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Destroying old handbooks

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 2:10 pm
by dhensign
In the letter that came with the new handbooks it mentioned that the Stake Clerk is supposed to collect all the old handbooks and then destroy them. Has anyone seen any specific guidance on what "destroy" means. Do we need to get a commercial shredding service, have a bonfire, or just dispose of in the dumpster?

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 2:51 pm
by davesudweeks
Our Stake collected most during the broadcast and instructed the wards to shred any that were turned in to them after the fact. That is what we are doing at our ward - I have a box in the Clerk's office and I try to shred a few manuals each time I'm up there. I will have them all gone by the end of December, just in time to start working on the oldest year of financial records that we are supposed to destroy.

My advice is, whatever you do, DO NOT just dispose of them in the dumpster. They probably don't need a high-security shredding but they do need to be reasonably "destroyed." On a related note, you should do that with ALL your sensitive ward documents (membership records, old Temple Recommend books, etc).

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:12 pm
by aebrown
dhensign wrote:In the letter that came with the new handbooks it mentioned that the Stake Clerk is supposed to collect all the old handbooks and then destroy them. Has anyone seen any specific guidance on what "destroy" means. Do we need to get a commercial shredding service, have a bonfire, or just dispose of in the dumpster?
The document Use and Retention of Records and Reports—Ward or Branch (United States and Canada) says that you should:
... completely destroy records and reports in such a way that the information cannot be retrieved or reconstructed.
That would seem to eliminate any thoughts of disposing in a dumpster, but a shredding service would definitely work, and a well-tended fire could work, too.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:30 pm
by tortdog
Trying to picture stuffing those handbooks in our office shredder . . .

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:37 pm
by lajackson
tortdog wrote:Trying to picture stuffing those handbooks in our office shredder . . .
We are making sure that old CHI Book 1s are totally shredded. For CHI Book 2 and its individual sections, we are allowing them to be torn up into small pieces.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 3:59 pm
by tortdog
This is when we are all thankful that the distribution of the handbooks was always limited in number. We have about a 3 foot stack of handbooks in our stake offices. I'm assuming that the stake is going to take them to a service to shred, or some poor clerk is breaking them down into manageable chunks.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 5:24 pm
by crislapi
With it being the end of the year now, I have contracted with a local shredding company to take care of those as well as all the other documents that will need to be destroyed from all the units in my stake (2007 and older financial, 2009 and older membership, expired recommend books, etc). It will cost me $55 to have them shred 10 cases. Well worth it in my book. If you try to put even a couple manuals through your office shredder, you're going to end up having to buy another shredder for at least $70 anyway.

Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 8:19 pm
by RossEvans
Our ward started using commercial shredding last year. The shear volume of our finance files alone makes it more practical than DIY shredding. We also burned out an office shredder once by pushing it beyond the limits of its designed duty cycle. So adding the handbook materials to the annual trip to the shredder won't be a big deal. I also recall using a commercial shredder some years ago as a ward clerk elsewhere when we cleaned out the clerk's office, a chore triggered by the issuing of new handbooks and other materials.

Posted: Sun Jan 09, 2011 7:39 pm
by dhensign
crislapi wrote:With it being the end of the year now, I have contracted with a local shredding company to take care of those as well as all the other documents that will need to be destroyed from all the units in my stake (2007 and older financial, 2009 and older membership, expired recommend books, etc). It will cost me $55 to have them shred 10 cases. Well worth it in my book. If you try to put even a couple manuals through your office shredder, you're going to end up having to buy another shredder for at least $70 anyway.

Thanks for the info...I thought they would be much more expensive than that. And yes looking at the stack of manuals is quite a sight!

Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 8:49 pm
by cbradford
I wonder if the distribution center would be willing to destroy them. Surely they have a large industrial shredder or shredding service. Just a thought.