My memories of our club's growth

I remember a period -in the late seventies- when the membership of our Club was growing. I believe we were up to 80 members. During our meetings, the sliding wall that separates the Ventura Room from the Santa Paula Room was kept open in the middle. The buffet was served in the Ventura Room, so that we could meet in the Santa Paula Room. That worked out very well.

 

However, our members knew additional persons in the community who had expressed an interest in joining our Club. Several of us weighed the advantages and disadvantages of becoming larger. We agreed that if we became too large, the closeness of our inter-personal relations would suffer. We felt it would be better to create an additional Rotary Club. That would provide opportunity for more persons to enjoy the intimacy that we enjoyed, and to participate in the "Rotary Club Leadership" experience. However, at that time, we would not be allowed, by Rotary International, to create another club without the authorization of our "mother club" - The Ventura Rotary Club. Also, the new club would have to limit its membership to the east of the line of demarcation between the Ventura Club and the Rotary Club of Ventura-East.

 

Therefore, in 1978-79, when I was president of our Club, I and several other members of our Club's Board met with the Board of the Ventura Club. During our meeting, I said that it's harder to remember the names of members, the larger the club is. A member of the Ventura Club Board said: "I used to be a member of a Rotary Club, in Los Angeles, that had over 400 members. I remembered the name of every one of them." They denied our request. They told us we should grow bigger.

 

Subsequently, Rotary International changed the rules. After that, we created the Rotary Club of Ventura-South (4/29/83) and the Rotary Club of Ventura-Marina (3/29/85). For many years, our Club continued to have 75 - 80 members.