7/11/2010 Fayetteville GA Rotary - Song of the W… Song of the Week Welcome Welcome 2009- 2010 print this page Welcome 2009 and earlier PLANNING GUIDE Meeting Information Meeting Schedule SEND YOUR SONG REQUEST TO PAUL ODDO AT
[email protected]. We've got 50 years of the Meeting Makeups music Rotary loves best! President's Message Officers & Directors How Singing came to Rotary, and Club Members Off-Color Jokes did not! Four Avenues of Service Paul Harris Fellow Almost everyone who is a member of a Rotary club for more than a year knows that Rotary member Newsletter No. 5, Chicago printer Harry Ruggles, brought singing to Rotary meetings. What almost no one knows Photo Album is why, and most don’t know how important it was to the life of Rotary. Calendar Harry Ruggles was a very moral man. He detested off-color language, About Rotary malicious innuendo and classless humor. He argued in club meetings for Becoming A Member clean language. Little more than a year after Rotary had been formed, at an Useful Links evening meeting in 1906, the guest speaker began a story. Having heard it before, Harry also had heard the off-color ending, and felt it was Contact Us inappropriate for the club, so hejumped up in the middle of the joke and Site Map yelled, “Come on boys, let's sing!” He then led the club in the singing of “Let Guest Speaker Me Call You Sweetheart.” District 6900 Conference This was not only the first time that members had ever sung in Rotary, but apparently, also the first Sporting Clay Event time that a group of businessmen ever sang at a business meeting, anywhere.