The process to make changes to the Constitution and Bylaws of Rotary International is handled at Councils on Legislation (COL) meetings that are held in Chicago every three years. A representative for each district goes to the Council to vote on legislation items that are submitted according to a specific timeline. Philippe Lamoise represented District 5340 at the Council which occurred in April 2025.
86 enactments were transmitted to the COL. The Council adopted 31 of these enactments and they will take effect on July 1, 2025. A lot of items were just small and technical changes, but there were a few that are a little more significant. The complete list of proposed legislation can be found at https://my-cms.rotary.org/en/document/proposed-legislation-2025-council-legislation, and the complete results of the vote can be found at https://my-cms.rotary.org/en/document/vote-totals-2025-council-legislation. You can also find the Report of Action with a list of the adopted enactments and text changes. We will just expand on some items below.
- 25-07 is lowering the required number of members to charter a new club from 20 to 15.
- 25-28 and 25-29 give the power to the RI Board to terminate someone’s membership or officer status for good cause. In the past, the RI Board had to ask the club to do this termination, and if the club refused to do it their only recourse was to threaten to revoke the charter of the club.
- 25-37 is affirming the non-political position of Rotary, but there is an exception for topics relevant to the mission or programs of RI or TRF (like peace and vaccines).
- 25-49 sets the new RI dues for the next 3 years. There is obviously an increase, but supposedly lower than the increase of the cost of living.
- 25-72 removes the requirement for districts to hold a district conference. They can still have a district conference, but it is no longer compulsory. I guess Dianne implemented this one year early.
- 25-76 changes the name of PETS to PELS (learning instead of training) in official RI literature, and club leadership learning seminar instead of training assembly, but they say that this does not require any changes to the current PETS that may be incorporated, or have documents, website, that have the old wording in them.
Additional information on Council on Legislation's resources and reference documents can be found on the RI website at https://my.rotary.org/en/events-and-connections/events/council-on-legislation. This includes the new revised version of the RI legislation documents (RI Constitution, RI Bylaws, and Club Constitution). You can also contact me if you have any specific questions.
The next Council on Legislation will take place in April 2028. Legislation to be considered at the 2028 COL needs to be submitted by March 31, 2027.
We want to thank Philippe Lamoise for representing District 5340 and for his participation in the Council's legislative discussions.