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Rotary

Rotary Holland

The digitalisation of archives continues, so it pays off to check for new information every once in a while. I found out that the periodical of the Dutch Rotary Club has found its way to an online archive. Farwerck is mentioned frequently, so let us have a look if this monthly magazine / newsletter has new information.

Rotary started in the Netherlands in 1927 in Hilversum and Amsterdam and Farwerck was involved. No wonder that the first “Rotary Holland” (as the name of the magazine goes) is from that year and that Farwerck is mentioned. This is not very interesting though, it is only mentioned that he was present at a meeting on 1 November 1927. Somewhat interesting, also present was Cochius.

The next mention is that he was present on 2 February 1928. Also present then was Van Duyl who would later ask him to join the N.S.B. In that time he is mostly listed as present, but on 19 April 1928 Farwerck spoke about his carpet factory, Interestingly enough, the short report opens with a quote of Inayat Khan that not Farwerck, but another member (Rozenbeek) presented. The meeting after Farwercks talk, the idea arises to start a museum in Hilversum. It would take several more years for this to become true.

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Edited Rotary

It seems that three books have been written about the Hilversum Rotary Club at three different anniversaries. The first (which I don’t have) was published in 1953, the second in 1988 and the third in 2003. Both later books seem expansions of the previous, so the last one, doesn’t add anything to the period I’m interested in (It does give more insight into Rotary in general). The 2003 book has texts from the 1988 book, but they didn’t republish them all. It seems that the same can be said about the 1988 versus 1954 book. In any case, I have edited the Rotary article a bit and added a strange image. For completeness, these are the named books. Gedenkboek Rotary Club Hilversum 1928-1953 compiled by H. Gorter (1954). Rotary Club Hilversum 1928 – 1988 by different authors (1988); Rotary Club Hilversum Lustrumbundel 1928 – 2003 by Bart Admiraal (2003). Then we have the more general book that I found (and Hoogenboom too) which I have used before: Rotary voor, tijdens en na de Tweede Wereldoorlog by D.M. Jaeger (2003).

Rotary

As we saw, Farwerck had certain social idea(l)s. It seems that the Rotary Club was perfect for him in this regard.

“Rotary International is an international service organization whose stated purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian service and to advance goodwill and peace around the world.”

Says Wikipedia (accessed 7/9/19) about Rotary International.

There we have Farwerck in a nutshell. A business leader who wants to “work for the fellow man” and has already done so in numerous workers’ committees. I totally understand how he saw opportunities when the first Rotary Clubs in the Netherlands were started in 1924 in Amsterdam and Utrecht.

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