Copy Limits

What does your Stake/Ward do for copy limits (per ward/branch, per use)? What is considered "excessive"? What is the figure that you ask your different organizations to use copy shops instead of a Church provided copier and expense out through their budgets?

I have heard varying numbers during my tenure as a Ward Clerk, and keep hearing from one of my ward librarians that the amount of copies in some cases are pretty excessive (one was close to 300 for just one person's YW copies at one time, another was upwards of 700 for Primary, and another was 145 for one time by the YM). I would tend to agree that these amount of copies should be done elsewhere, since my understanding is that the copiers in the library are supposed to be for incidental use only. I have brought this up to my Agent Bishop in the building (our ward's bishop this year) and have addressed this issue with our ward council to try and curb some of this type of activity.

Am I trying to monitor/control this too much, or am I on track with what the rest of wards/branches in the Church are doing?

maxzmiz wrote:I would tend to agree that these amount of copies should be done elsewhere, since my understanding is that the copiers in the library are supposed to be for incidental use only.

The "incidental use only" sounds like a local policy. Every stake or set of wards in a building can set their own policy, but I have a different take on this. It's precisely when I see someone doing a large copy job at 10 cents a copy, when I know that we can do it for about a penny, that I cringe. That's a big waste of Budget funds.

Now of course, during the busy times on a Sunday, the copier can't be tied up doing more than a couple dozen pages at a time. But other than that, it will save the Church money overall if we use the copiers in house, rather than paying much more to a copy shop. Our stake encourages use of the building copiers.

"Incidental use only" seems like an absolute waste. While I don't know the specs used to decide what type of machine to purchase, my feeling is that to justify having it means more regular use than that. Perhaps contacting your FM group might help. I know the type of copier you receive is dependent on the number of units that will be using it. They must have some type of expectation for the amount of use each unit will place on the machine.

I also don't know how often copiers are replaced... It is definitely before the warranty expires.

My stake does not put limits (one copier shared by 9 units). All wards copy their programs there (~200 per unit per week) plus all the fliers and handouts associated with all their respective activities. We've had it four years now without a single problem.

We do print stake conference programs off-site, however (~2000).

aebrown wrote:It's precisely when I see someone doing a large copy job at 10 cents a copy, when I know that we can do it for about a penny, that I cringe. That's a big waste of Budget funds.

I wasn't aware that the cost was that low on the church copiers? I haven't looked at the numbers for church machines, but at home we have a a color laser MFP. I've run some numbers on it and I know it's less expensive for me to go elsewhere, but we have these machines for convenience so we don't have to go somewhere. Maybe the church gets a good deal on toner? I don't even think I can print a page on my B&W laser printer for US $0.01.

I'll have to look at the numbers on the church copiers to see what it costs us. Maybe we shouldn't be directing people to copy shops if it's that inexpensive.

maxzmiz wrote:What does your Stake/Ward do for copy limits (per ward/branch, per use)? What is considered "excessive"?

We don't have a limit. I also find it hard to understand why you would have a limit if its for church business.

maxzmiz wrote:What is the figure that you ask your different organizations to use copy shops instead of a Church provided copier and expense out through their budgets?

We don't copy expense is only paper and toner and the costs is split by the wards in the building out of there budgets. In our ward these cost are caught under the library budget.

maxzmiz wrote:I would tend to agree that these amount of copies should be done elsewhere, since my understanding is that the copiers in the library are supposed to be for incidental use only.

The church has provide some very nice professional size copiers that can handle a lot of different coping processes. I do not think they were install for anything other than coping what ever is needed no matter the size/amount of copies is needed for the project.

maxzmiz wrote:Am I trying to monitor/control this too much, or am I on track with what the rest of wards/branches in the Church are doing?

I think your trying to monitor/control to much. There are ways to set the copiers up so each ward in the building has a different code to use so you can charge the ward for the cost of copiers. I find it better if the wards just work together when purchasing toner and paper.

In our building the ward each just by one toner cartridge and equal amounts of paper, last time it was five boxes each. Since there is only two wards in the building one toner cartridge in the machine and the other one is on the self. When the one on the self goes in the machine we each purchase another cartridge. Same with paper when are down to the last box we order 5 more boxes. That way the expenses are equal. We don't worry about one ward making more copies than the other, it will all come out in the wash.

We do the same type of process when it comes to sacrament cups.

mevans wrote:I wasn't aware that the cost was that low on the church copiers? I haven't looked at the numbers for church machines, but at home we have a a color laser MFP. I've run some numbers on it and I know it's less expensive for me to go elsewhere, but we have these machines for convenience so we don't have to go somewhere. Maybe the church gets a good deal on toner? I don't even think I can print a page on my B&W laser printer for US $0.01.

Its hard to compare the cost of laser printer ink verses copier toner as printers tend to use much more ink than a copier.

mevans wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be directing people to copy shops if it's that inexpensive.

No you should not be directing members to copy shops as they have already paid for the copier materials out of their ward budgets.

Gary_Miller wrote:

mevans wrote:Maybe we shouldn't be directing people to copy shops if it's that inexpensive.

No you should not be directing members to copy shops as they have already paid for the copier materials out of their ward budgets.

That may depend on local circumstances (including the kind of copier available) and local leadership decision.

Some people can be "copy happy" and by sending them to the local copy shop, the burden falls on their organizational budget instead of the ward at large.

We just received a new Xerox copier in the library a few weeks ago. According to the manufacturer, this model is "designed to handle heavy usage in large workgroups" and can produce up to 250,000 copies per month. It doesn't seem like a machine intended for "incidental use only." It could do 50,000 copies each Sunday, even in months that have 5 Sundays!

Having pointed that out, I still can't imagine why the Primary would ever need 700 copies of anything all in one shot. I mean, even this amazing, new copier we have couldn't hold 700 blank sheets at a time for a job like that. Even if it could (with an optional, additional tray) it would take 13 minutes to complete the job. Who's making the librarian spend 13 minutes on one person's task? One immediately wonders if people are using the copier for their own, personal, non-church purposes. Seems like the ward council needs to explore this further.

(And, seriously, it's 2013! Do we really need everything on paper today when so many people can store documents on tablets and telephones?)

mrrad wrote:Having pointed that out, I still can't imagine why the Primary would ever need 700 copies of anything all in one shot.

In a primary with 100 kids that would only 7 pages per kid. I could see that happening there was something the primary presidency wanted the children to all have. Things like a articular from the friend, a general conference work book, a sharing time activity. I can think of many things that may require that.

mrrad wrote:Even if it could (with an optional, additional tray) it would take 13 minutes to complete the job.

I would imagine something that large being done during the week.

mrrad wrote:Who's making the librarian spend 13 minutes on one person's task?

Its the librarians stewardship to take care of these needs.

mrrad wrote:One immediately wonders if people are using the copier for their own, personal, non-church purposes.

One of the reasons we have librarians is to make sure that the items from the media center being used is not for personal use. However, you need to understand that the media center materials are also there to check out for use at home. So I could see it be OK to make copies of something for a Home Evening lesson.

mrrad wrote:Seems like the ward council needs to explore this further.

The media center falls under the direction of the Ward Sunday School Presidency. If something needed done it would fall under their responsibility to explore not the ward council. There is much more important things for the ward council to handle than if someone is improperly using the library.

Gary_Miller wrote: The media center falls under the direction of the Ward Sunday School Presidency. If something needed done it would fall under their responsibility to explore not the ward council. There is much more important things for the ward council to handle than if someone is improperly using the library.

But if there were a problem, wouldn't the Sunday School President bring up this topic in the ward council meeting so that the auxiliary leaders could then tell their members to be more careful?

mrrad wrote:But if there were a problem, wouldn't the Sunday School President bring up this topic in the ward council meeting so that the auxiliary leaders could then tell their members to be more careful?

If there was a problem yes. However, from your description in your OP it would be my belief the real problem is a Ward Librarian who personal belief is there is no real reason for all these copies, and they could be right.

Having been around for sometime working with the youth organizations I can see where it would be very easy for a organization to need the number of copies you have described, especially if there is large number of youth in the organization.

My point being I see no need for the SSP to waste the valuable time of a ward council meeting to discuss this since its really not a big problem.

In my reality, it would be a treat to see the Sunday School President attend a ward council meeting in the first place. It's just not a calling that gets a lot of magnification, in my world. (I'm not saying that's how it should be, just how it has been.)

Since this thread inspired me to look up the real specifications of our real copier in the meetinghouse library, if anyone asks me about "too many copies" being made, I'll happily tell them not to worry... because ours can literally handle one million copies per ward each year!

mrrad wrote:In my reality, it would be a treat to see the Sunday School President attend a ward council meeting in the first place. It's just not a calling that gets a lot of magnification, in my world. (I'm not saying that's how it should be, just how it has been.)

It is only as important as the Bishop makes it out to be. In my ward the Bishop had the SSP responsible for doing the training in ward council. He is an important member of the council.

mrrad wrote:Having pointed that out, I still can't imagine why the Primary would ever need 700 copies of anything all in one shot.

Maybe they wanted every primary student to have their own copy of the Children’s Songbook

As a ward SS President, I decided with my bishop that any copy job in excess of 20 total copies needs to be submitted during the week. Either my librarian, or a member of my presidency is at the meetinghouse on mutual night to open the library, and we do large jobs then, and tell the submitter that any copy job submitted to us on that night will be ready by Sunday morning. They do have to plan ahead a bit, but it has taken a lot of pressure off our librarian on Sundays.