LATIN SECTION CHAIR, JOSE MESA (ZHEMA)

Brief histories of the "Rotario Latin America" Clubs

Rotario Club of Montevideo, Uruguay, First Club of Uruguay

Rotario International Distrito 4980

Part of our History of Rotary in South America Section

The home of Rotary International President

Joaquin Serratosa Cibils 1953-1954

ESPAÑOL

The original 90 year old Charter and Minutes of Charter Meeting are still in the possession of the Club

Heriberto (Herbert) P. Coates, Founder of Rotary Club of Montevideo  July 19, 1918

A Brief History of the Rotary Club of Montevideo.

The Rotary Club of Montevideo was founded in 1918. It was Percival Herbert Coates, a businessman from the city of Montevideo, who brought in 1918, after a trip to the U.S. the idea of establishing a Rotary club in our city. It was precisely the July 12, 1918, when it conducted the first meeting.

Since the Club's founding there have been many new Rotary clubs in the region, and within a few years, the ideas of Rotary spread throughout South Americas. This spread included - in 1920 RC Buenos Aires (Argentina); in 1922 Lima (Peru); in 1923  Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Rosario (Argentina) and Valparaiso (Chile); in 1924 Santiago (Chile); in 1925 La Plata (Argentina) and Sao Paulo (Brazil), and thereafter flew extraordinary growth.

In Uruguay our club also helped found a number of clubs. Today in our country there are about a hundred Rotary clubs and all are extremely active. Our country has two districts (4970 and 4980), and also shares District 4960 with Argentina.

In 1943, on the 25 year anniversary, the RC Montevideo was privileged to be a partial headquarters of the International Assembly. This was due to the restrictions imposed by war on travel by sea to the U>S. Our Club welcomed the governors proposed for the following year in this region.

In 1969 the RC Montevideo celebrated its golden jubilee, and hosted the Third Regional Conference Sudamericana, and in 1993 (to reach the seventy-five years of life) hosted the Fifth Regional Conference Sudamericana. Both conferences marked very high moments in the South American brotherhood of Rotary, having achieved attendance of about two thousand people at each conference.

The Rotary Club of Montevideo, has provided great service to Rotary International via its Board of Directors: Donato Gamin, First Vice-President in 1934-35; Joaquin Serratosa Cibils, Second Vice President in 1940-41 and in 1953-54; Rodolfo Almeida Pintos, Second Vice-President in 1952-53; Mario Peyrot, Director in 1964-65 and Achilles Guerra, director in 1989-91.

At present the club has 210 members, and makes the work of community service very prominent. It has also maintained for  several years, intense exchange programs with several clubs in the region (Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile and Porto Alegre).

Since the introduction of records of Governors and grouping of clubs by districts in 1927, the RC of Montevideo, has provided twenty-three district governors, and has always been a strong auxiliary work of governance.

The Centennial celebration began in our club, with the reception and use of Bell Centennial which we received in October 2005.
The date of the Central Centennial celebration was in February 2005, when it made the big party with token presence and in many cases through personal representatives of the pioneering CIEN Clubs.
The celebration of the centenary of Rotary completed in September 2005 to take place in Punta del Este (Uruguay),. XXXI Rotary Regional Institute of zonal 19 B and 21 B Rotary International, cu5l of our club will be one of the hosts. That year began a new century of Rotary full of hopes for peace and prosperity for mankind.

In the formation of this and other clubs in Uruguay, Coates was ably assisted by James H. Roth.

This history was extracted from the Club web site by RGHF Webmaster, Greg Barlow with appreciation to Club members. The history was not verified by RGHF.