Bylaws or the Constitution and Bylaws together are rules that relate primarily to itself as an organization. RONR has a specific list of articles that should be in the bylaws.

First off you need a name of the organization.

Next you need a mission or object of the organization.

Before you can do anything else - you need members. The Members article specifies the people that can join the organization.

Ok, so now you have a bunch of members. Who is in charge? That is where the Officers article comes in. It tells you who the chair and secretary are, plus any other officers that you may want to define.

By now you have a bunch of members and some officers - what happens next? It's obvious - you call a meeting. The Meetings article specifies what types of meetings, how often they occur and who can call the meetings.

The meetings do not run every day, so you need an entity to conduct business between meetings. That is where the Executive Board comes in.

Sometimes you need a smaller group of members to consider an issue in more detail. That is why you need a Committees article.

Now that you have all the members doing various activities you need to adopt some rules about how the organization conducts its meetings. That is why you need the Parliamentary Authority article.

Finally, the 'oops' factor. You need to be able to amend the bylaws, just in case they are not right for the organization as time goes on. The Amendment article specifies the ways that the bylaws can be amended.

The articles in the bylaws should appear is this order.

1. Name
2. Object
3. Members
4. Officers
5. Meetings
6. Executive Board
7. Committees
8. Parliamentary Authority
9. Amendments

NOMOMECPA

I remember this acronym by pronouncing it as No Mommy CPA.