The Centenary referred to is actually that of the very first club, founded in Chicago in 1905 by Paul Harris. Harris gathered together a few business and professional friends to a regular meeting which would recreate the friendliness of the small towns from which his city dwelling colleagues had mostly originated. The idea of meeting in rotation in each other's offices gave the Movement its name. Soon the idea spread and from the original founding club, Rotary has grown into the largest International Service Organisation in the world. Each Rotarian has been invited to join a club in his own locality. At a recent count there are 32,180 clubs and 1,214,062 Rotarians worldwide in 166 countries. Any Rotarian can visit another club anywhere in the world on their meeting day. The members focus on giving service to both their own and the world community, but also enjoy fellowship and social events. The Romford Club would be pleased to invite interested viewers of this website to attend a lunch meeting (contact Peter Simmons on 01277 222037).

In the Centenary year (the Americans say Centennial) each club has a special project. The Romford Club is very involved in serving young people so their project is to publish a volume of photographs and text, chronicling 100 years of Romford's progress as a town. This will be given to Year 7 pupils in their first year of secondary education at Romford schools.

Our Club assists many projects every year - internationally Romford is helping to eradicate the scourge of polio. It also raises funds for victims of earthquakes, famine and the recent tsunami disaster. It is able to deliver help directly to such areas through local Rotary clubs without administrative charges. Funding is often fairly painlessly raised through social events. For the book project, for instance, an outing to the Greyhound Stadium included races sponsored by local businesses. Donations over the years have gone to the Havering Hospice, Children's Hospices, equipment for local hospitals and similar causes.

One chapter in the Centenary book will summarise the Romford Club's contribution to the local community, which began in 1922 in very different times. The volume includes contributions from students of local schools on how they see Romford today and also from older Romfordians remembering the past.