History of Rotary in the Pacific Region Rotary entered the Pacific Region from all directions - north, south, east and west - * The Rotary Club of Honolulu, Hawaii was the first Club in the region to be chartered (in 1915), via influence from California, U.S.A. * It was 21 years before influence from the South Island of New Zealand gave rise to the second club in the region - the Rotary Club of Suva, Fiji. * In 1939, the Rotary Club of Guam was chartered following preliminary meetings and research by the Vice-President of Rotary International, Carlos P Romulo, and "Ray" Reynolds of the Rotary Club of Manila, Philippines. * Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea was chartered in 1957 as a result of expansion from Australian clubs. * Californian Rotarians were responsible for the creation of the Rotary Club of Papeete, Tahiti, French Polynesia in 1959. * This gave rise to the Rotary Club of Noumea, New Caledonia in 1962. * The Rotary Club of Saipan, Northern Marianas followed in 1968 with help from the RC Guam * Tonga, Cook Is, American Samoa, Samoa, Vanuatu and Norfolk Is. doubled the number of clubs to 14 within the next 5 years. From 1968, the number of clubs in this region grew from the original 7 to the 18 clubs at 2008.
Name of region or territory, based on United Nations data
Polynesia American Samoa (New) Cook Islands French Polynesia Tahiti (FR) / (EN) Hawaii Samoa  (New) Tonga Melanesia Fiji New Caledonia (New) Norfolk Island Papua New Guinea (New) Solomon Islands  (New) Vanuatu	Micronesia Guam Federated States of Micronesia Marshall Islands Northern Marianas (New) Palau Kiribati (New) See also an article by RGHF secretary Norm Winterbottom

Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the Polynesian triangle. The term "Polynesia", meaning many islands, was first used by Charles de Brosses in 1756, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific.
Jules Dumont d'Urville in an 1831 lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris proposed a restriction on its use.
Geographically, and over-simply, Polynesia may be described as a triangle with its corners at Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island. (New Zealand is shown separately for Rotary purposes. Ed.)
The other main island groups located within the Polynesian triangle are Samoa, Tonga, the various island chains that form the Cook Islands and French Polynesia.
Niue is a rare solitary island state near the centre of Polynesia.
Polynesian island groups outside this great triangle include Tuvalu and the French territory of Wallis and Futuna.

Melanesia means "islands of the black-skinned people". It is a sub-region of Oceania extending from the western side of the West Pacific to the Arafura Sea, north and northeast of Australia. The term was first used by Jules Dumont d'Urville in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands distinct from Polynesia and Micronesia.

Micronesia means "small islands", is a sub-region of Oceania, comprising hundreds of small islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The Philippines lie to the northwest, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia to the west and south, and Polynesia to the east. The term "Micronesia" was first proposed to distinguish the region in 1831 by Jules Dumont d'Urville.

acknowledgements to Wikipedia
posted by RGHF Webmaster, Greg Barlow. September, 2009