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Although the Rotary Club of Chatham was first created in Judges' Chambers in Harrison Hall on September 22 1921, and the Chartering Ceremony took place in the Ball Room of the Hotel Santina on November 1 1921, the regular Wednesday Luncheon meetings first took place in the Chamber of Commerce Building on 6th Street. The Santina was on the site now occupied by the Chatham Cultural Centre and Kiwanis Theater, and 6th street has long vanished.
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In 1922, a funeral forced the club into the Gray Conference Hall (^). According to the current occupier- Gentry Manor- this building on Park and Central Streets has an interesting history beginning in 1875 as the 6-room Chrysler Ward School, being expanded and renamed Queen Street School, and then at the turn of the century being sold to Gray and Sons and used as a repair shop for buggies. After a time the company began making automobiles and the Gray-Dort Social Club was created for its employees with pool table and a silent movie theatre. William Gray was a charter member. |
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As Gray-Dort suffered in the Great Depression, the Hall was sold to the Masonic Lodge. Rotary International was avoiding connection with "Secret" organizations as rumors were circulating and some Catholic Diocese forbid member in Rotary perceived relationship. Accordingly, the Club moved to the William Pitt Hotel. Meeting were held here for the next 5 decades, until 1980 when the hotel was demolished. The block is now occupied by the Downtown Chatham Centre.
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From 1979 until 2008, the Club met in the hall of Christ Church (Anglican) whose staff ably assisted the Sgt.at-Arms and catered lunch. The church Deacon was a Club Member. The church also provided very handy office space which meant one-stop shopping for the Members. |
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After a controversial vote, a move was made and meetings resumed in more comfortable conditions at the Tree Room of the Wheels Inn, which also catered. At one meeting the 'head table" mysteriously disappeared and thereafter everyone sat in the orchestra.
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The Tree Room was a great location - good sound, meals, parking and separate committee space. The only problem was the Rotary Office which had to find space off-site. After only 2 years, the Wheels was reconfigured, the building demolished, and the Club was again on the move.
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From 2010 until 2016, the Rotary Club of Chatham met at the Chatham Capitol Theatre in the Rotary Lounge, so named because of the Club's significant support in the transformation of the historic one time movie theatre into a performing arts centre. We shared office space with theatre people across the street above ScotiaBank. Eventually logistics such as food service trumped location, and in 2016 our "Downtown" Club retired to the outskirts at the Links of Kent Golf Club .
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For the first 95 years of the Club an office had been maintained in proximity to the meeting area, but with the move to the country another location was established on the Thames River North Bank in a historic Tudor grist mill. The office sees a lot of traffic from happy winners of our TV Bingo collecting their cheques, and for some years has been solely manned by volunteers.
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There has been a long tradition in the Club to take the regular meetings off-site, especially to the Chatham-Kent rural community such as area farms. Other locations have been an horse ranch (bbq), a base-ball stadium (hotdogs and pop for lunch, and inductions!) a tour of the Rotary Eco-Trail, a 60-acre tomato greenhouse, a retirement home.
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Since the Pandemic Spring of 2020, regular meetings have been conducted via Zoom, with the extra added benefit of being able to join other clubs and connect with luminaries such as future RI President Jennifer Jones, RI's CEO, and a number of Past RI Presidents. Past speakers at our meetings and past exchange students have also rung in. Live meetings have been broadcast on Community Cable since 1975, and presently the Zoom meetings are available on YouTube - click
HERE or cut and paste the line below into your browser to see them.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMaGVeUi7crN3kJz2xY5csw/videos
