revsion & amendment to bylaws

[Guest marykcarlisle]

We have reviewed and revised the bylaws two years ago. We have made minor changes (eg. dates and $ amounts for dues) but no major revision - how do you suggest we identify a footnote or something so we all know we have the same copy?

My idea was to have the footnote show:

Amended date Revised Date Page #s

Is this correct?

In my thinking, the revision is a complete review & revise' while an amendment is only a minor change and no complete review.

[hmtcastle]

In my thinking, the revision is a complete review & revise' while an amendment is only a minor change and no complete review.

Any change is, by definition, an amendment. The extent of the change is immaterial.

It's not uncommon to put, for example, "As amended November 4, 2010" at the end of the most recent copy. You needn't note when each individual change was made (that will be recorded in the minutes).

[Kim Goldsworthy]

Is this correct?

RONR does not provide a canned solution.

I wrote an article for the periodical of the National Association of Parliamentarians ("National Parliamentarian") titled "Versions of Bylaws Floating Around?" (published in vol. 68, 4th quarter, 2007).

In my article, I list some possible solutions.

• A running header or a running footer, which includes the date of the last amendment. Option: If your computer allows for this, have the header or footer contain the date this document was printed out.

• A coda, listing every date in which there was an amendment. The last entry, of course, will be the last date. The hard copy with the latest date must be the one which is more current than the other hard copies.

To aid your "paper trail", you should distribute a copy of each new edition to every member, so that tracing at least one person who has a copy of the edition in question is made easier, should the master copy be lost or destroyed.

And, boy, yowza, those master copies do indeed get lost or get destroyed!