Report regarding the 2025 Council on Legislation

Introduction
Every three years Rotary International (RI) holds a Council on Legislation (COL), usually in Chicago, Illinois, USA, where each Rotary District across the Rotary world, is asked to send one representative to listen to and vote on the proposed enactments. These items of proposed legislation changes have been proffered by Rotary Districts in advance. 

I had the privilege of representing our District 1010 Scotland North, between 13 and 17 April 2025.  The results of the voting are available to view on the Rotary International website.  497 of the invited 515 past District Governors were in attendance during this well-run five-day event.

It is expected that all approved items should be implemented across Rotary Districts from 1 July 2025.  Rejected items can be re-proposed at future meetings of the COL, at the discretion of the proposing district(s).

Approved proposed enactments

I have highlighted below, what I believe are the more important items approved.

Enactment 25-07. Decreasing the number of members required to charter a new club from 20 to 15. (Note; as Rotary GB&I is in a pilot, which we have called ‘North Star’, new clubs can be chartered with 10 members at present.)

25-15. To ensure that District Governors promote the RI strategic plan and participate in the Rotary Foundation (both of which I'm sure we already do in D1010)

25-16. To ensure DGs give support to AGs

25-28. To provide that the RI Board may instruct a club to terminate the membership of a member. (This was proposed by D1160 Ireland and Northern Ireland).  Previously, RI’s only course of action should a club refuse to remove such an errant Rotarian, was for them to remove the charter from the club, often resulting in the loss of many other members to Rotary.

25-29. A similar process as 25-28 for removing officers and committee members for cause. 

25-49. To increase per capita dues charged by RI from 2026/27 by $3.50 to $4 per annum, covering the next 3 years. (This will affect GB&I clubs from 2026/27 when incorporated into the Annual Business Meeting papers to come this May.)  In the presentations given by RI officers, they were able to show that cost efficiencies had been achieved, and that expenditure had increased by less than inflation over the past three years.

25-53. To provide for regular updates on process improvements and cost reduction measures taken by RI.

25-57. To amend the timescale when COL representatives are elected and begin their term.  How this might be implemented has been referred to the RI Board, but is unlikely to come into effect until after the 2028 COL.

25-72. To remove the requirement for a district to have an annual conference (although in GB&I we already have that power under the pilot arrangements.)

25-76 To amend the names of the presidents-elect training seminar (PETS) to presidents-elect learning seminar, emphasising the learning element of the procedure.

Rejected items

Many of the proposed enactments were rejected.  A couple of the more important items were:-

25-65. To delay the implementation of the approved enactments by one year.

25-74. to remove the right of clubs who have fewer than 13 members to have any voting rights within their Districts.  This proposed enactment was defeated after some heated exchanges.  Apparently, the belief of the proposers was that clubs would make more of an effort to recruit more members so they would then have that right to vote restored.

Summary

A total of 86 proposed enactments considered by the Council on Legislation this year. 34 of these were approved; 34 rejected and 11 withdrawn.  The rest were either referred to the board to consider or postponed indefinitely.

If any Rotarian wishes more information either on the process or on any specific item, please refer to the RI website or contact me directly.

Alistair McNair

D1010 COL representative 2023-26

https://my.rotary.org/en/exchange-ideas/events/council-legislation