The club’s history

More than 25 years of Rotary in Warsaw

The history of Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder began at the start of the 21st century. Over the years that followed, the meeting places, the Club’s membership, its presidents and its forms of activity all changed, but the idea of Rotary stayed the same — bringing together people who want to use their experience, contacts and commitment in the service of others.

Today’s Club is part of the same history that began in 2001 and continues to this day.

2002–2008 — building a community and community service

From the start the Club’s work was not limited to regular meetings. Members took part in helping children and young people, people with disabilities, patients and older people. They organised fundraising and supported people in difficult circumstances.

The Club funded, among other things, school starter kits, summer holidays for children from Warsaw’s Praga district, rehabilitation equipment and hearing implants. In later years there were also initiatives carried out together with community organisations and foundations.

For several years the Club also awarded small, regular scholarships to young people whose circumstances made it hard for them to grow and to study.

The Club also created the “Rotary Rose” — an award for people from the world of culture who combined their professional work with community involvement.

One way of raising money was the charity meetings and events the Club organised — often together with an artistic programme — whose proceeds went to community aid and to particular initiatives.

Help was not always financial. Members also used their knowledge, contacts and organisational reach to support particular people and institutions.

2010/2011 — help in many forms

The surviving report for the 2010/2011 Rotary year shows the wide range of the Club’s community work.

Help went, among others, to children from Warsaw foster families — with trips and the purchase of computer equipment; to people in need of medical care; to a large family from Ełk. Charity events were also organised. The Club also funded professional tools for a person with a disability who works in sculpture, supporting that person’s professional and artistic development.

Some of the work was carried out together with other Rotary clubs. The Club took part, among other things, in charity events organised with RC Warszawa-Wilanów in aid of the Children’s Villages, and with partners abroad. The speech correction devices for the Institute of Hearing Pathology in Kajetany were a joint effort with a German club.

These activities clearly show the pattern that was typical of the Club for years: help for a particular person or group, combined with the knowledge, contacts and reach of its members.

2014 — help for Ukraine

The Club’s involvement in helping Ukraine began long before the full-scale war that started in 2022.

In 2014 the Club joined the “We help Ukraine” effort, which involved, among other things, medical aid for hospitals and residents of eastern Ukraine. The surviving records mention the purchase of dressings, single-use supplies, surgical kits, medical equipment and medicines.

Over time, help for Ukraine became one of the important, recurring strands of the members’ work.

Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder joined the humanitarian aid for people affected by the war, drawing on the relationships and contacts built up over years with Rotarians and partners from Ukraine. In this period the Club also took part in relief work carried out together with the Kulczyk Foundation, including transports and support for those harmed by the war.

The contacts with Ukrainian Rotary clubs, developed back in the days of the shared District 2230, took on particular importance then. The experience of earlier cooperation made it possible to respond to needs faster and to join in work across borders.

In the years that followed, the Club’s Polish-Ukrainian character became ever more visible and shaped the direction of its work ever more strongly.

2016 — helping to found RC Lviv International

On 1 April 2016 RC Lviv International received its charter — the first English-language Rotary club in Lviv. Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder was one of the clubs that supported its founding and is recorded in the Rotary International database as a sponsor club.

RC Lviv International grew over time into one of the active Rotary clubs in Ukraine. It works in an international setting and runs initiatives connected with medical aid, among others.

Supporting its founding is one example of how Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder took part not only in community projects but also in the growth of the Rotary network itself.

2018–2020 — meetings, conversations and people

The Club’s history is not only about community and relief projects. The regular meetings were also a space for conversations with people from culture, politics, the media and community work.

The club archive holds photographs from meetings with, among others, Wojciech Smarzowski, Wiesław Ochman, Jerzy Baczyński, Ryszard Kalisz, Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, Vincent V. Severski, Michał Szczerba, Jerzy Fedorowicz, Stanisław Ciosek, Andrzej Celiński and Urmi Basu.

The topics covered culture, history, community life, politics, the media and the challenges of the modern world.

For years, meetings with guests were an important part of the Club’s life — a chance to hear different points of view, to exchange experience and to build relationships.

2024 — the Club’s growth, international cooperation and help for Ukraine

In 2024 the Club took an increasingly active part in the life of District 2231 and of the international Rotary network. Its representatives attended Rotary training, including PETS, and in June the Club admitted further new members.

Contacts abroad grew in parallel. Club members visited the Oslo International Rotary Club in Norway, and at meetings in Warsaw they hosted Rotary representatives from other countries, including Kato Katouh Takehiko, a future Rotary governor in Japan.

In April the Club’s online guest was Vira Syriamina from RC Lviv Zamok, the first woman governor of District 2232. Her story — from Rotaract to the office of governor — was also an example of a path of growth and leadership in Rotary.

The Club also kept in touch with Rotary representatives from Ukraine, including Olha Paliychuk, a future governor of District 2232. These meetings strengthened relationships built back in the days of the shared District 2230.

At the same time the Club’s Polish-Ukrainian character translated ever more clearly into concrete relief work for Ukraine and for Ukrainians living in Poland — from support for children and young people to cooperation with community organisations, Rotarians and partners abroad.

In the autumn of 2024 representatives of the District 2231 leadership, including the new governor, visited the Club. The meeting was a chance to talk about what is particular to Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder — its Polish-Ukrainian membership, its plans for growth and the relief initiatives it runs for Ukraine.

The work discussed included sending adaptive clothing to Ukrainian hospitals and the “A million reflectors for children from Ukraine” initiative, meant to make children safer in areas affected by the war.

2024 was thus a period in which growth in membership, help for Ukraine and international contacts began to come together clearly into one direction of the Club’s work.

2026 — 25 years of the Club, memory and a new stage

In 2026 Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder marks 25 years in Rotary International.

A quarter of a century of history means successive generations of members, presidents, projects, meetings, partnerships and people who helped build the Club over the years. The anniversary became not only a chance to look back but also a spur to put that history in order and to keep it.

Over the year we gathered and put in order the Club’s digital and paper archive — documents, photographs, old materials, web records and members’ recollections. An important part of that work was a meeting with Elżbieta Puławska, the first president and one of the people who built the Club from the start, during which we went back over the story of its founding, its first projects, and the people and places connected with Rotary Club Warszawa-Belweder.

That work also produced the Club’s new website, which for the first time brings together in one place the record of all 25 years of its work — from the beginnings in 2001 to the present day.

We see it as a form of thanks to the Club and to everyone who made its history over a quarter of a century.

Alongside this the Club developed further areas of cooperation. Talks about work in Ukraine continued with representatives of the Rotary District and of Ashoka. Contacts also grew with partners from Ukraine and with Rotarians interested in cooperation, including from the Netherlands and the Republic of South Africa.

This shows a change in the way the Club works: from single relief initiatives towards long-term partnerships, exchange of experience and deliberate use of the international Rotary network.

In June 2026, following Rotary tradition, another term came to an end and service passed to a new Club president. The president’s chain, with its central plate recalling the year 2001 and further plates recording the terms that followed, remains one of the clearest symbols of that continuity.

The Club’s presidents

Where we met over the years

Changing meeting places became one of the characteristic features of the Club’s history. Over the years members met in different parts of Warsaw — at the Hotel Sobieski, the Hotel Bristol, the Restauracja Belvedere, the Hotel MDM, the Restauracja Florian and the Hotel 66 on Nowy Świat.

Today the Club meets again at Hotel MDM on plac Konstytucji — a place that had already been part of its history.