Our History

1905.  First Rotary Club of Chicago

1920. First club in Devon was Torquay no. 31

1921. Rotary clubs had been formed on 6 continents

1926. Inaugural meeting of Teignmouth Rotary was at the Regent Cafe on Tuesday 2^nd November.   20 of 25 members attended. Original entrance fee was one Guinea (£1.05p) and annual subscription was one pound ten shillings (£1.50p) Meeting day was Tuesday and 2/6d (12.5p) was charged for lunch. The club was Chartered on 16th December 1926. 

1927. Meetings moved to Blue Bird Tea Rooms and then back to the Regent.

1928. Meetings were held at the Seacroft Private Hotel and then later moved to Gervis Cafe.

1937. £400 was used to buy the freehold of The Custom House Inn to be used as a home for elderly and needy ladies of pensionable age. It was named Eventide House.

1938. Eventide House was officially opened on 21^st June

1939. Meetings were back at the Regent

1939-45. Membership fell to just 14 during the war years.

1943. Eventide House suffered bomb damage and tenants were evacuated. The site was cleared and in due course became part of the Northumberland Place car park.

1946. The Inner Wheel was chartered in May for female Rotarians. They met monthly for an evening meal at the Alice Cross Centre and then at the Cockhaven Manor Hotel.

1959. In the autumn Teignmouth Rotary was extended and Rotary Club of Dawlish was founded. It was installed at the Langstone Cliff Hotel.

1962. Teignmouth Rotary twinned with Morlaix in France and made the first visit. Morlaix visited Teignmouth in 1963 and alternate visits were agreed.

1972. The headquarters were now at The Royal Hotel on the seafront.

1976. The Royal was sold and the club moved to the Glendaragh Hotel.

1978. Meetings were held at The Gipsy Moth Restaurant but it was found to be too small and the club then made their headquarters at the Cockhaven Manor Hotel.

The money raised from the sale of the Eventide property was used to establish Alice Cross in a home for her club for the elderly, and in 1978 this was sold for £6000 which was donated to Teignmouth Old Peoples Welfare Committee to assist in the construction of the present Alice Cross Centre.

1984. Some members led a team of 24 children to Finnistere. Exchange visits followed.

1988. Joint projects with Morlaix were arranged to provide water facilities for a village in Africa together with an Orphanage project in Gabarone.

2002 – 2007. £1500 was given to Rotary International Polio Plus campaign, £1600 to Children’s Hospice South West, £1000 to Rowcroft Hospice, £1900 to the Boscastle appeal, £1000 to the Teignmouth Sea Cadets, over £3000 to the Rotary Foundation, £15000 to Shelterbox, and £500 towards the Niger appeal. £26000 for the unfortunate people in Sri Lanka who suffered the devastating effects of the 2004 tsunami.

2006. Teignmouth Rotary club supports the International Wheelchair Foundation, and Epilepsy Action – Torbay.

2018. 10th July. Teignmouth Rugby club becomes night landing sight for Air Ambulance.

A remote switching system was installed on the floodlights at Bitton park so that Devon  Air ambulance could land at the ground during the hours of darkness.

The funding for the project was generously donated by Teignmouth Rotary, the Teignmouth Town Council, and as well as from the Rugby Club.

2019. The Inner Wheel for female rotarians closed down some time back, and this year 2019, Teignmouth Rotary welcomed its first female members and started its mixed gender meetings. They enrolled 3 women with more applying for 2020. They founded the Facebook page.

2020. Colin Barber was unfortunately the first president to announce that all Teignmouth Rotary meetings will be suspended from 17th March until further notice. This was due to advice from the government because of a pandemic called the Corona Virus. It must be noted that even during the second world war the club continued to meet at the Regent Cafe with attendances of between 8 and 14. Because of the age of the members just two Rotarians were serving in the Forces and they were regarded as Honourary members for the duration.

Weekly meetings were resumed on 29th April 2020 via an app called Zoom which enabled members to see and talk to each other in a group in their own homes via their computers.

16th September and 17th November the first international joint fellowship meetings were held on Zoom between Teignmouth and The Rotary Club of Raffles City (Singapore). 16th December we celebrated our 94th birthday with a party on Zoom.

2021. By now the Corona virus had mutated and was now infecting 50,000 people per day in the UK and killing around 1000 per day. In January 68000 cases were reported in one day and by 20th January there were 1610 deaths reported on this day. All weekly meetings were still to be held at home on Zoom. By June all rotarians had received their vaccinations and on 23rd June lunch time meetings were resumed at a new venue theTeignmouth Golf Club.

2022. Meetings are now being held at Teignmouth Social Club and Teignmouth Golf Club.

2023. Nicola Burgess becomes the first female President of Teignmouth Rotary.

2024. Meetings are now being held at the Teignmouth Social club, Teignmouth Golf Club, the Castle Inn, and The Alice Cross Centre.