Rotary's history is important to understand its core values and platform. This document discusses how clubs and districts can preserve their own histories through resources like the Rotary Global History Fellowship. It provides tips for involving club members and motivating them with history. Resources like the RGHF website and the Rotary archives can help clubs document and share their stories. Understanding history is key to planning Rotary's future.
IC12 - Success and Achievements of Rotary Breakout
1. The Importance of
Rotary History –
Success & Achievements
of Rotary
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
14:30 – 16:00 p.m.
Sapphire 108
2. Geri Appel
PDG 5690 – 2002-03
RGHF Founding Member
RGHF Treasurer
RC Wichita, Kansas #30
USA
3. Session Objectives
• Importance of Rotary CLUB and the GLOBAL
History of Rotary
• Why club history is important and how to
document it
• Contributions of Rotary Fellowships to Rotary
History
• Resources available to clubs/districts to record
and use club/district history
9. Why Preserve History
“those who forget our history
will not get the chance to
repeat it, or at least, to repeat
its success.”
President 11/12Kalyan Banerjee,
India (President Kalyan is a member of RGHF)
28. All 530 districts of Rotary
International can post their district
histories and each of their club
histories.
29. “Rotary Global History Fellowship” is a
dedicated group of Rotary historians
from around the world.
You are all welcome to join us!
30. Paul Knyff
RI Director 2011 – 2013
Liaison Director Fellowships
& RGHF Board Member
Rotary Club of Weesp
NETHERLANDS
31. Rotary Fellowships - History
1928 Esperanto
1947 Yachting Fellowship of Rotarians (YFOR)
1954 YFOR Article in ‘The Rotarian’
1970 Convention Atlanta - 35 Rtns Hall of Friendship
1976 Convention New Orleans - 500 Rtns Hall of Friendship
1989 RI PRESIDENT HUGH ARCHER – ‘ENJOY ROTARY’
September – 25 Fellowships highlighted in 26 pages in ‘The Rotarian’
42. History & Archives
Authority on Rotary’s History
Communicate History of Rotary
Use Rotary’s historical resources to communicate this
story throughout our communications media
Provide digitized historical resources online
Provide research services
Maintain Rotary’s archives
57. Rotary Archives
Centralized repository for records with historical
value
All media
Books
Photographs
Documents
Audio and Video
Artifacts
Electronic records and media
58.
59.
60. Rotary’s History
Paul Harris 711 Club
Rotary Heritage and History International Fellowship
Rotary Global History Fellowship (RGHF)
Paul and Jean Harris Home Foundation
Paul Harris Memorial & Presidential Walkway
The Little Red Schoolhouse
62. Questions and
Comments
(please respect time at the microphone)
Thank you for attending!
Editor's Notes
This is the title of my presentation, which complements what Nevine has just mentioned. I am here to show you the resources that are available to you from Rotary Global History Fellowship.
It is important to understand that the first Rotary Platform of 1911 is practically the same as the Rotary Platform today. Rotary’s basic values have not changed. That is why Rotary Global History is so important.
Rotary today has evolved from its global history and Rotary in the future will continue to evolve from its global history. Therefore, in order to understand the future of Rotary, we need to understand Rotary’s global history.
I will make it easy for you. If you can remember these 4 letters: RGHFRotary Global history can help you with the rest. I want you all to write down these 4 letters, RGHF. You can type it into Google and the following website will come up.
This is the home page of the Rotary Global History Fellowship website. It has a menu of easy to use resources available to assist club leaders in making history relevant to club members.
The first item on this menu is a One page Summary of the Global History of Rotary, which you will see on the next slide.
This page alone will do a lot to enhance the understanding of Rotary Global History. There is a seven and a half minute video about Rotary Global History. There is also a very interesting text about Rotary Global History with links to other interesting pages on our 4,000 page website. You can move as quickly or a deeply as you wish, depending on your time or your priorites.
Another item on the menu is Countries and Regions.
This gives you an interactive map of the Rotary world. You can click on a region of your choice and more information about that region will pop up.
The next item on the menu is Districts.
This page allows you get deeper into the history of different Rotary Districts.
The next item on the menu is Clubs.
This page allows you get deeper into the history of different Rotary Clubs.
The best of it all is that we can all participate. All 530 districts of Rotary International can post their districthistories and each of their club histories on our website. There is no space limitations on the Internet. We are only limited by the amount of time that we volunteers put into this project.
I will finish my presentation by telling you that “Rotary Global History Fellowship” is a dedicated group of Rotary historians from around the world. You are all welcome to join us! The cost of membership is only $30 per year. The money is used to support our work, which is presented on our website for free to Rotarians around the world. Our website has approximately 1 million visits every year. Many prominent Rotarians have joined Rotary Global History Fellowship, including Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee, Rotary International President Elect Sakuji Tanaka, Rotary International President Nominee Ron Burton and Rotary International Past Presidents Frank Devlyn, Wilf Wilkinson, Luis Giay and Ray Klinginsmith.My time is now up, so I won’t be able to mention all Rotary International Directors and Past Directors, who have also joined. I will make one exception and that is Rotary International Director and RGHF Member Paul Knyff, who will follow me.
Also at One Rotary Center are the 711 room and the Paul Harris gallery. These are on the 16th floor. The 711 room is a reproduction of the office where the first rotary meeting took place. The room is filled with some original building materials from the Unity Building in downtown Chicago and period pieces to give a sense of what the office might have looked like in 1905. A group of Rotarians was instrumental in creating this room, first at the Unity Building and then elsewhere when the Unity Building was torn down in the 1980s. This group later became the Paul Harris 711 club and is still in operation. In 1992, the room was moved to One Rotary Center where it is still on display for visitors. The 711 club still remains active promoting the 711 room and Rotary history, and supporting Rotary’s archives.
We have typical organizational records like board, trustee, and committee minutes, publications that we’ve created, etc. I’m showing you some fun stuff. But we also have quite a bit of original Paul Harris material including this set of letters.