The seed for ROTI was planted in the mid 90's
when a Rotarian from the Rotary Club of National City,
California, USA established a Rotary interest group list on the
original Prodigy system.
The idea of an actual fellowship grew when Rotarian Darryl
McKeller from New Zealand started talking on the list about
trying to form a new Rotary International fellowship on the
Internet specifically created for Rotarians using the internet.
At that time, there were approximately 30 Rotarians from 6 or 7
countries on the list that communicated with each other. The
group began to discuss the idea of a group of Rotarians using
the internet for better communication for Rotarians all over the
world; the goal was to eventually become a Rotary recreational
Fellowship with a few hundred members.
After a year of work, developing the total package needed for a
fellowship according to the rules set by Rotary International
and an organizational effort, fellowship status was granted by
RI and by winter of 1996-97, the group welcomed its one
hundredth members to the fellowship.
In 1998, the ROTI Fellowship had a booth at the Indianapolis
convention, where ROTI was introduced to thousands of Rotarians
and hundreds of new members signed up.
ROTI had its first real chance to make a major change in the
Rotary World when future RI president Frank Devlyn spent time at
the ROTI booth learning about the unlimited potential of the
Internet and the value it could be to Rotary International in
improved communications and time and cost savings. When he
became Rotary International President in 2000-01, Frank called
on ROTI members to assist him in creating a major internet
presence in every club and District in the Rotary world. That
changed the way that all communications between Rotary
International and Rotary clubs and Districts, so that everything
that used to be handled by snail mail is now conducted through
the Internet. We are proud to have been a big part of that
revolution.BACK TO
FELLOWSHIP LIST
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