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HISTORY


Rotary's first day and the years that followed...

On February 23, 1905, a Chicago lawyer, Paul P. Harris, called three friends to a meeting. What he had in mind was a club that would kindle fellowship among members of the business community. It was an idea that grew from his desire to find within the large city the kind of friendly spirit that he knew in the villages where he had grown up. The four businessmen didn't decide then and there to call themselves a Rotary club, but their get-together was, in fact, the first meeting of the world's first Rotary club. As they continued to meet, adding others to the group, they rotated their meetings among the members' places of business, hence the name. Soon after the club name was agreed upon, one of the new members suggested a wagon wheel design as the club emblem. It was the precursor of the familiar cogwheel emblem now worn by Rotarians around the world. By the end of 1905, the club had 30 members.

The second Rotary club was formed in 1908 half a continent away from Chicago in San Francisco, California. It was a much shorter leap across San Francisco Bay to Oakland, California, where the third club was formed. Others followed in Seattle, Washington, Los Angeles, California, and New York City, New York. Rotary became international in 1910 when a club was formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. By 1921 the organization was represented on every continent, and the name Rotary International was adopted in 1922.

What is now The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International grew from a small endowment fund started in 1917. It became the Rotary Foundation in 1928 but grew only modestly until 1947 when it received a number of gifts in memory of Paul Harris upon his death on Jan. 27 of that year. Accelerated growth in recent years has made it a major source of activities to provide humanitarian assistance, to enhance education and promote international understanding and peace. Since 1917, contributions to the foundation have totaled $824.3 million including $61.7 million in 1994-95.

A major source of the Foundation's recent growth, and of Rotary's increasing membership, has been the burgeoning of the Rotary movement in Asia. Also growing is the number of new Rotary clubs in countries formerly in the Communist-governed bloc of eastern Europe. Countries where there were no Rotary clubs in 1987 now have more than 220.

Among programs that Rotary has undertaken in recent years, the largest is PolioPlus, whose goal is the eradication of the disease polio throughout the world. To achieve that goal, Rotary is working in coalition with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, supplying funds for vaccine purchase and manpower for polio immunization campaigns in polio-endemic countries. If the disease is eradicated by the year 2000, the achievement will be certified in time for Rotary to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its birth in a polio-free world.

FIRST ROTARY CLUB
On the evening of February 23, 1905, Paul Harris and three friends, Sylvester Schiele, Gustavus Loehr, and Hiram Shorey, met in Loehr's business office in Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown Chicago to discuss Paul's idea that businessmen should get together periodically for camaraderie and to enlarge their circle of business and professional acquaintances. From their discussion came the idea for a men's club which would meet weekly and whose membership would be limited to one representative from each business and profession. After enlisting a fifth member, Harry Ruggles, the group was formally organized as the Rotary Club of Chicago. By the end of 1905, the club's roster showed a membership of 30 with Sylvester Schiele as president and Ruggles as treasurer. Paul Harris declined office in the new club and didn't become its president until two years later.  

Meetings


Founder Paul Harris

Paul Harris, the founder of Rotary, was born in Racine, Wisconsin, USA, on April 19, 1868, but moved at the age of 3 to Wallingford, Vermont, to be raised by his grandparents. In the forward to his autobiography My Road to Rotary, he credits the friendliness and tolerance he found in Vermont as his inspiration for the creation of Rotary.

Trained as a lawyer, Paul gave himself five years after his graduation from law school in 1891 to see as much of the world as possible before settling down and hanging out his shingle. During that time, he traveled widely, supporting himself with a great variety of jobs. He worked as a reporter in San Francisco, a teacher at a business college in Los Angeles, a cowboy in Colorado, a desk clerk in Jacksonville, Florida, a tender of cattle on a freighter to England, and as a traveling salesman for a granite company, covering both the U.S. and Europe .

Remaining true to his five-year plan, he settled in Chicago in 1896, and it was there on the evening of February 23, 1905, that he met with three friends to discuss his idea for a businessmen's club. This is commonly regarded as the first Rotary club meeting. Over the next five years, the movement spread as Rotary clubs were formed in other U.S. cities. When the National Association of Rotary Clubs held its first convention in 1910, Paul was elected president.

After his term, and as the organization's only president-emeritus, Paul continued to travel extensively, promoting the spread of Rotary both in the USA and abroad. A prolific writer, Paul wrote several books about the early days of the organization and the role he was privileged to play in it. These include The Founder of Rotary, This Rotarian Age and the autobiographical My Road to Rotary. He also wrote several volumes of Perigrinations detailing his many travels. He died in Chicago on January 27, 1947.

Room 711
Room 711 of the Unity Building at 127 North Dearborn Street in downtown Chicago, Illinois, was the site of Rotary's first meeting on February 23, 1905. At that time, it was the office of Gustavus Loehr, a mining engineer and one of the founding members of the organization.

Around 1980, the Rotary Club of Chicago, the club that originated from that gathering, set about to preserve the site. It rented the room and undertook an extensive effort to recreate the office as it existed in 1905. For several years, the club maintained the room as a shrine for visiting Rotarians. That responsibility was eventually assumed by the Paul Harris 711 Club, a nonprofit organization comprising Rotarians from around the world. In 1989, when the Unity Building was scheduled to be demolished, the 711 Club carefully dismantled the office, salvaging the original interior from doors to radiators. Everything was placed in storage until a permanent place to reconstruct the room could be found. In 1993, the Board of Directors of Rotary International set aside space for it on the 16th floor of the RI World Headquarters in Evanston, Illinois.

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International Meetings
Rotary International conducts several kinds of meetings each year. By far the largest is the International Convention, held at a different location each year, alternating between regions, and open to all Rotarians. The largest ever held was in Tokyo, Japan in 1978, attended by 39,834. The second major gathering held every year is the International Assembly, and it is considered the organization's most essential meeting. Its purpose is to train the men and women who will serve as governors of the 518 Rotary districts the following year.

Regional conferences are held in specified regions of the Rotary world at the discretion of the RI Board of Directors. The two purposes of a regional conference are 1) to bring Rotarians of the region together to develop and prompt acquaintance and understanding and 2) to provide a forum for exchange of ideas and the discussion of significant topics. Presidents of Rotary International schedule presidential conferences to deal with specific subjects that fall within the Object of Rotary.

Rotary Institutes are instructional, motivational and fellowship meetings. An International Institute is for past and present officers of Rotary International and is usually held at the time and location of the International Assembly. Timely topics related to the program of Rotary and administration of RI are formally discussed and debated.

District Meetings
The two most important Rotary meetings at the district level are the district assembly and the district conference. The district assembly is a gathering of all incoming presidents and secretaries of clubs in a district, and it includes the district governor-nominee and certain key club leaders. It is planned and presided over by the incoming district governor to provide motivation, inspiration, and Rotary knowledge to incoming club officers so they can better understand their duties and return to their clubs with renewed incentive to further the Rotary program. This meeting is considered vital as a connecting link which enables the Rotary program of service to continue despite the annual change-over of club officers each July 1.

The District Conference, like the International Convention, is open to all Rotarians and their families in the district. It is always attended by a personal representative of the RI president. Its purpose is to further the program of Rotary through fellowship, keynote addresses, group sessions, exhibits, open forums and discussions relating to the affairs of clubs in the district and to RI in general.

One other district meeting is called the Presidents-Elect Training Seminar, or PETS for short. It is a training and informational program for club presidents-elect, planned and organized by the district governor-nominee in cooperation with the current district governor. Its main purpose is to help implement the RI theme

Club Meetings
The Standard Rotary Club Constitution stipulates that Rotary clubs must meet once a week. They customarily meet regularly for lunch, dinner or breakfast on a day and time provided by the club bylaws. Member participation adds interest to programs that feature panels, quizzes, skits and speeches. Several programs during the year involve disseminating important Rotary information and briefing the members on club projects and community needs.

What are called Club Assemblies are held at intervals during the year, certainly at midyear. They have no administrative functions but they sustain club activity and offer opportunities to appraise the club's service activities and to exchange ideas on how to make the programs and service projects more effective.

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