Posted by Kenneth Howell on Nov 27, 2019
Every three years, Rotary International convenes its Council on Legislation.
Every three years, Rotary International convenes its Council on Legislation.  This body, comprised of representatives of every Rotary district around the world, meets in Evanston, IL to consider legislation proposed to alter the Rotary International constitution or bylaws, and the Rotary standard club constitution, along with other organizational matters for RI.  As District 5400’s representative, I attended this year’s session and voted on over 180 items of legislation.
 
In the fall of the COL year, Rotary convenes (via on-line voting) the Council on Resolutions.  A resolution doesn’t alter any constitutional documents, but rather are suggestions to the Board of Directors of RI, or to the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation.  This year, I also served in this capacity for district 5400. 
 
The results of the COR can be found at https://my.rotary.org/en/cor/vote  This link also contains links to the individual resolutions, and you may find some of them interesting.  While quite a few are anodyne, several are quite interesting.  They generally fall into the following catetories:
 
  1. Impose certain requirements on clubs to e.g. have a particular oath, have certain committees, etc.  These are generally rejected, and they were again so rejected this year.  Note that the resolution to have the board consider recommending that clubs form a strategy committee was adopted.  That doesn’t mean the board will, or that clubs are required to do so. 
  2. General resolutions directed at zone leadership, and mainly zone (and district) elections.  Most of these are always rejected, and they were again this year.  FYI, most of these are promoted by India or Asian countries, and are addressed to their unique cultural issues.
  3. Ask the board to compile and make available certain information emphasizing a particular avenue of service.  This year two related to vocational service were adopted.  One additional resolution adopted was to have the board update everyone on where they are on the tax status change (Director Jorhita’s recent telephone status call said that nothing is going on as we’re just waiting to hear back from the IRS).
  4. One resolution of significance is 19R-26, asking the Trustees to consider allowing modifications to the budget of an approved global grant.  I know a lot of projects struggle with this requirement, and hopefully we’ll see some relief on this.  Additionally, local electrical supply projects are currently restricted, and a resolution was adopted to urge the Trustees to relax those rules.
  5. The balance are various and sundry requests to add or ease certain requirements as to invoices and dues.  One interesting resolution rejected (barely) was to add environmental justice as the seventh criterion in the definition of sustainability. 
If you have any questions about any of these items, or the COL/COR process generally, please let me know!