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Brief histories of the
first clubs of each geographic regions or countries
Rotary Club of Lisbon,
the First Club of Portugal
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Rotary International
District 1960 (MISSING HISTORY)
Home of the 2013 Rotary International Convention |
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 RIP
2012/13 Sakuji
Tanka, Japan |
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Part of our section on
Europe
The world Rotarian movement which had begun in Chicago
(United States of America) in 1905, suffered in the following
years, a great increase which was strongly stressed shortly
after World War I. In 1921, when Club No. 1.000 was founded,
in Madrid the first association of its kind in continental
Europe had already been constituted. And it was under its
inspiration and protected by that Club, that in 1925, the
first steps for the instauration of the movement in Portugal
were given. On the 23rd January 1926, with a founder's group
of 23 members, the Rotary 'Club of Lisbon was constituted and
received its Constitutional Chart; it immediately started
functioning based on the Statute-pattern established by the
Rotary International for all the Clubs. Companionship, weekly
meetings, convivial and cultural diffusion talks, joined
shortly after with an action which was gradually widening
into social activities of philanthropic interest, and in
growing international contacts.
In a sometimes difficult atmosphere, marked by a
misunderstanding of the aim and spirit which inspired it, the
Rotary Club of Lisbon widened its social staff, fostered and protected the installation of
several other Clubs in Portugal |
- namely the one in Oporto,
which was the second to constitute itself - and went through
the difficult decennium of Spain's Civil War and shortly
after World War 11, without interrupting its internal activities and its cultural and well deserving achievements,
which multiplied themselves in the most diverse directions.
The action developed by the Club in the help to refugees who
flowed into the country, was particularly important, given
the circumstance that Portugal kept itself immune to the world
conflagration. Once the war was over, the Club's
international social-meetings resumed and was greatly
increased, showing itself, among other aspects, in the
fostering and achievement of youth's interchange, in the
frequent reception in Lisbon of foreign Rotarian groups and
individualities, and in the tasks of Portuguese Rotarians in
several countries.
The Club's assisting action was specially
relevant in the help to blind aid institutions (foundation and
development of the Helen Keller Centre), in the fight against
cancer, the help to children, in holiday camps, in aid and
scholarships to students, etc. The Rotary Club of Lisbon kept,
with an almost continual permanency, a Bulletin which has
been an instrument of diffusion and stimulation of the Rotarian
ideals, of contact with other national and foreign associations,
and of support to Rotarian initiatives of services to the
Community In 1946 the Portuguese Rotarian District with No. 62
was founded, in whose organization and future development the
pioneer Club of Lisbon always played a relevant part The
District took No. 176, then with 17 Clubs in exercise in the
country in 1957, the number of the District having changed to
196 in 1971.
Meanwhile, the Rotary Club of Lisbon was
gradually increasing its associative activities, as well as
cultural and philanthropic. In 1959, voluntarily grouping all
the Portuguese Rotarian Clubs, but always with a dynamical
action and financial support predominantly from the Rotary
Club of Lisbon, the Portuguese Rotarian Foundation was born;
it has played a relevant part in the distribution of
scholarships at various levels, with a bulky capital
investment and the help of personal and club donations.
Simultaneously, the Club has kept its contribution to the
«Rotary Foundation», largely exceeding the statute's
established amount, and Portuguese scholars have benefited
from the action of this world-wide Rotarian organization Presidents
of Rotary International, who at various opportunities visited
the Clubs of the Portuguese District, have frequently
stressed this and other aspects of the participation of the
oldest and most important Club of this country, in the
universality of the Rotarian movement.
The participation of
the Rotary Club of Lisbon in the activities of the ENAEM
region (Europe, North Africa, Eastern Mediterranean) has also
been equally valuable and significant, and at the same time
its international contact Committees, which are eleven at the
moment, keep a constant sociability which consecrates itself
in successive achievements. In the latest years, the Club's
action has been considerable in Portugal's inter-clubs
cooperation (nine new clubs were sponsored in 1978-79), in
the assistance to the Rotaract Club of Lisbon founded in
1969, and in the constant enlargement of the activities of
Rotarian «avenues». In Portugal, there are, at the end of the
Rotarian year of 1978-79, ineffective function ing 52
Rotarian Clubs, with a total of over 1.500 member~, including
the 9 new Clubs which were founded that year. The meticulous
administration of the Club's funds and the successive
contributions from its members, have enabled the remarkable
enlargement of welfare actions as well as those of protection
to youth, keeping up a level of internal and international
companionship which does not cease to show itself under the
most various aspects. The Rotary Club of Lisbon, associating
itself, with the publishing of this Brief History, to the
75th anniversary of Rotary International, is an association
with a valuable and eminent past. and it continues open to
the future with the largeness of its actions in 54 years of
existence, marked by honourable achievements in the most various
grounds. |
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| Full PDF file in Portuguese and English here.
global/countries/portugal/Lisboa.pdf |
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| Provided by RGHF zone 13
board member
Erik Ulrix, Lisbon. 23 April 2010, posted by
Jack Selway |
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| First
Club of each Rotary Region or Country |
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