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OKLAHOMA CITY ROTARY - Oct. 2013

Recently, I had a presentation  about  SEATTLE and its status as  the largest  Rotary Club, in the world.

Well, that was true as of a few months ago. Over the years the number one ranking has been going back and forth between Seattle and Birmingham , Ala.  

BUT, Oklahoma City now claims the title. They have over 626 members, as of September. The club was founded in 1910 and was  the 29^th to be chartered.

They meet at the Petroleum Club on Tuesday’s for lunch. The menu, yesterday, included choices of tuna salad, chef salad or meat loaf.

One of their early members was the President of Rotary International, in 1925. Current members include many significant government and business leaders…. … And I guess with over 600 members all of the classifications are accounted for.

I want to note, however,  that their attendance record is very similar to ours.   That is, they have about 32% of members attending each week. In their case, however, this is about 200 members each week.

I was interested in the mechanics  of administering such a large club and note some of the differences from our Club.  For example, they print a 4 page weekly newsletter that is mailed. Each week they mail 950 copies. They have 5 Greeters and separate members handling visitors and parking tickets.

They have 2 persons that are called Attendance Scanners.  Each member has an ID that is scanned as they enter.

Birthdays are noted in the newsletter, only. Each week there are about 15 listed.  It’s easy, then, to understand why they can’t be mentioned during the meeting.

This edition, by the way,  contained 22 ads.

Yesterday’s speaker was Mike Stice who has a long career in the petroleum industry (no surprise here), that included being President of ConocoPhillip in Quatar

Next week’s speaker will be the Oklahoma State Secretary for Finance.

As of July 1 2013 the largest clubs are:

Oklahoma City         601 

Birmingham             593

Seattle                       587

Nashville                   507

Madison, Wis           506

http://www.okcrotary.com/portals/0/programs/RotNews_14-14.pdf