The Stamford CT Rotary Club celebrated their  90th Anniversary last night in grand style with a highly personalized, five course wine dinner at the Royal Green restaurant at Sterling Farms, 1349 Newfield Avenue, Stamford. It was a spectacular fellowship event that was attended by Rotarians, family members and friends which truly showed the enduring spirit and heart that this club has.

The Stamford Rotary Club has been undergoing a slow but steady revolutionary change in adapting the way that the club operates to be in sync with current times. Not the easiest of tasks if you consider that the Stamford CT Rotary Club was chartered back in 1923 as part of  Rotary International District #1.

The Anniversary event was fun, friendly, welcoming and very well organized by Event Chair Arisleyda Riehl and her committee. A casual observer can always gauge the energy in the room by the amount of conversational noise and the positive energy in that room was considerable. The event ended around 11 PM and many people milled around for awhile afterwards enjoying each others’ company, nobody was running for the exits here.

It was fabulous to see my good friend and mentor Ernie DiMattia  and his wife Susan last night. Ernie was District Governor in 1990-91, the last year that we were district 798 and my second year in Rotary. I learned many important lessons from Ernie while he was DG including; the clubs are the most important component in Rotary, always be kind and that Rotary shouldn’t be political. This year as DG has been especially nice for me in that I’ve had the opportunity to reconnect with Ernie in his home club of Stamford.

If your Rotary Club is planning an Anniversary Celebration then consider borrowing a page from the Stamford Rotary Club’s playbook with an event like this. These can be great fellowship events that bring Rotarians, family and friends together.