Rotary’s 2016 Council on Legislation

13 April 2016

Dear Friends

What a day…it was short as today was a break day for the delegates. Sessions started at 09h00 and ended at 12h30 including a tea break in between. The afternoon was free for delegates to “see the city”.

As advised yesterday, the first item on the agenda was 16-99 regarding the increase in per capita dues. RI Treasurer presented the Board’s proposal to the Council for the original $1 per annum increase over the next three years. Vice President Greg Podd then proposed an amendment to increase fees by $4 per annum over the next three years. This led to long queues to present an argument in support of and those in opposition to the amended proposal.

After some robust debate, a vote was called for to support or reject the amendment. The prosed amendment received a 3:2 adoption and then delegates were allowed to debate the amended proposal. After substantial debate, much of which was in the same vein, it was decided to call the debate to a close but not before Board member after Board member spoke with great passion in support of the amended proposal. Friends, I think it would be appropriate that at this time I give you some information which resulted in this amended proposal. The forecast by the RI Board for the next five years is as follows:

 

Operating results        FY17               FY18               FY19               FY20               FY21              

$1 increase pa

(Losses)                       $1m                 $2m                 $3m                 $3m                 $5m                

 $4 increase pa
 (Loss/Surplus)          $1m                 $1m                  $4m                 $8m                 $6m

 

Investment levels                   

Reserve balance        $94m                 $92m              $93m               $96m               $98m

Bylaw target              $76m                 $79m              $81m               $83m               $80m

RI Board target         $90m                 $91m              $88m               $85m               $85m

A summary of today’s proceedings and the voting is provided below. Note that the VOTES column should be read as “123-345” where “123” will represent the YES votes and “345” will represent the NO votes.

 

No	Proposal	Notes	Result	Votes
16-99	To increase per capita fees	Amended from $1 per annum to $4 per annum for the next three years,	Adopted	317-197
16-74	Amend the provisions for selecting the vice governor	Selection by nominating committee	Adopted	358-156
16-75	Amend the provisions for selecting the vice governor	Withdrawn	Withdrawn	0-0
16-76	Amend the provisions for selecting the vice governor	Proposal of selection by the Governor elect	Adopted	304-201
16-77	Amend the provisions for selecting the vice governor	Amended	Adopted	348-169
16-78	Voting procedure at District Conference	Appointment of Club president as elector and president elect as additional elector where club qualifies	Rejected	105-408
16-79	Election of council representative’s/nominating committee for director	All votes from a club shall be cast for the same candidate	Adopted	306-206
16-80	Election of council representative’s/nominating committee for director	Club can nominate candidate from own club only	Rejected	218-295
16-81	RI has power to suspend or terminate litigating clubs	Litigation from electoral challenges costs RI $20K annually	Adopted	463-52
16-82	To remove the distinction between EClubs and traditional clubs	Clubs may meet personally or online. Refer to 16-21. Name for EClub to be looked into.	Adopted	355-145

Proceedings were brought to a halt at 12h40. Tomorrow morning starts earlier by 1 hour and will go on till 6pm. A farewell cocktail will be held later that evening.

Warm regards

Natty Moodley