I never had one of those....I had the Elders "Shepherding" book ..The BOE promptly took it back off me when I resigned as elder . I took a few pages photo copied. Today it is on line anyway.
Why so secret? The contents are not really different to other publications..
Human nature loves having access to privileged info that the rest do not have - it feeds the ego
It makes the elders feel important , and feeds the myth among the r & f that elders are special and have privileged info , so they must be right..
It is all a matter of control