A notable feature of the House of Friendship at the Lead25 Conclave was the recreation of One Rotary Center, the Rotary headquarters in Evanston, Chicago.
Inaugurating the HoF, RI President Francesco Arezzo was all praise for the efforts that went into designing the Rotary HQ with attention to detail. “I have been to many HoFs at RI conventions… but this is one of the best I have ever visited,” he said while going around the Rotary stalls, along with RI directors M Muruganandam and K P Nagesh, and HoF chair S Muthupalaniappan.
The HoF was created with two main purposes — “to give a feel of Rotary headquarters to Rotarians from our zones, and to showcase what happens at RI conventions for members who cannot attend the flagship global Rotary summit,” explained PDG Muthupalaniappan.
At the replica of One Rotary Center, Room 711 was recreated as a throwback to the vintage era when Rotary was born. It was at Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown, Chicago, that the famed quartet of Rotary — its founder Paul Harris, Gustavus Loehr, Silvester Schiele and Hiram Shorey — met for what is considered as ‘the very first Rotary club meeting,’ on Feb 23, 1905. This was Loehr’s office at that time. During the 1980 Convention in Chicago, local Rotarians rented that same office space and recreated the early 20th century magic by using period furnishing.
In 1989 the Unity Building was demolished, but Rotarians dismantled Room 711 and rebuilt it with similar settings at the RI headquarters in Evanston, Illinois. Rotarians visiting One Rotary Center at the HOF can step into Room 711 and “get a feel of the aura of the very first Rotary club meeting held in 1905,” he said.
An elaborate AKS Gallery at the HoF, replicated from the Rotary HQ, displayed the donors who had empowered the organisation over the decades.
With 20 project stalls of RI districts from all our four zones and 200 commercial exhibits, the HoF was spread over one lakh sqft, and attracted 10,500 visitors in two days.
The Project Orange stall screened over 300 visitors for “eye disorders and we replicated an Orange Vision Centre, complete with equipment and gadgets, for examining people.” Project Orange, a brainchild of Muthupalaniappan when he was DG of RID 3232 in 2020–21, has 160 vision centres supported by 15 hospitals across Tamil Nadu.
The HoF was partitioned into four zones — Rotary Action Area, Rotary Project Zone, Commercial Expo and Entertainment Zone that had non-stop dance, music, magic and fashion shows. The End Polio Gaming arena was action-packed, with delegates and their families bonding over games such as box cricket, foosball and mini bowling.
This enormous space also offered avid shoppers an exciting opportunity to shop to their heart’s content.