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*** 74% Attendence for September***
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WHAT'S
ROTARY?
Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide, who provide humanitarian service,
encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world.
There are approximately 1.2 million Rotarians, members of more than 29,000 Rotary clubs in 161 countries.
Rotarians meet weekly for fellowship and interesting and informative programs dealing with topics of local and
global importance. Membership is by invitation and reflects a wide cross-section of community representation.
Rotarians plan and carry out a remarkable variety of humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs
that touch people's lives in their local communities and our world community.
Rotary is the Rotary Foundation, which each year provides some US$60 million for international scholarships, cultural
exchanges, and humanitarian projects large and small that improve the quality of life for millions of people.
Rotary is PolioPlus, Rotary's commitment to work with national and international health organizations on the goal
of polio eradication by the year 2005, Rotary's 100th anniversary. More than one-half billion children in developing
nations have been immunized against polio through PolioPlus grants.
A brief history
Rotary's first day and the years that followed...
February 23, 1905. The airplane had yet to stay aloft more than a few minutes. The first motion picture theater
had not yet opened. Norway and Sweden were peacefully terminating their union. On this particular day, 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. |
