Every four years at the World Conference, members of the RC Communities review the Guidelines for the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities and change them as needed to address new conditions in society; to address developments in RC theory, practice, and organization; and to clarify Guidelines that have been confusing or incomplete. 


Before this year’s World Conference, Co-Counselors met in local Community meetings and proposed changes to the Guidelines. Then members of their Communities brought their suggested changes to the ten Pre-World Conferences. At these conferences, Guidelines “working groups” submitted written suggestions to Tim Jackins and Diane Shisk.


Tim and Diane went through all the suggestions (there were hundreds), applied the criteria in the first paragraph above, and recommended which changes should be brought to the World Conference. 


These recommendations were then sent to a diverse international group of nineteen RC leaders who met in eight conference calls, led by Diane. The leaders reviewed the proposals, revised them, and made new proposals, in dialogue with Tim, producing a set of recommended changes to the Guidelines that were sent in mid-July to everyone coming to the World Conference.


At the World Conference, all the participants met twice on Thursday in Guidelines working groups in which they discussed the recommendations and proposed further changes. Then the Guidelines Committee, in consultation with Tim, reviewed all the proposed changes and on Friday evening provided a final document to the World Conference. 


Beginning on Saturday afternoon, the conference as a whole, with Tim presiding, reviewed all the proposed changes, one at a time. They were either adopted, rejected, or modified. (A small number were sent to a committee of interested leaders for further work.) 


On the following pages, you can see some of the adopted Guidelines changes. All of them can be viewed on the RC website at <www.rc.org/worldconference_adoptedguidelines>.


Since the World Conference, a group of eleven people have been editing the changes to clarify the language. When they are finished, the editors at Rational Island Publishers will edit the entire Guidelines, working closely with Tim. 


The final 2017 Guidelines for the Re-evaluation Counseling Communities should be available in print, and on the RC website, by January 1, 2018. 


Also available in early 2018 will be a shortened version of the Guidelines, for people new to RC. It will be called An Introduction to the 2017 Guidelines, and we hope to have it available in many languages in addition to English.