Histories of Clubs Hosting RI Conventions

Rotary Club of Rome, (Roma) Italy

Rotary International District 2080

Host of the RI Convention of 1979

Rotary Club of Roma (Rome) was chartered 6 December 1924 and formally admitted to Rotary International on January 6th, 1925. It is the third Rotary Club in Italy after Milan and Trieste. In the same day, 6 January 1925, besides Rome, other 2 Clubs received their Official Charter: Turin and Naples.

The first President of the Club, was Commander Gian Battista Zanardo and the first Secretary was Lawyer Omero Ranelletti. The Founders were 19, major part of them were Italians from Rome and with 4 foreigners, coming from European countries. In the next years, the Rotary Club of Rome included in its honorary members, also H.M. Vittorio Emanuele III, King of Italy.

For political and ideological reasons (and later, the war,) The Rotary Club of Rome was closed from 31 December 1938 - in the fascist period - and re-opened from 24 February 1948. At the historical occurrence,  attended the Italian Premier in 1948, Mr. Alcide De Gasperi, Ministers Corbellino and Merzagora, the Mayor of Rome, Mr. Rebecchini and many more other relevant people from all over the Europe.

The Logo of the RI Rome Convention

The Rotary Club of Rome was designed to host the 1979 RI Convention of the President Clem Renouf and to worthily receive all the participants, was constituted a Committee called "Comitato dei Club ospitanti la Convention del 1979" which literally means: "Convention 1979 Host's Clubs Committee ". The President of this Committee was PDG Carlo d'Amelio which managed to received more then 14.000 Rotarians from all over the world, with such success, from 10 June to 13 June 1979. Nowadays RC Roma has within its members 7 PDG and more then 200 active Rotarians and it is one of the largest RC in Italy.