What is Rotary?

Rotary is the world's first broadly based service organisation. Rotary is an association of local clubs gathered into a larger organisation called 'Rotary International'. The heart and soul of Rotary - the individual Rotarian - is a member of his local club and all local clubs are members of Rotary International.

Perhaps the 'official' definition of Rotary sums up our aims as an International Organisation with some 1,180,000 members in 163 countries of the world linked together in a bond of Rotary Fellowship, united locally, nationally and internationally, in the aim and idea of service. It says this...

'Rotary is an organisation of business and professional men, united
World-wide, who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical
standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world'.

Specifically, a Rotary Club is composed of business and professional men in a community who have accepted the IDEAL of SERVICE as a basis for attaining fulfilment in their life.

The ideal of service is exemplified in Rotary's motto 'Service above self'.
Service Above Self is the thread that links Rotarians around the world and unites like-minded men in thought and action, no matter what part of the world they live in.

It all had to start somewhere of course:-

A young lawyer, was feeling lost and alone in the cold winter weather of
Chicago USA. On the evening of 23rd February 1905, Paul Harris, for
that was the young lawyer's name, met with three friends to discuss an
idea which he had been thinking about for some time.

Rotary Ideals

From the outset it was the hope of Paul Harris that his club would become a vehicle by which men of goodwill could carry out humanitarian acts in their communities.

The ideal of service is therefore at the heart of Rotary. Service in the early days consisted of meeting the needs of those less fortunate and promoting high ethical standards in business and professions.

And today the ideal of service continues. Meeting today's needs of today's people.

From Little Acorns..

Paul Harris

In 1905 when the young Albert Einstein, working in the Swiss Patent Office was advancing his Theory of Relativity, a 37 year old attorney working in Chicago was having equally strong feelings about something quite different. As a law graduate of the University of Iowa, Paul Harris recognised the distinct lack of social contact between occupations, so characteristic of his New England roots.

On 23rd February 1905 he dined with friends: Silverstre Schiele, a coal merchant, Gus Loehr, a mining engineer and Hiram Shorey, a merchant tailor. Talking enthusiastically that Chicago businessmen needed something to bring them together, Rotary was born - to meet initially at each other's offices in 'rotation'.

It took 3 years before the 2nd club was formed - in San Francisco - and 5 years before Paul Harris could persuade his colleagues to extend Rotary beyond National borders - first to Winnipeg. At about the same time Paul married Jean Thomson an immigrant from Edinburgh. Hence the strong association between Rotarians on both sides of the watery divide. The 'National Association of Rotary Clubs of America' was formed and now, 95 years or so later, there are some 1,180,000 members in 163 countries of the world.

But how did Rotary come to Mercia? Stewart Morrow, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin, had emigrated in to America in 1885 and later became a member of The San Francisco Club. After visiting his mother in Dublin in 1911he actively proclaimed the ideals of Rotary, being instrumental in forming clubs in Dublin, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Birmingham in that order. Stewart's year-long efforts in Birmingham culminated on 1st April 1914 when our mother club was chartered. With a membership of over 200 and still growing, she was the 8th club to be formed "over here".

In 1914 these 8 clubs formed themselves into 'The British Association of Rotary Clubs' , in parallel with 'The International Association of Rotary Clubs' to which the American Association had changed its name by 1911.

In June 1928, Paul Harris landed at Grimsby and visited clubs in England before rejoining his wife in Glasgow where he addressed the Glasgow Club. Six years later Paul and Jean Harris came here for a 3-month tour of Rotary Clubs, attending several District Conferences, the first one being at Worcester (District 6). Here he met the president of R.I.B.I. John Crabtree of Walsall.

In August 1921, the Birmingham's Club newsletter, "Rotaria" recorded that Past President Charles Smith "is doing this [extension] work with characteristic unselfishness and, thanks to him in large measure, clubs have been formed in Wolverhampton, Coventry, Walsall and Kidderminster....at Kidderminster he made a most forceful and human address, and it is difficult to conceive a more impressive speaker for a project of this description".

In 1922 Coventry became the 52nd Club in this new Association and Walsall the 61st. Stourbridge, 69th, just beat Kidderminster into 71st place, leaving Wolverhampton 77th and Rugby 85th. The official journal of the The National Association of Rotary Clubs, "The Rotarian" for that year records our formation as "Club No. 1246 in R.I., formally chartered on July 17th 1922 under the auspices of No. 2 District Council, England - Midland (within the 'International District 19 comprising Great Britain')".

In the same year the name "Rotary International" was coined and, to all intents and purposes, the British Association begat the R.I.B.I. although this term required a prolonged and argumentative gestation period of 45 years before its eventual acceptance internationally. Twelve months later we became District 6, until July 1957 when we changed to 106, eventually becoming 1060 in July 1991.

Unlike the Inner Wheel, but not unlike the New Testament, the documentation of our formative years is lost in the mists of time, but we are recorded as being the first club to be chartered under the new "Standard Club Constitution" adopted by R.I. on the 6th June 1922.