Rotary District 9790 : A Short History
Rotary District 9790 is largely a Victorian district. It extends from the Yarra River and the northern suburbs of Melbourne to just over the Murray River to Holbrook in New South Wales, taking in the fruit-growing areas around Shepparton, many of the towns along the Hume Highway, and towns east of the Hume Highway, including Myrtleford and Bright.
One third of the clubs in District 9790 are in metropolitan Melbourne, extending from Sunbury in the west to Eltham in the east, and including Strathmore, Pascoe Vale, Craigieburn, Broadmeadows, Reservoir, Bundoora, Moreland, Preston, Coburg, Greensborough, Diamond Creek, Whittlesea, Rosanna, Heidelberg and Ivanhoe.
While one-third of the clubs are based in Melbourne, two-thirds are in rural and regional Victoria and New South Wales. A number of clubs are located in the urban areas of Shepparton (where there are five clubs) and Albury-Wodonga (where there are nine clubs). Around Albury-Wodonga are a number of clubs in towns such as Rutherglen, Corowa, Corryong and Beechworth. Other country clubs are in Seymour, Euroa, Benalla, Wangaratta and Yarrawonga.
The earliest clubs in our district to be established were the country clubs, as follows: Albury 1927, Corowa 1939, Benalla 1939, Wangaratta 1940, Euroa and Yarrawonga-Mulwala 1946, Shepparton 1948, Deniliquin 1950, Wodonga 1953, Myrtleford, Cobram and Seymour 1954.
Our district's metropolitan Rotary clubs were not chartered until after the war, first Heidelberg and Coburg in 1956, followed by Preston 1960, Broadmeadows 1962, Greensborough 1968 and Reservoir 1969.
The Rotary Club of Ivanhoe was chartered in 1993 by the Rotary Club of Heidelberg and is one of the three breakfast clubs in the district. There are three clubs locally - the Rotary Club of Ivanhoe which is a breakfast club, the Rotary Club of Heidelberg which is a lunch club and the Rotary Club of Rosanna which is a dinner club.