History of Rotary Club of Melbourne Inc.

Club History The Rotary Club of Melbourne was chartered on 21 April 1921 as the first Rotary Club in Australia.  The Club now has over 250 members and is proud to have many women as very active members in the club.

As the first Club, it chartered many new clubs.  In 1924 the Rotary Clubs of Adelaide in South Australia and of Hobart and Launceston in Tasmania were chartered, and between 1925 and 1999 the Club directly chartered a further twenty-four clubs. The Club is also the grandparent or great grandparent to a large number of Rotary Clubs in Australia.

Within the charter membership of the Club were many of Melbourne's leading business and professional men, including Sir John Monash, the great engineer and leading general from World War I and John Latham, later Sir John Latham, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia.

The Club is proud to have had one of its most distinguished members become the first Australian to be elected as the President of Rotary International.  Sir Angus Mitchell was a truly great Rotarian.  He was a very close friend of Paul Harris and is credited with the re-establishment of Rotary in Japan after the end of World War II.

Achievements

Among the Club's sustained record of Community service projects are the establishment of the Claremont Home for the Elderly, the sponsorship (with the Wesley central Mission) of the 'Life Line' Telephone Counselling Service, the development of the Crossroads Youth Service for vulnerable young people, the establishment of a heart risk reduction clinic at the Baker Medical Research Institute at the Alfred Hospital, assistance in launching the organisations Australian Against Child Abuse and Very Special Kids, and initiatives to establish programs of early intervention to prevent the growth of youth homelessness.

In the area of International Service between 1991 and 1995, the Club carried out its Australian-Vietnam Health Care and Health Education Program.  The International Committee continues to sponsor programs in South Eats Asia, all related to health care and education.

The Group Study Exchange Program of the Rotary Foundation emerged from a goodwill study tour of young professional men to Papua New Guinea undertaken in 1962-62 by Frank Newman, a member of the Melbourne Club and now Past President and Past District Governor.

The Club is very proud that it successfully advocated for the apprenticeship scheme in Victoria, as early as 1935-36, and that it continues to recognise apprenticeships as providing worthwhile career paths.

In 1993 the Club hosted the Rotary International Convention.  Some twenty-two thousand Rotarians and partners attended the convention, fourteen thousand from overseas, strengthening ties of friendship and service across the world.