Rotary Districts

Bill MacKay presented the Club with a very interesting history of the makeup of Districts.  There are 1.2 million Rotarians in 35,000 Clubs, just like the Rotary Club of Belleville, doing good all over the world.  This network of clubs makes up Rotary International. As a club member, you help elect your own leaders each year and your President works with President-Elect, officers, board members and committee chairs to manage the Club.  Our club pays dues to Rotary International and in return RI provides resources, training and programs to help our club run effectively.

 

Our club and others in our geographic area are part of a district, led by our District Governor who will be coming to visit the Club next week.  Districts help clubs connect to each other and access Rotary resources.  There are 530 Districts around the world and these are organized into 34 zones.  Some districts are International in nature and can include several countries as part of one district.  We are part of Zone 24 and 32 which is made up of the French Islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, most of Canada, Alaska, parts of the U.S.A. and Bermuda.  Each zone has about the same number of Rotarians.

 

Rotary came to Ontario to what is now District 7070 when the Rotary Club of Toronto was chartered in 1913.  No more clubs were formed until 1920, when clubs were chartered in Belleville, Guelph and Oshawa.  The number of clubs increased steadily and by 1956, the district (then 247) had 60 clubs in an area that extended from Belleville and Picton on the east to Guelph and Alliston on the west and north as far as La Sarre in Quebec.  In 1957, District 247 was divided into District 7070 (0) with 32 clubs and District 7070 (0) with 28 clubs.  By 1986, the number of clubs in District 7070 had increased to 65 and further re-distribution was necessary.  Seventeen clubs on the west side were moved to a new District 7080.  Today, District 7070 has 534 clubs with 2,300 members and extends from Belleville and Picton west to Metropolitan Toronto and north to Alliston.

 

Four international conventions have been held in the District, all in Toronto.

 

If you are looking at future travel plans, next year's International Convention will be held in Atlanta, Georgia.  The fifth Convention will be held in Toronto in 2018 with Hamburg, Honolulu, Taipei and Houston hosting in successive years through to 2022.  And although our club is the third largest club in the District at 127 members, the largest Rotary Club based on membership in the world is Seattle at 642 members.