Happy Birthday Rotary!

Rotary celebrated its 111th birthday on February 23.

Club member Jim Adamson channelled Rotary founder Paul Harris at our February 23 Club meeting to celebrate Rotary's birthday.  He shared fun facts -

• Paul Harris had a sketchy youth, being thrown out of several schools
• 1907 was the first service project, the construction of the first public restrooms in Chicago.
• The 4th Rotary Club was in Seattle and #8 in Tacoma.
• Rotary became international in 1911 with addition of Canada Club.
• Original motto was "He profits most who serves best," later changed to "Service above self."
• The four was test was adopted in 1945.

A little more history....The world's first service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago, was formed on February 23, 1905, by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who wished to capture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth. The Rotary name derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members' offices.

Rotary's popularity spread, and within a decade, clubs were chartered from San Francisco to New York to Winnipeg, Canada. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six continents. The organization adopted the Rotary International name a year later. As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving club members’ professional and social interests. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this ideal is best expressed in its motto: Service Above Self.

By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members. The organization's distinguished reputation attracted presidents, prime ministers, and a host of other luminaries to its ranks — among them author Thomas Mann, diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, and composer Jean Sibelius. Rotary continued to grow and now has 1.2 million members.

Learn more at https://www.rotary.org/myrotary/en/learning-reference/about-rotary/rotarys-founder