The Charter for the Rotary Club of Eltham was granted on 19 April 1973 and was presented at a meeting held at Glenn College, La Trobe University on Friday 1st June 1973 by District Governor Alex Rigg. The Club was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Greensborough and the Governor’s Special Representative was PP Ron Myerscough.Present at the charter dinner was the President of the Rotary Club of Altona Pi Beecham and his wife Majorie. (Pi joined Eltham in 1980).
At the time of the presentation there were 27 members and the Charter President was Geoff Dreverman. The other charter officers were Vice President Neville Emerson, Secretary Norm Tilling, Treasurer John Smibert and Directors Barry Gaudion, Bry Ham, Bruce Holland, Stan Jessop, Bob McLellan and Norm Williams. Sergeant –at –Arms was Keith Kelley (Keith was the only former Rotarian in the club). The members were determined that the club should have a character of its own and adopted a ’play it by ear’ attitude.