166th Gavel Meeting

It was time to have a normal meeting for the Gavel family after having a series of themed meetings. 166^th Gavel meeting was held at Postgraduate Training Room in the 3rd floor of the ENTC Building on March 21st, 2013, from 5.00 p.m. onwards. The President commenced the meeting and everyone stood up for the national anthem. 

Toastmaster was Charith Akalanka, an enthusiastic member of the club. After introducing the role players, the round robin session commenced. The toastmaster stated that he would not give an introduction to the topic and he invited the audience to tell whatever comes to their minds when they hear the word “Maththala”. This session was full of humor.

Then it was time to have the table topic session. Imesh Prathiba, another emerging active member in the club played the role of table topics master for the first time in his gavel story. A good set of topics were displayed and everyone came forward to express their ideas. After the evaluators’ reports, control was handed over to the toastmaster. Since there were no prepared speeches, the toastmaster handed over the Gavel to the President. The meeting was adjourned by the President. 

165th Gavel Meeting

“A promise is a promise” –

Mr. President called the 165^th meeting to order by mentioning the UN theme of the Women’s day 2013. It was the “Women’s Day Meeting at Gavel on 11^th of March at 5.00 p.m in 215 Hall, Sumanadasa building.  It was an exciting meeting because both girls and boys had a lot to share about women.  Boys make fun as they criticize girls. Yet they do appreciate the presence of women in their lives as mothers, as sisters and of course as girl friends. Girls are definitely proud of being girls.

After the national anthem the President introduced the toastmaster for that special day.  She was the ideal person for the toastmaster because she is known as the feminist of the club. It was none other than Hasini Abeywickrama. According to the procedures role players were introduced. Round robin session topic had two versions. “In girls’ shoes” for boys and “how I see girls” for girls. Everyone pointed out how important it is the presence of women in their lives.

After warming up their voices the audience was ready for the table topic session. Toastmaster called upon the Table topic master, again a female representation in the club, Sandareka Wickramanayake. The gathering was so enthusiastic to express their ideas. Many valuable and interesting thoughts did come up.

“Equality should be in every aspect..” ,

“No need of women’s day because it is an insult for them” ,

“Women are not hard to understand, men just need a little bit of literature!” were a few of them.

Most of the speakers took more than 3 minutes for their table topic speeches; it might be because they had a lot to share. It was really enjoyable. 

After evaluation reports control was handed over back to the toastmaster. Since there was no prepared speeches after having grammarian’s report and general evaluator’s report toast master’s duty came to the end.

Then a small game was conducted by the president. After that Women’s Meeting 2013 was adjourned by the President.

164th Gavel Meeting

After a while we met at the university premises to have a Gavel meeting. It was the 164^th meeting held on 4^th of March 2013, at Sumanadasa building at about 5.pm.  Since our President,  Pasan Pethiyagoda who is also the student representative of IEEE region 10 had visited Bangkok, Thailand for a conference he was not able to make it. Therefore the Vice President Education Hasini Abeywikarama headed the meeting. She called the meeting to the order and everyone stood up for the national anthem lead by Dinesh. 

The control was handed over to the Toast Master for the day, Vibhanu Archchige. “If you get a chance to date a celebrity, who would you choose?” was raised as the round robin topic. Everyone was excited expressing their feelings about such a date. This made the session enjoyable. The time was to the table topic session. Sachille Athapaththu was called upon as the Table Topics Master. He had come up with a good set of topics. They could be related to our lives as well as most of them were about current situations. The audience eagerly gave voices to their thoughts. In the prepared speech session Sajith was supposed to break his ice. He delivered a genuine, touching and inspirable speech revealing him.    

After all the evaluations reports, it was time to mark the end of another wonderful evening at Gavel. The Vice President Education, Hasini adjourned the meeting. 

163rd Gavel Meeting

“Where the willing is great, difficulties can’t be great” – Niccolo Machiavelli

This saying was again proved by the successfully held Valentine Day Meeting of the Gavel Club along with various difficulties. The 163 Meeting was held in the Independence Square, Torinton as the 3^rd outdoor Gavel Meeting in the history.

The meeting was called to order by the President Pasan Pethiyagode at about 10.00 a.m. Then everyone stood up for the national anthem lead by Damith Senanayake. After the introduction speech by the President, the Toastmaster for the day Samawath Mallawaarchchi, the co-chair for the Valentine Day Meeting was invited.

In the round robin session members had to proposed rather expressed his/her love to the person whose name was in the strip of paper given to each of them. No further expiations are needed, it was really fantastic! Then the Toastmaster invited the other co-chair of the event Hasara Samadhi as the Table Topic Master. A nice set of topics had been given so most of the members in the gathering raised their voices. The next item in the agenda was the Prepared Speech session. Imesh LihiniKanduarchchi broke his ice on the Valentine Day Meeting. Imesh described how he had won his life so far and emphasized that difficulties couldn’t stop one’s journey. After a fabulous prepared speech a special item had been organized. Members were grouped into pairs. Each pair was given a funny topic to act on. It showed that Gavelliars are not only talkative about also very talented in acting. This item made the day more funny and enjoyable and this brought the Valentine Day Meeting of Gavel Club to the end. The meeting was adjourned by the President. 

162nd Gavel Meeting

162^nd meeting marked the dawn of a new era of Gavel history. It was the first meeting done by the newly appointed board which was held on 24^th of December, at CSLR of CSE.

People all around the world were preparing to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas Day is a day everyone is celebrating regardless of the religious faiths they have.  Then why Gavel would miss it? Therefore this meeting was declared as “A Silver Christmas at Gavel”.  It was a candle night at Gavel in which the hall was nicely decorated with a Christmas tree and other decorations. The new President Pasan Pethiyagoda, called his first meeting to order mentioning importance of that meeting. Then everyone stood up for the national anthem lead by Schile Athapaththu.

The toastmaster for the Silver Christmas was Hasini Abyewickrama.  She did a wonderful job by conducting round robin session in a different way. A plate containing strips of paper was passed around. Each member had to take one strip from the plate.  Each strip had a name of an item which would be the gift decided by Santa to be given to that particular person. Each person had to talk why Santa had decided to give that item to him/her. The round robin session was really enjoyable, but at the end making everyone surprise toastmaster was suddenly interrupted by Santa who came all the way to our meeting with a bag of presents. Then the control was handed over to Santa to carry out the table topic session. He had come up with a nice set of topics relating to Christmas, so it couldn’t stop members of the house coming to the stage. Every member wanted to have a gift from Santa, it seemed. After the table topic session Santa went and it was time for the prepared speech session. The author of the club Samawath Mallawarchchi broke his ice delivering a sincere and a marvelous speech. After having evaluator’s report once again Toastmaster was interrupted by Santa. This time he came to do something he had forgotten to do last time. He wanted us to sing carols with him. Thanushan was invited to assist the crew with music. It was a fantastic moment when everyone was singing carols having a lightened candle in their hands.

Next, the President took control and adjourned the meeting. The gathering was served with small refreshment.