Are All of These Rules Really Necessary?

I received an email from a long-time friend, Doug Vincent, who is representing District 7080 at the Council on Legislation. Doug commented as follows:  

“There was much controversy and debate on the rule of 85 for excused absences.  At the last COL in 2010 the minimum age of 60 years was raised to 65 in order to qualify for the total of 85 (age and years in Rotary) to qualify for exemption from attendance requirements.  That increase caused a lot of concern for those caught in the middle with no grandfathering clause.  Today it was decided to eliminate the minimum age and so now one merely has to have their age and years of Rotary membership total 85 to be excused from attendance policies.”

Without a doubt, there are a lot of Rotary members who have never heard of the ‘Rule of 85’ and probably don’t think the idea of all these people from all over the world gathering to discuss and vote on such minutiae is worthy of the cost, effort or even our discussion.  There is no doubt in my mind that these rules are very necessary and the careful and democratic way they are amended and changed is well worth the effort. If we don’t have rules to govern what is common throughout Rotary we would soon be a collection of similar clubs who share a name and little more. 

 The ‘Rule of 85’ is a great example of minutiae to some and importance to others. It simply defines at what point of tenure a Rotarian can be relieved of the personal responsibility to attend their club meetings or make-up at another club. It is not uncommon in the world of Rotary for some clubs to have a high degree of tolerance for low attendance or be very poor at keeping records, but some Rotarians take attendance as a personal responsibility. For those with a feeling of responsibility, the ‘Rule of 85’ gives definition to when someone with tenure can safely relax their inner need to follow rules in general. 

During the next few months the decisions of those who represent all of us at the Council on Legislation will be announced. (Maybe you can put a link for people to follow you here if they want to know what the vote was) Then we will have the responsibility to amend our clubs by-laws and put those decisions into effect. Any organization that is not evolving, improving and growing is really dying. All of this effort is necessary if Rotary is to continue to evolve, improve and grow.