We found (and copied) a very good description of Pentangular on the wesite of Canterbury:
The roots
One of the objects of Rotary is: "The advancement of International understanding, goodwill and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service".
Five Rotary Clubs in Europe have established contacts : UK (Canterbury), France (St Quentin), Belgium (Leuven), Germany (Lüdenscheid) and Holland (Utrecht). They meet each year by rotation. Very strong friendships have been established through these contacts.
The roots of Pentangular go back to just after the Second World War, before St Quentin even had a Rotary Club. The Canterbury Club had already established links with the northern French town as part of the post–war rebuilding that was taking hold throughout Europe. It was natural, then, under the presidency of John Thompson, that when the St Quentin Rotary Club was chartered in 1947, a formal relationship should be established between the two clubs.
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Two become Four
It was the St Quentin club that advanced the notion of wider international relationships and in 1955, the French made contact with the Rotary Club of Utrecht in Holland. Any thoughts, though, of a quick formalising of this relationship were complicated by the fact that Utrecht already had an international contact club in the shape of Leuven (also known as Louvain) in Belgium. But the Belgians soon came on board and the group of four clubs – La Quadrature - was born although it wasn’t a relationship of equals. Canterbury and Leuven were only linked via their original contact clubs of St Quentin and Utrecht respectively.
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Four become Five
In 1959 the fifth club in what was to become the Pentangular group came into the frame. A relationship was evolving between the internationally adventurous St Quentin Club and the Rotary Club of Lüdenscheid, in what was then West Germany. At first it was only an informal relationship but the friendship grew and in 1963 the first five-club meeting took place. But it was another eleven years before those who dreamt of a formal union between all five clubs finally had their wish - it was Canterbury that remained aloof.
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Pentangular Born
It wasn't until 1972 that Canterbury finally
agreed to join the formal group - the same year that the UK
joined the European Economic Community. So, 17 years after St
Quentin’s tentative moves at increasing its number of contact clubs, Pentangular
was born. It was fitting that David Thompson, the son of John
Thompson, the president who oversaw the first links with St Quentin 25
years earlier, was the president who drove through
Canterbury's joining of the group that became known as
Pentangular. From that day the relationshiip thrived and gets stronger
year by year.
It was 2008, Utrecht decided to leave the Pentangular. Today we are looking forward to welcome a new club from the Netherlands in the Pentangular.