The Recreational Vehicle Fellowship of Rotarians 1972 - 2022

Rotary Fellowships offer Rotarians the opportunity to make friends with others in Rotary who share a common vocation, hobby, or recreational interest. It all started in 1947 when John G. Barrett in Brixton, Great Britain, got the idea to hoist a burgee on his boat with the Rotary emblem on it.  Gradually that spread both in his own and other neighboring clubs. After some time that led to the forming of a Yachting Fellowship of Rotarians. Fairly early golfers and flyers started similar fellowships, as did the ham radio amateurs. Then Photographers, Taping Rotarians and even a Single Rotarian Fellowship has existed!

In 1967 the International Caravanning Fellowship of Rotarians or ICFR was started by a group of British Rotarians led by Robert Sutcliffe, who decided to travel with their caravans to the RI Convention in Nice, France.

ICFR was the “mother” group in the United Kingdom, …..….and Germany, New Zealand, and France are part of their Fellowship with their own charters.

50 YearsIn 1971 at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Islamorado Florida, a vacationing Allen Sawyer, who was chairman of the RI World Fellowship Activities Committee, sat with Dolf Krehbiel from Clayton New Mexico. Allen suggested to Dolf to organize the US version of the Caravanning Fellowship already operating in the United Kingdom. Thus the ICFR North America took to the road in March 1971. On June 13 1972 the fellowship became official at the Houston RI Convention. Rotarian Levi Dichey of Chino California became Chairman. A newsletter was put out 1/4ly to all members. In 1985 it was rechartered as the Recreational Vehicle Fellowship.

In 1991 we started the Highway Safety Program in support of the Rotary International Community Service Agenda. The members voted to establish a project whereby the Fellowship would present selected items of highway safety equipment to the community at future Annual Rallies. We have given a wide list of grants to fulfill the needs of small rural first responders.

In 2014 we became friends with the 20 year old Australian Recreational Vehicle Group of Rotarians. We became aware that they were not an official Fellowship because the RV Fellowship already existed. At this point both countries decided to combine as the Recreational Vehicle Fellowship International with North America and Australia being the group members. Between us we have close to 750 members. There have been many joint get togethers over the years along with International and Rolling rallies. Some of the recent past International rallies consist of Sydney Australia; Atlanta Georgia; and Toronto Canada.

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