There's a question that comes back every enrollment season and almost never gets a straight answer: which documents is the club required to have? The secretary suspects something is missing, the director doesn't want to find that out in the middle of a trip, and the parent just wants to understand why they have to sign four sheets of paper in the same afternoon.
This article is the map. One line per document: what it is, when it starts being required, who signs it, where it's filed, and for how long. The source is the Administrative Manual of the Pathfinder Club, from the South American Division — the Adventist Church's headquarters for South America, abbreviated SAD. We used the official PDF, 2020 edition, 240 pages, from the secretary (3.4), annual insurance (3.5), and finance (3.6) sections.
And there's a part the manual simply doesn't answer: how long to keep a minor's file and how to dispose of what has expired. We searched the word through the entire document — there is no written retention period, and the LGPD is not cited a single time. We work out that math here, law in hand, separating what is regulation from what is your board's own decision. Data checked on July 22, 2026.
What are the club's mandatory documents, one by one?
Before the table, a note on terms. The manual separates two things: Forms (A through D) are sheets that someone fills out; Attachments (A through F) are ready-made templates the club copies — three official letters, one fee-tracking sheet, the letter of recommendation, and the outing authorization. That's why there's both a "Form A" and an "Attachment A" — and they have nothing to do with each other. Form A is the registration form, on page 210. Attachment A is an official-letter template, on page 216.
Now the full map. The first two columns say when each document comes into existence; the last one is the only one that does not come from the manual — we explain why in the retention-period section.
| Document | When it's required | Who signs it | Where it's filed | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Registration form (Form A, p. 210) | At enrollment and at each year's renewal | The Pathfinder and the parent or legal guardian | Individual folder in the secretary's office, with a copy in the club folder | While a member + legal period |
| Health form (Form B, p. 212) | At enrollment; valid for 12 months | Parent or legal guardian | Individual folder, restricted access | Only the current version |
| Copy of the medical prescription | When the member takes medication during club hours | The doctor signs the prescription; the club only files the copy | Attached to the health form | For as long as the treatment lasts |
| Commitment statement to the Internal Regulations | At the time each new member enrolls | The Pathfinder and the parents/guardians | Individual folder | While a member |
| Outing authorization (Attachment F, p. 225) | Any activity outside the urban perimeter, on intercity roads, or involving an overnight stay | Parent or legal guardian | Event folder; one copy travels with the director | Together with the event report |
| SGC registration and annual insurance | By the deadline the Field sets for the year | The director is responsible for the club's registration | Official system, with a physical copy in the secretary's office | For as long as the membership lasts |
| Minutes book | At every Executive or Regular Committee meeting | Secretary and director, together | Secretary's office; included in the property inventory | Permanent |
| Activity log | After each activity is held | Secretary (the manual doesn't require a formal format) | Secretary's office | Permanent |
| Honor roll book | When a sponsor or partner joins | The sponsor themselves, next to their name and the date | Secretary's office | Permanent |
| Official letters (Attachments A, B, and C, p. 216 to 220) | Whenever the club requests a good or service from an entity, company, or public agency | Club director; in the manual's three templates, the Regional Coordinator also signs | Folder of correspondence sent and received | Permanent |
| Quarterly report | Every quarter | The secretary fills it out; the director submits it to the District or Regional coordinator | The original goes up to the Conference/Mission; a copy stays at the club | Along with the financial statement |
| Cash book and receipt copies | Month by month, no exceptions | Treasurer; the statement goes to the Executive Committee every month | Filed month by month; the money passes through the church treasury | 5 years |
| Property inventory | At every significant acquisition, and voted on once a year | Local Church Board, by a vote recorded in the minutes | Club secretary's office and church minutes | Permanent |
| Letter of recommendation (Attachment E, p. 224) | When appointing a District, Regional, or General Coordinator — the three roles on the form | Church secretary and district pastor | Goes to the Field; copy in the club folder | For the duration of the term |
Three takeaways that help make sense of the table. First: the individual folder is an explicit requirement under section 3.4.1. Every member has their own, and it holds their story in the club — Unit evaluation form, copies of Class, Honor, and course certificates, photos, health forms, and medical prescriptions. Second: the manual requires setting up a dead file for what's no longer in use, cataloged, keeping only what's currently active within reach. Third: the outing authorization isn't an annual form — it's per event, and without it the member doesn't take part.
It's worth opening Attachment F before printing: the manual's template asks for the Pathfinder's name, date of birth, ID document, event name, departure and return time and date, a statement about the child's health conditions, and express authorization for them to be taken outside the municipality. At the bottom, just one line: the parent's or guardian's signature, with their ID document number. The page has two identical, tear-off copies.
To go deeper on each front: the filing and paperwork routine is in club secretary, the policy's contracting and deadlines are in annual insurance, data and minor-protection care is in child protection, and where to download each template is in official manuals.
Who signs what — and who can't sign in place of the parent or guardian?
This is where most of the real problems live. A document signed by the wrong person isn't half-valid: it simply protects no one. And when something goes wrong, that signature is exactly what someone is going to go looking for.
| Document | Signature that counts | Signature that doesn't solve it |
|---|---|---|
| Registration form (Form A) | Two: the Pathfinder's, committing to the Pledge and the Law, and the parent's or legal guardian's, declaring the information is true | Only the minor's; only the counselor's; a signature "on request" |
| Health form (Form B) | Parent or legal guardian | The minor themselves, an older sibling, or the aunt who brought them to the meeting |
| Outing authorization (Attachment F) | Parent or legal guardian — whoever holds custody | A grandmother, uncle, or godparent without a custody order or power of attorney; a message sent through a chat app |
| Minutes book | Secretary and director, dating and signing every entry | Minutes with no signature, with cross-outs, or with blank lines left after the text |
| Insurance claim notice | Club director (or whoever is responsible for the club) | Any leader; the insured member themselves; the family on their own |
| Official letter | Club director, representing the club before third parties — in the manual's templates, alongside the Regional Coordinator | A counselor or Unit captain signing in their own name |
| Property inventory | Local Church Board, by a vote recorded in the minutes | An informal list kept only by the director, with no vote |
| Letter of recommendation (Attachment E) | Church secretary (with the vote number from the minutes) and the district pastor | A statement from a friend, a former director, or a club leader |
The detail about Form A that almost no one notices: it has two signatures. The Pathfinder signs the commitment to follow the Pledge and the Law and obey the regulations; the parent/guardian signs the statement affirming the information is accurate. If either one is missing, the form is incomplete. And there's a second registration form, on page 211, for Staff — the counselor, instructor, chaplain, associate director, secretary, and director fill out this one, not the minor's version. On that one there's only a single signature, the adult's own.
When the person raising the child isn't the mother or father: the signature that counts is whoever holds legal custody. A grandmother raising her grandchild, an uncle who is the legal guardian, a foster family — all of them can sign, as long as they present the document that proves it (a custody order, guardianship order, or power of attorney). The rule comes from Brazil's Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA), not from the manual, and it applies equally in every club in Brazil. When in doubt, the secretary asks for a copy of the order and files it alongside — that's what backs up the signature later.
Notarized signature: the manual asks that, when the event is outside the member's home state, the parent's or guardian's signature be notarized. The manual's 2020 text still mentions also seeking authorization from the Juvenile Court; the procedural rule has since changed, and judicial authorization is no longer the common path for a domestic trip made with the parents' own authorization. Since the 2020 manual wasn't updated on this point, confirm the current procedure with your Conference/Association before the trip — and treat the care of minors away from the home church as part of the club's child protection.
How long should you keep each document?
Let's be honest with you, because hardly any source in this space usually is: there is no written retention period in any regulation of the movement. We searched the entire Administrative Manual. The manual requires keeping, cataloging, and setting up a dead file, and even says the club folder should let someone, decades later, read the club's history — but it doesn't set a number of years for anything. The word LGPD does not appear a single time in the document.
That doesn't leave the club in the dark. It means the period comes from outside: from general law. And there are three different clocks running at the same time, one for each type of paper.
| Type of document | What sets the period | Law | Practical period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash book, receipts, invoices, financial statements | The tax authority's deadline to assess and collect taxes | Brazilian National Tax Code, arts. 173 and 174 | 5 years |
| Registration form, health form, outing authorization, accident report | Deadline for someone to file a civil liability claim over something that happened during an activity | Brazilian Civil Code, art. 206, § 3, V (3 years), combined with art. 198, I, and art. 3 | Until the member turns roughly 19 |
| Minutes book, activity log, honor roll book, official letters, club photos | Institutional memory; included in the property inventory | Administrative Manual, sections 3.4.1 and 3.6.5 — requires preserving the history, but sets no deadline | Permanent (practice, not a number set by regulation) |
| Expired version of the health form | Necessity principle: sensitive data is kept only for as long as it's needed | LGPD, art. 6, III, and art. 15, I | Discard when replaced, unless there was an incident |
A caveat about the 5-year period for money. The tax deadline set by arts. 173 and 174 of the Brazilian National Tax Code applies to whoever holds a CNPJ (Brazil's corporate tax ID) — and the club doesn't have one: the manual itself requires transferring all revenue to the church treasury. In other words, the legal obligation to keep the receipt belongs to the Conference/Association or the local church. The 5 years serve here as a practical reference for the copy kept at the club, so it isn't discarded before the original is. No movement regulation sets this period for the club itself.
Where the "roughly 19" comes from. A civil liability claim expires after three years (Brazilian Civil Code, art. 206, § 3, V). But art. 198, I, says the clock doesn't run against those who are fully incapacitated by law, and art. 3 defines who that is: anyone under 16. Translated into club routine: if an accident happens to an 11-year-old Pathfinder, the three-year clock hasn't even started — it only starts running once that Pathfinder turns 16. Keeping the form and the authorization until the member turns 19 is the math that closes that loop. It isn't a manual rule: it's what general law lets you work out.
So where does the LGPD fit in? It doesn't set a deadline — it sets a trigger. Art. 15 says when processing ends: when the purpose has been achieved, when the data is no longer needed, when the data subject withdraws consent, or when the authority orders it. And art. 16 says that, after that, the data must be deleted, with retention allowed only under four scenarios: compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation, study by a research body with anonymization whenever possible, transfer to a third party within the bounds of the law, and exclusive use by the controller with the data anonymized. Keeping the form because "it might come in handy someday" fits none of those four.
A necessary note: this article is not legal advice. It lays out the regulations and the math they allow you to work through. The final call on your club's retention period belongs to your Conference/Association or Mission, together with the church's legal team — and it's a great question to bring to your next board meeting with the District coordinator.
Read alsoClub enrollment formHow do you dispose of a minor's document without violating the LGPD?
Keeping too much is a risk; throwing it away the wrong way is a bigger one. A health form in the church hall's trash means a child's blood type, allergy, chronic condition, and two emergency contact numbers, all exposed on the sidewalk. That's why deletion is also a stage of data processing — not "the end" of it.
The framework is straightforward. Health data is sensitive personal data under the LGPD. Data about children and adolescents has its own regime within the same law. And Brazil's Child and Adolescent Statute (ECA), in art. 17, guarantees the right to respect, which includes preserving the child's image, identity, and personal spaces and belongings. Put together, the three close the loop: a Pathfinder's form isn't the club's paperwork — it's a person's data that the club holds for a specific purpose.
A disposal routine that works in the club's real world, without turning into red tape:
- Paper: a shredder or manual cutting into small pieces. A whole form tossed in a trash bag doesn't count as deletion.
- Digital: delete it from the cloud, from the shared folder, and — the part that always slips through — from the phone of whoever photographed the form. A photo of a medical form in a group chat becomes an uncontrolled copy; it outlives the disposal of the paper version.
- Before disposing, separate out what's history: name, year, Unit, and the Classes and Honors earned can stay in the club's records. Blood type, illness, allergy, and medication cannot. The LGPD calls this minimization — and art. 16, IV allows retention for the controller's exclusive use once the data is anonymized.
- Log what was deleted: one line in the minutes book, with the date and a generic description of the batch, does the job. This is our own best-practice suggestion, not a manual requirement — but it's what answers "where's the 2019 form?" without leaving anyone in the dark.
- Family request: the parent or guardian can ask for their data to be deleted at any time. The club complies, except for whatever genuinely must be kept under a legal obligation — and explains which part that is, instead of simply refusing.
Who has access to the folder is the other half of the same protection. A medical form isn't reading material for the curious: it exists for the board, the counselor responsible for the Unit, and the first-aid team to use when they need it. The logic is the same as the secretary's filing system: material in active use stays accessible to whoever needs it, material no longer in use goes to the dead file, cataloged and closed.
Which documents expire and need to be redone every year?
Half of the gaps in a secretary's files aren't missing documents: they're expired documents still sitting in the folder looking valid. Here's the list of what has an expiration date, along with the trigger that makes each one expire.
| Document | Frequency | What triggers renewal |
|---|---|---|
| Health form (Form B) | 12 months | Restart of the year's activities — the SAD's official guidance for directors calls for annual confirmation even when nothing has changed about the member's health |
| Registration form (Form A) | At every enrollment | A change of address, phone number, school, or guardian — plus the new Classes and Honors earned that year |
| SGC registration and annual insurance | Annual | Deadline set by the Field; the policy runs for 1 year and billing happens twice a year, in April and August |
| Property inventory | Annual, plus one-off updates | A vote by the Local Church Board, and any acquisition of a higher-value item, in the month it happens |
| Report to the Conference/Association | Quarterly | End of the quarter; goes up through the District or Regional coordinator |
| Financial statement | Monthly | Presented to the club's Executive Committee |
| Outing authorization (Attachment F) | Per event | Every new activity. There's no "annual" authorization that covers all outings |
| Letter of recommendation (Attachment E) | Per term | The form itself has a field for the year the role will be held |
One distinction that confuses a lot of people: the 12-month validity of the health form is operational guidance published on the official Pathfinders website and reflected in the SGC — it isn't written as a deadline inside the Administrative Manual. The per-event authorization requirement, on the other hand, is in the manual, in the section covering extraordinary meetings: activities outside the urban perimeter, on intercity roads, or involving an overnight stay require written authorization, and without it the Pathfinder doesn't take part.
A calendar tip that saves Sundays: tie the forms' renewal to the same month the club does its SGC registration. One enrollment meeting, one stack of paper, one data-entry push. When the two routines run separately, the physical folder and the system start to drift apart — and that's when you end up with a member who was at the meeting but wasn't on the insurance.
Does SGC registration make the paper folder unnecessary?
No. And this is one of the manual's most literal statements. Section 3.4.2 says, about member registration, that even with a virtual record "a physical copy must exist in the Club's secretary's office." The manual is from 2020, and the SGC had already existed since 2015 — meaning the requirement for a physical copy was written knowing the system exists.
The SGC, the Club Management System, is the church's official database for Pathfinders and Adventurers. It's where a member comes to exist for the structure: that's where registration comes from, that's where the annual insurance comes from, and that's where the SAD reads a club's administrative health. In the club star-rating classification, with rules updated on January 1, 2024, documentation criteria carry a lot of weight within a total of 1,000 points: annual insurance is worth up to 150, the health form up to 75, keeping registrations current up to 50, treasury up to 50, and the "documents" criterion up to 25. If you don't have access yet, start with what the SGC is and how to sign in.
Being upfront about our own role: Desbravai does not replace the SGC and has no way to replace it. Registering a member within the church structure and issuing the annual insurance happen in the official system, period — no third-party app does that, ours included. What Desbravai does is cover the day-to-day layer the official system doesn't: organizing the club, its units, and the year's materials. If you ever have to choose between updating the SGC and updating any other tool, update the SGC first. That's what keeps the member covered by insurance.
In practice, a club runs on three layers at once, and each has its own job: the signed paper, which is the proof; the SGC, which is the official record and the insurance; and the event folder, which is what travels inside the director's backpack on the day of the activity. None of the three makes up for a gap in the others.
What changes from one Field to another — and who decides?
If you've ever talked to another club's secretary and heard a document list different from yours, chances are no one was wrong. Part of the list is the same across all of South America; part of it is decided close to home. Knowing who decides what avoids arguments and avoids asking a family for paperwork that nobody actually required.
| Who decides | What falls under that level |
|---|---|
| South American Division (SAD) | The Administrative Manual, Forms A through D and Attachments A through F, the annual insurance requirement, and the existence of the SGC |
| Union | Support materials, Union camporees, and regional guidance that fills in the manual's details |
| Conference or Mission (the "Field") | The SGC registration deadline, which form template is actually distributed, whether it accepts online or only paper enrollment, which copies go in the folder (ID document, proof of address, medical reports), and the quarterly report's format |
| Local Church Board | The vote that authorizes each off-site activity, the vote on the property inventory, and approval of the club's board |
| Club Executive Committee | The Internal Regulations, the commitment statement that goes with enrollment, the fee, and the year's calendar |
The list of copies is the point that varies the most, and it deserves extra care. The official guidance for directors published by the SAD lists, besides the registration form and health form, special medical reports when they exist, the club's bylaws, a copy of ID documents, and a copy of the member's proof of address. But not every Field requires all of it, and not every document requested "out of habit" has a stated purpose. The question a secretary should be able to answer for every piece of paper is simple: what does the club need this for? If there's no answer, don't ask for it — that's literally the LGPD's necessity principle, and it's what keeps the folder from turning into a pile of children's ID copies for no reason.
The educational why, which is where all of this stops being red tape: a document at the club doesn't exist to impress a camporee judge. It exists because, on some random Saturday, someone will twist an ankle, someone will have an allergic reaction, a bus will run late, and a parent will call asking where their child is. In that moment, the right folder in the right person's hands is the difference between solving it in five minutes and improvising. An organized secretary's office isn't paperwork — it's care for people, put in writing.