History of the Rotary Club of Manila

As the Club celebrates its 124th anniversary today, June 1, Balita features this piece of history.

Rotary was almost fourteen years old when Leon J. Lambert, then one of the leading businessmen of Manila and president of Lambert Sales Co., inspired by what he had heard of Rotary, started to correspond with President John Poole of the International Association of Rotary Clubs, now known as Rotary International. As a result, on January 12, 1919, Lambert entertained Rotarian Roger D. Pinneo, a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle who had been sent to Manila with a commission to assist in the organization of Rotary Clubs in the Far East, at a luncheon in his home in Pasay with Messrs. E. E. Elser, James Geary, A. W. Beam, and F. N. Berry, prominent businessmen of Manila. The five constituted themselves into a committee to proceed with the preliminary steps incident to the organization of a Rotary club. Lambert was elected as chairman, and Berry as secretary of this committee.

Informal meetings were held on January 14, 16, and 24, before the organization of the new club was completed with 38 charter members, two of whom were Filipinos, (Gabriel Lao and Gregorio Nieva, one was Chinese, Alfonso SyCip, and the rest Americans. A provisional board of directors was formed and served until June 1919, when the first annual meeting was held. Elected as the first officers were –

Leon J. Lambert – President

Alfonso SyCip – Vice President

E. E. Elser – Secretary

Walter A. Beam – Treasurer

Before the end of January 1919, a cablegram was sent to the International Association of Rotary Clubs in Chicago, advising it of the formal organization of the Rotary Club of Manila (RCM), the first club in Asia, with a membership of 38. The first office of the RCM was located in the office of the Benguet Consolidated Mining Co. at Kneedler Building, where further meetings were held and additional members elected. The Charter No. 478 was not granted however until June 1, 1919.

The first regular weekly meeting was held on Wednesday, January 29, 1919 at the Manila Hotel. At the second luncheon meeting it was decided to change the weekly meeting days from Wednesday to Thursday, and this has remained in effect since that time. The Manila Hotel continued to be the meeting venue until 1971, when the Manila Hilton became the new meeting place.