I agree with LUV and JHB. My last group was required to review the bylaws every two years. Recommended changes were presented as JHB mentions in a "Proposed Revisions" document. The approved bylaws were then distributed as a new, clean document. The "Proposed Revisions" document was then attached to the minutes of the meeting in which they were approved.

[ 12-06-2006, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: CrewChief ]

I agree - the final copy should be clean and easy to read.

I've seen all of the approaches used during development/voting stage:

1) have changes embedded like your example
2) use the "track changes" feature of Word to show the changes as a mark-up copy where new text is underlined, deleted text crossed out (but readable).
3) Print your bylaws in two columns or tables so all the original text is on the left half of the page and then the proposed text (changes only) on the right.

But once you've voted, only the applicable text should remain. In our case, we titled the document something like:

XYZ PTO Bylaws
Amended 12/1/07

That was in the header so that it printed on every page (or you could do a footer to take less space for pages 2+.)

But the point is, you could look at any page of the bylaws and quickly see what version it was.

For me - I'd keep it clean and simple. It's not like this is state law where every piece needs to be tracked back to creation date. However, this is purely my personal opinion.

[ 12-05-2006, 02:39 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]

I would agree with your concept of how it should be done. The only problem I would see with leaving the original wording and adding the amended along with it would be that eventually you could end up with a very large and maybe confusing document.

I'd say put in the new wording and next to it have the date it was revised, then attached to the minutes of the meeting at which it was voted on have the previous wording and the new wording.

How do you show that a By Law has been amended? For instance say that our current reading is:

The Executive Board consists of the 4 elected Officers and the 8 Committee Chairs.

If we need to amend this do we replace it entirely with the new wording as it is approved OR do we show what it was then the date it was amended with the new version?
EX:
The Executive Board consists of the 4 elected Officers and the 8 Committee Chairs.
AMENDED 12/5/2006 to read: The Executive Board consists of the 4 elected Officers,the 8 Committee Chairs, the Faculty Senate Chair and the Principal.

I'm thinking you would want to show what it was before and when and how it was changed.

Thanks for your help!!