHCs.  It is posted merely to lend some ideas to new Directors. 

Why You Need It:

Without an administration, a Family History Center Director must personally assume many of the center's duties.  He will be quickly bogged down by little things like acquiring keys, fixing microfilm readers, buying office supplies, organizing the library, and fighting computer viruses.  These tasks will steal away time which could be used to grow the FHC and train the staff.   The Director will soon find that he is not really running the Family History Center -- it is running him.  To free up his schedule for the tasks that only he can do, he must form an administration.

FHC Officers

• Director:  Plans, develops, and administers Family History Center in accordance with Family History Department's guidelines by performing the following duties personally or through delegated specialists.
  • Items which may not be delegated:
    1. Goals:  determines long-term and short-term FHC objectives.
    2. Growth:  plans and directs expansion of the FHC.
    3. Miscellaneous:  handles all new duties not yet delegated to staff members.
    4. Physical Facilities:  directs all remodels/additions to the FHC room, including its furnishings, layout, and decor.
    5. Policy:  enforces all Family History Department policies; establishes new policies for items not treated by Salt Lake's publications.
    6. Requests:  designs and archives all support requests to stake leadership.
  • Delegated Specialist positions supervised by the Director
    1. Carpentry:  builds display cases, pamphlet racks, coat racks, movable shelves, CD-ROM holders, picture frames, tables, and other items.  A Carpentry Specialist can quickly build items that the PM group takes a long time to build.
    2. Decor:  designs and creates wall coverings, framed art, and displays for the FHC.
    3. Layout:  plans for expansion of FHC by creating layout maps which efficiently use the FHC's space.
• Personnel Counselor:  Directs, coordinates, and keeps records on personnel and patronage according to FHC policy by performing the following duties personally or through delegated specialists.
  • Items which may not be delegated
    1. Keys:  procurement, assignment, distribution, and list maintenance.
  • Delegated Specialist positions supervised by the Personnel Counselor
    1. Patronage:  increases FHC use by wards, the stake, and the community.  Invites groups like Elders quorums, High Councils, High Priests, Relief Societies, Scouts, Young Women, and local historical societies to use the center as a group.
    2. Personnel: recruits, trains, and schedules staff.  Maintains a roster of all personnel, their specialist duties, and the training each has completed.
    3. Phone Tree:  creates, maintains, and distributes a pedigree-type tree of names and numbers that allows the director to disperse messages to all staff members.  The Director phones a message to two people, each of them calls two people, and so on.
    4. Schedule, FHC:  coordinates use of FHC by classes and groups.  This gets crucial when Sunday School classes are offered, or when large groups start using the FHC.
    5. Schedule, Staff:  coordinates the times when staff members will man the center.
• Technical Services Counselor:  manages, maintains, and keeps records on equipment and funds according to FHC policy by performing the following duties personally or through delegated specialists.
  • Items which may not be delegated
    1. Bookkeeping:  designs and maintains records of all FHC financial transactions.
    2. Budget:  maintains balance sheets and expense reports;  prepares annual budget proposals.
    3. Purchasing:  buys all office supplies, software, and library items.
  • Delegated Specialist positions supervised by the Technical Services Counselor
    1. Hardware, Computer:  maintains and inventories all computers, copiers, and printers.  Although Salt Lake's guidelines say that only the Stake Computer Specialist is to fix hardware problems, the experience of an overwhelming number of FHC Directors is that this approach does not work.  If a well-trained, responsible hardware expert is available, use him.
    2. Hardware, Film/Fiche:  maintains and cleans the film and fiche machines.
    3. Office Supplies:  organizes all office supplies; maintains list of all needed supplies.
    4. Software:  protects all systems from viruses, deletes patron files from computers, updates all drivers, and solves software conflicts.  Again, Salt Lake's guidelines reserve these duties to the Stake Computer Specialist, but the field experience of many Directors suggests a more practical solution.
    5. Library:  organizes and maintains all library books, CD-ROMs, maps, and pamphlets.
• Secretary:  Organizes daily operations of the FHC according to FHC policy by performing the following duties personally or through subordinate managers.
  • Items which may not be delegated
    1. Film/Fiche Administration:  orders and returns all film and fiche; organizes film cabinet.
  • Delegated Specialist positions supervised by the Secretary
    1. Filing:  organizes all receipts, invoices, pamphlets, and research guides; orders pamphlets and research guides from Family History Department.
    2. Recorder:  keeps minutes of administrative meetings.
    3. Signs:  creates signs about policies and prices of materials.
    4. Statistics:  maintains monthly figures and prepares graphical reports on the following -- patron names, patron hours, volunteer hours, FHC operating hours, extraction hours, number of names extracted, and names cleared for temple work.

Allied Administrators

Although the Stake Family History Coordinator and the Stake Extraction Coordinator do not have to be linked to the FHC or its staff, they and their staff members are wonderful assets to any FHC.  If a symbiotic relationship is established between the Family History Center staff, the Extraction team, and the Stake Family History Coordinator and Ward Family History Consultants she trains, all three groups may reap an excellent harvest as they help each other to reach common goals.

Sometimes, Stake Presidents and Bishops do not understand the difference between these allied administrators and the FHC staff.  When this confusion occurs, stake leaders do not call all the required individuals.  To avoid this confusion, then, here are two short job descriptions of these allied administrators:

1. Stake Family History Coordinator:  Trains the Ward Family History Consultants in genealogy and temple work.  Motivates Ward Consultants to train their ward members, preferably by offering Sunday School classes.
2. Stake Extraction Coordinator:  Directs a team of individuals in extracting birth, marriage, and other information from original records provided by the Family History Department.  Divides records into batches, assigns batches to extractors, audits the extraction results, and mails audited batches to Salt Lake.