Facts about Rotary

Did  you know?

That  Rotary founder Paul Harris wasn’t the first president of a Rotary club?

That distinction is actually held by Harris’s friend Silvester Schiele, who served as the first president of the Rotary Club of Chicago. Harris deferred his club leadership duties until February 1907, when he was elected the third president of the Chicago club. 

That Edinburgh, Scotland, hosted the first convention outside North America in June 1921.  

Rotary’s first convention in Asia was held in Tokyo in 1961. Among the record-setting 23,366 paid and unpaid registrants was the emperor of Japan.

The largest convention to date, based on the number of paid registrants, was Osaka, Japan, in 2004, followed by the Rotary centennial convention, held in Chicago in 2005.