|
 The Fellowship of Fitness Rotarians was
initially formed in the mid-1980s by first international
chairman Don Fraser of the St. Helena Rotary club in California,
President of the American Running & Fitness Association.
After three years the fellowship disbanded
but was then reorganized 5 years later after approval by 30
District Governor's from different parts of the world with
initial membership from 14 different districts by Rotarian
Harold Friend, MD, (International Chair for 8 of the years
between 1992 and 2006 & District Governor 1998-9) under the new
name of International Fellowship of Running and Fitness
Rotarians. This occurred just before the 1992 Orlando Rotary
convention and the first of many “fun runs” occurred each day at
that convention starting in front of the convention hall each
morning. Also, in that year PRIP Cliff Dochterman held a
“Salute to the Fellowships” in Cambridge, MA. During that
meeting over 30 Rotarians assembled to run in the snow each
morning creating friendships that lasted for years.
 Since
then the fellowship has steadily grown with members coming from
38 different countries. The largest numbers are from the United
States, Japan and India. Over the years IFRFR sponsored over
300 road races from 3 km up to full 42K marathons, the largest
of which was in 2005 at the Rotary convention. In addition,
IFRFR organized fun runs each morning at 15 of the Rotary
conventions from 1992-2006. The most beautiful of which was
running along the Mediterranean Sea in the early morning
during the Nice France convention in 1995.
Fellowship Members at the 2004 Osaka
Convention
These were closely followed by morning runs
along a river in Calgary 1996 and, at the Glasgow Scotland
convention in 1997, running at the break of dawn in a beautiful
park near the convention site. During the years there were a
number of wonderful projects that individual members organized.
Under the direction of Rajan Vir (Vice-Chair 1997-2000) an
exercise area was built in a park in Pune, India. Peter Gray
(1998-9 Chair) organized a group of Rotarians to run the London
Marathon with a talk by Sir Roger Banister. Jean-Emile
Vanderheyden (Vice-Chair 1996-8) organized a 20 Km run for
Parkinson’s Disease in Charleroi, Belgium.
Toshi Ihara
(1999-2000 Chair & Vice-Chair for 9 years) helped organize the
Mt. Misen international walk that has now been held for over 10
years walking up that sacred mountain in Japan. In 2006 our
first woman Chair, Suzan Rada, returned the leadership to the
St. Helen’s club in California. (See
Dr. Ihara's own experiences)
 Submitted by Harold C Friend, MD, PDG |
