Paul Harris - the early years

On May 26th, President Brian Munro welcomed 21 members of the club to the weekly meeting of the Rotary Club of Kirkcaldy at the Dean Park Hotel.

The meeting opened with an appeal from President Brian for members of the club to help out with garden at Rosslyn Primary School at the beginning of June.

Rotarian Harry Mitchell then presented the club with a cheque for £250 for Foundation – Rotary’s Charity. This was from the final sale of the model train collection which had belonged to late Alan Suttie, bringing the total proceeds raised and given to Foundation at Alan’s request, to £750.

Today’s speaker was the Club’s own David Muncey. David started by saying that he had given this talk to the club ten years before and the 26 people who were still members of the club had his permission to fall asleep! His talk told the story of the early years of Paul Harris, Rotary’s founder, from his birth in Racine, Wisconsin up to the moment when the seed of Rotary was sewn in Chicago, as a lawyer, starting out in a new city, he was succeeding in his work but looking for fellowship and purpose in his personal life. The account was fascinating and demonstrated how the values imparted by the grandparents who brought him up- Integrity, Frugality, Tolerance and Unselfishness -  had influenced him throughout his life. Today’s Rotary membership of over 1.2 million people owes much to that too.

PP Bill Moodie gave the vote of thanks, noting that no one had fallen asleep and how much he had enjoyed the talk on hearing it a second time!