Our visit to Stavanger International Rotary Club Norway

Posted by Geoff Widmer
Member Stories
Exchanging club banners - President Stavanger Rotary Club Duncan Samuels with Geoff and Kay Widmer

On 29th September 2025, during our visit to Norway to see my daughter Susie and her Viking family (Dan, Loke 5 and Luna 3), we had the opportunity to revisit SIRC again from our last visit in 2024.

SIRC has about 12 very active members and has a full schedule of local and international activities. They are a busy Club and raise fund through an annual golf day with energy industry support, plus many wine and beer tasting events with invited quests, to name the main activities here.

They sponsor many projects with other Rotary clubs, from 

  •  a “Special Day Out” for women in palliative care ( dress/beauty, lunch and film), 

  • weekly food kitchen in Venezuela, 

  • a 3-year funding commitment for projects in Sri Lanka 

  • a 3-year commitment to an Argentinean Rotary club to assist in projects on a case-by-case basis and 

  • involvement in a Rotary International environmental project to regrow mangroves in Bay of Bengal so as to arrest coastal erosion and improve water quality. 

We meet at the Clarion Hotel in central Stavanger. The meeting starts punctually at 7pm, conducted in English and ends exactly at 8pm after all the business is transacted. The meeting was run by President Duncan Samuels, and I was invited to give a summary of the RC Glenferrie and our activities and answered many questions about us … we can all learn from each other’s club's activities and culture.

Fellowship is important to the SIRC  and they always adjourn to the bar at 8pm for refreshments and chatter about their lives, community and Rotary matters. Here too, important “loose ends” from the meeting are tidied up, such as the location of the next whiskey and beer tasting evening…. important!! It is evident that they enjoy themselves, do excellent work and prosper notwithstanding their size.

This is a vibrant and committed small Rotary club that rotates leadership roles every year, engages in a wide range of local and international projects built around strong fellowship. Lots to learn from them.

We thoroughly enjoyed our meeting time there, their fellowship (but no whiskey and beers tasting session) and look forward to further visits when we next return to Stavanger.

 Geoff and Kay Widmer

 1st November 2025