On the 23rd February 1905, 37-year-old attorney Paul Harris began to change the world.  He conceived an organisation that has now spanned over 100 years. The Rotary Club of Chicago was based upon fellowship among business and professional men and women.
 
It was three years before the second Rotary Club in San Francisco was formed, and then other clubs were started in cities across the United States before, in 1910, Rotary moved into Canada.
 
In 1911 Rotary crossed the Atlantic and moved into Dublin and in the same year the London Rotary Club was created.
 
Since those humble beginnings Rotary International has become a global network of service volunteers. It is now the world’s largest service organisation for business and professional people with some 1,180,000 members across 166 Countries.
 
Rotary runs the largest non-government scholarship scheme in the world through Rotary Foundation: this gives more than £21 million every year to educational and humanitarian programmes that promote international understanding.
 
Perhaps the greatest testimony to Rotary over the last 100 years is the continuance of its own historic principle that views membership of Rotary as a privilege, an opportunity and a responsibility which demands honest and efficient service and thoughtfulness to ones fellow men and women around the world.
 
It is this declaration that will ensure that Rotary continues for another 100 years.