It was sheer serendipity – a chance meeting between two people at a social gathering – that led to the birth of the Rotary Club of Laguna Phuket.

Things moved fast from thereon. As vice president of the Rotary Club of Patong Beach, Rtn. Hari pledged full support for the idea and Jan readily offered secretarial assistance and one of the island’s most beautiful venues for breakfast meetings.

A hurried luncheon was arranged with Rtn. David Arell, President of the Rotary Club of Patong Beach who promised to get his board’s agreement to sponsor the new club.  It was also agreed to invite John Magee, a prominent local resident to become the charter president of the new club.

Once again it was a sheer coincidence that John had wanted to be a Rotarian but had turned down the invitation for membership in the Patong Rotary club at the time of its formation. He did not relish the idea of driving to Patong at night every week for the club’s dinner meetings. But now he had no excuse.

A meeting to launch the formation of the new club was attended by about 20 prospective members at the Dusit Laguna Resort Hotel on 7 June, 2006. At the meeting, Sam Fauma, special representative of the Rotary District Governor and a past president of the Patong Rotary, presented the aims and objectives of the Rotary movement. He noted that there are now 1.2 million Rotarians in about 32,000 Rotary clubs around the world.
Events moved quite rapidly since that first meeting and the club received its charter within a record time.  A number of speakers addressed the morning meetings on a wide variety of subjects. The club was also able to identify at least two worthwhile projects – gift of sports equipment to a local school and “adoption’ of a fisherman’s village north of the island near Sarasin bridge.