By Kasun Samavath Mallawarachchi
“There are three kinds of people in Gavel Club, people who take things from the Gavel Club but never give anything back, people who give things back to the club while taking maximum out of it, and people who only want to serve the club without improving themselves”
Those were the words of president Vibhanu Arachchige in his table topics speech on ‘Attitudes carves us’. As usual, he was full of passion and energy as he conveyed the message that the greatest people give something back to the society as well as obtaining something from the society.
248th Gavel meeting was held on 10th June at PG seminar room in ENTC department. As usual, the national anthem led by Manori preceded the agenda of the meeting, after which Vibhanu handed over the control to the Toast Master Thilina Madumal. After introducing the role players, the grammarian introduced the word of the day ‘Shrouded’, which meaned concealed or hidden.
The round robin session about ‘My childhood dream’ was a very interesting session where everyone spoke freely about their childhood dreams which never came true, entertaining the audience with both humorous and serious speeches. The most hilarious moment during this session was when slim figured Dinuka Salwathura said that his childhood dream was to become a heavy weight body builder!
Next came the most awaited item on the agenda, the Table Topics Session. Niluxsi Puvanenthiran, one of the enthusiastic new members of the club was the Table Topics Master for the day. The first table topic was done by Samavath Mallawarachchi on ‘Assumptions mislead’, who spoke about how we tend to misunderstand people based on what we see externally how those misunderstanding can lead to our regret. This topic was one of the most picked topics of the day. Aqeel and Manori also spoke on how assumptions mislead giving their life experiences as examples, and Rafhan gave a completely different view, saying that we cannot avoid making assumptions in some situations.
Some of the other topics which the members opted to speak on included ‘Attitudes carve us’, ‘Lectures and Lullaby’, ‘Starting the day with a snooze’ and ‘I am awesome and I know it’. Overall, the Table Topics session was enriched with a wide spectrum of valuable ideas and messages from all speakers. Some of the memorable opinions expressed today were Kithmini’s opinion on how positive thinking helps to find a solution to any problem, and Sirimevan’s opinion on how we should accept that we are awesome instead of comparing ourselves with others and feeling inferior. The table topics session was followed by timer’s and ah counter’s reports, after which Vibhanu and Kasun delivered their valuable evaluations, which would surely be crucial for all the members to sharpen and enhance their skills on their long journey of public speaking.
Subsequently, the control was handed back to the Toastmaster, and the Grammarian and General Evaluator presented their reports. Then the control was given back to the president and we thought that the meeting was going to be adjourned. But more was yet to come. Our president reinstated the ancient custom of conducting interactive games at the end of Gavel meetings. In today’s game, everyone had to write the name of his/her favorite famous person in a piece of paper, and the others had to guess who was whose favorite person. After enjoying this game, the meeting was adjourned, marking the end of another awesome Gavel meeting where Fear becomes Passion.
Role players for the day
Toastmaster – Thilina Madumal
Table Topics Master – Niluxsi Puvanenthiran
Timer – Manori Dissanayake
Ah Counter – Anuradha Sanjeewa Wickramarachchi
Grammarian – Malith Jayaweera
General Evaluator – Kithmini Senevirathne
Table Topics Evaluators – Vibhanu Arachchige and Kasun Kodithuwakku