The Brief History of District 9780
On September 15, 1927, District 65 was established covering all of Australia, and the Rotary Clubs of Geelong (chartered 19 October 1925) and Ballarat (15 December 1925) were part of it. The District Governor, Fred Birks, was from The Rotary Club of Sydney, and held office for two years 1927-1929. During this period, the Rotary Clubs of Mount Gambier, Horsham, Ararat & Warrnambool were chartered.
From 1930-31 a second District (76) was created, with our area remaining part of District 65. Successive DG's came from the Rotary Clubs of Melbourne, Hobart, Perth, Ballarat (Alfred J Pittard), Melbourne (Angus Mitchell), Adelaide, Bendigo and Hobart. The Rotary Clubs of Warracknabeal, Colac, Hamilton and Swan Hill were chartered.
Australia's third District, 56, came with the 1938-39 year though District 65 remained for our area. Angus Mitchell was DG again in 1928-39, followed by Rotarians from Colac (Louis O C Bayer), Unley (Walter Simms), Perth (Gordon Hislop for 2 years) Hobart (Burgess Watt for 2 years) and Warrnambool Horace I Holmes). Nor surprisingly, given that these were the years of World War 2, Portland was the only one our current clubs chartered in this period.
For 1946-47, a fourth District, 64, was formed and Holmes continued on to become its first DG/ He was followed by members of the Rotary Clubs of Perth, Perth (same person). 1949-50 brought a complete re-organisation and re-numbering, with our area falling into District 33, its first DG being Reginald R Etherington of Mildura. Following District Governors came from Perth, Adelaide, Colac (Alan F Drayton) Ballarat (Leslie F North) Unley, Hamilton (John L Kneebone) and Horsham (Stewart F Brown).
Our ancestral path changed again in 1957-58 with another re-organisation and renumbering, our area being split between Districts 250 and 280.
The 1960's were the major growth period, with 15 of the present 58 Clubs being chartered in this era, followed by nine in the 50's, seven in the 70's and two more during the 2005/2006 Rotary year. The most recent Club in the District, Alfredton, was chartered in 2014.
(Information for this page supplied by Paul Henningham in his book title Seventy Five Years of Service.)
*Note: The Rotary Clubs of Dimboola and Kaniva handed back their charter in the 2014 - 2015 year. The Rotary Club of Hamilton handed back their charter in 2018, where the majority of members joined the Rotary Club of Hamilton North