Rotary Celebrates 100 years

Members only

On Saturday 18th June 2005, the Rotary Clubs of Abingdon and Abingdon Vesper met to celebrate 100 Years of Rotary in the historic Abbey Buildings Abingdon. Click here to see photographs taken on the day.

Rotary's Century of Civic Service( 217Kb)

One hundred years of Rotary fellowship and service is a great cause for celebration. In 100 years Rotary has grown from a small club of four members to a worldwide network of men and women who share a common vision for a better world. It was founded in Chicago by Paul Harris in February 1905.

The name ‘Rotary’ was derived from the early practice of rotating meetings among members’ offices. The world’s first service organisation, Rotary has a long history of helping those in need and uniting people of different cultures and beliefs.

Through the work of individual Rotary clubs, and through the programmes of Rotary International and The Rotary Foundation, Rotary is making the world a better place.

Rotary is made up of business and professional people who work to better their community and build understanding and peace into the world. Rotary is a non-political, non-religious humanitarian organisation.

Today there are approximately 1.2 million Rotary club members of more than 31,000 Rotary clubs in 166 countries.

In Great Britain and Ireland there are about 59,000 members in more than 1,830 clubs. In the last year more than £20 million was raised by Rotarians in the British Isles for charitable causes.

In addition, Rotarians gave more than 14 million man house of service in support of community projects at a local, national and international level.

The Rotary Foundation, Rotary’s corporate charity, is dedicated to furthering international understanding, goodwill and peace, and gives more than £30 million every year to educational and humanitarian programmes.

It supports international exchanges as students and teachers as well as business and professional people to further international understanding and friendly relations.

Since 1947, the Rotary Foundation has awarded more than £1,000 million in humanitarian and educational grants, which are administered at the local level.

Rotary Club International

Rotary Club Great Britain and Ireland