About Cookstown Rotary Club
- Chartered in 1971.
- Founded Cookstown Probus Club in 1981 during the presidency of Rotarian Bertie Millar
- Helped establish the Citizens Advice Bureau in Cookstown
- Home Club of the 1998/99 District Governor of District 1160, Alastair Laird.
- In 1999/2000 obtained the first place out of the 72 Clubs in 1160 for the highest per capita contribution to Rotary’s international charity , Rotary Foundation
- The premier Club in District 1160 for Youth Exchange work
- Has a breakfast meeting, normally on the first Tuesday of each month, at a range of venues in Cookstown. Details are given in the Programme page. Meetings on the other Tuesdays in each month are held in the Glenavon House Hotel from 1-2 p.m.
- Has 34 members including one founding member
- Club's charity work was recognised by the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action in 2008. This followed a nomination by the Northern Ireland Hospice.
- Actively involved in promoting mutual understanding through cross-community work
What is Rotary?
Founded in Chicago in 1905, Rotary is a worldwide association of some 29,000 local clubs comprising 1.2 million men and women in 167 countries. Rotarians, from business and the professions work to provide:-
- humanitarian service to the community
- encourage high ethical standards in all vocations
- promote goodwill and peace in the world.
Cookstown Rotary Club is in Rotary District 1160. District 1160 comprises the whole of the island of Ireland and has about 2,800 members in seventy-two clubs, the first two of which were founded in 1911 in Dublin and Belfast. These were the first Rotary Clubs formed outside of North America.
Membership of Rotary
Members are invited to join to a particular club by the Rotarians in that club. Rotarians are normally senior and distinguished members of their profession or vocation. Regular attendance at club meetings is important since without it, fellowship which is an integral part of being a Rotarian can not happen. A member may also attend the meetings of any other Rotary Club, at home or abroad.
The aims of Rotary
The object of membership is to gather together men and women of different vocations and interests and to give them a common sense of purpose. This is achieved by encouraging them how to carry out some form of service: this may be in the field of their own business or profession; service to the community in which they live; or service through the international contacts which the Rotary Movement provides. The scope and variety of this objective is unlimited, and each Club is free to carry out a programme of service in its own way.
Rotary as an international movement
The principles of Rotary have appealed to people in many different communities, and although early expansion took place in the U.S.A., Canada, Britain and Ireland, the idea has now been accepted worldwide. There are now over 1- million Rotarians in more than 25,000 Clubs in some 170 countries and geographical regions. Rotary has its international headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, U.S.A. This serves to link all the Rotary Clubs in the world together; but wherever they are located the Clubs accept the same basic rules of membership and attendance. Thus Rotary's members are united worldwide in the ideal of service.
For more information on Cookstown Rotary Club see here.
