Paul Harris, the Founder of Rotary=

FIRST NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE ROTARY CLUBS of AMERICA
HELD AT THE CONGRESS HOTEL, CHICAGO, ILL. August 15, 16 and 17,1910.
 
FIRST SESSION
Monday, August 15, 1910.
 
The Convention was called to order at 10 o'clock a. m., in the Green Room of the Congress Hotel, by Mr. Paul P. Harris, Chairman of the National Board of Commissioners, Mr. Chesley R. Perry, Secretary of the National Board of Commissioners, acting as Secretary. The full text of the proceedings follows:
 
Chairman Harris. Delegates from North, South, East and West, delegates from all parts of the United States: We have been called here to organize a national association of Rotary Clubs, and we have a great deal of business to transact. It will not be an occasion of long addresses. We of the Chicago club do not believe very much in oratory. We believe that an orator is a man who intoxicates himself with his own emotions and is likely to say a great many things he had not intended to say.
 
This is going to be a convention in which we will get down to business and endeavor to launch the National Association of Rotary Clubs. We need the best thought and co-operation of every single man who is here. We are going to try and have a good time as we go along, that is, we are going to intersperse enough good time so that you will not remember it as a sad occasion; but nevertheless, the primary purpose of this convention is to transact business. We hope you have had a chance to reflect upon the prospective business and that every man who comes here as a delegate comes with some mature thought on this subject.
 
We Chicagoans find there is a great deal of benefit to be gained by getting the ideas of clubs outside of Chicago. Of course, the Chicago club has been in existence a long time and perhaps we can say without ostentation that the greatest part of progress up to date has come from ideas originally promulgated by ourselves, yet we find that we are getting ideas from newer organizations, things that could not be originated in Chicago, because we have exhausted about all the ingenuity we possess. We find St. Louis, New Orleans and the other clubs are constantly giving us new food for thought, and we expect you to get to the foreground everything you call on this occasion.
 
We are not going to dwell very long now on addresses of welcome, though we know that you who came here from so far deserve every welcome at our command; but we are going to ask Mr. Howard Hayes of the Corporation Counsel's office of the City of Chicago, to address you. Mr Hayes is the man from that office most seen on occasions of this sort and has rather been the show man of the City Administration. He has kindly consented to appear before us this morning to extend to the visiting delegates the welcome of the City.

  ROTARY GLOBAL HISTORY FELLOWSHIP HEROES

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India
RLI
Binod Khaitan

RGHF member Binod Khaitan

An interest in Rotary began as a teenager when he attended several Rotary Fellowship Meets, which took place at home. After joining business in the early sixties, he accompanied his grandfather and attended several Rotary weekly Tuesday meetings at Princes - Grand Hotel. His home had offered home hospitality to several foreign & Indian Rotarians.

Returning again to Kolkata in the early 80s, he hoped to join his Grandfather's Club - RC Calcutta known in India as "Rotary number 1" but his classification as "plywood manufacturer" was unavailable.

He was invited to join the Rotary Club of Central Calcutta (RCCC) by President Mahesh Saharia in 1986 who had invited him to a Rotary Polio program at Kala Kunj, Kolkata. Mahesh left RCCC but in 1987, Girish Khaitan renewed the invitation while Raju Rajgharia was the President.

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