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| In January 1964, the RI Board of Directors
and The Rotary Foundation Board of Trustees approved
Group Study Exchange as an official Rotary program.
Thirty-four teams from 17 pairs of districts participated
in the first round of exchanges during the 1965-66 and
1966-67 Rotary years. But young people had been traveling
the globe with support from Rotary clubs well before
this decision. In 1950, six young men from England
went to New Zealand, led by English Rotarian Geoff
Morton and financed by clubs in Yorkshire. They traveled
the country, staying with Rotarians along the way.
Rotarian Ralph Vernon
proposed a similar endeavor in 1955 to clubs in northern
New Zealand, who wanted to commemorate Rotary’s
golden anniversary with a districtwide effort. District
39 (now districts 9910, 9920, 9930, and 9940) created
the Rotary Overseas Travel Award program, and John
Ledgerwood, of the Rotary Club of Hamilton, led the
first team on a trip to Great Britain.
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Group Study Exchange team members visit a nuclear
research project near Geneva, circa 1967. From the
November 1967 issue of The Rotarian. |
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The program was so successful
that district leaders in New Zealand decided to continue
it after the anniversary celebrations had ended. Over
the next few years, teams from New Zealand traveled
to Canada, India, Japan, Sri Lanka, and the United
States. New Zealand Rotarians welcomed visitors from
these countries as well as from Pakistan.
In the early 1960s, the
Trustees began considering programs for non-Rotarians
that would promote international goodwill and understanding.
One plan was for small groups of young business and
professional men to travel from one Rotary district
to a district in another country.
Harold T. Thomas, a New
Zealand Rotarian who served as RI president in 1959-60,
shared information about the Rotary Overseas Travel
Award with the Trustees. Soon after the Board and
Trustees approved Group Study Exchange, Vernon and
other Rotarians with experience in group exchanges
and vocational training were invited to finalize the
details of the new Foundation program.
In the nearly five decades
since, more than 70,000 young men and women have traveled
the globe as part of Group Study Exchange teams.
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