Gv. Peshala Prabhapoorna
As a newbie Gavelier, one of the things that most of us look forward to is our first physical meeting, and it’s extra special when your first meeting is the 8th anniversary of the club. I was even more excited about the upcoming meeting because I was invited to be a part of the organizing committee. We started planning the event two weeks before the meeting, but as we always do, we procrastinated as a group and did the actual planning during the last week. So, most of our dear VP Edu, Gv. Dilushi’s half an hour meetings went on for one and half hours. Finally, the day that we all were waiting for arrived, and we got off to a good, but a bit late start.
First came the very secretive and special Round Robin session that we code named as the CCC session. We were supposed to keep the name a secret between the active OC members. So, imagine our surprise when Gv. Dilushi, the one who wanted to keep this a secret, shared it in the WhatsApp group five minutes after she suggested it. CCC short for Chit Chat Confessions, was a hit and everybody was eager to confess their feelings about the Gavel Club while speaking on the topic “What made you attracted to Gavel…”.
Then we moved on to the part of the meeting that a lot of the people there were looking forward to the most; cutting the cake. It looked delicious and had an anniversary wish and a gavel printed on it. We all sang the happy birthday song, blew the candles and cut the cake. Some of us ate more cake than others, but it was all fair and square. Because the ones who ate a bit more, including me, asked the others if they wanted the remaining pieces and they politely declined the offer.
While we were eating cake our retired old Gv. Ravindu gave his last, “last speech” of his Gavel journey with UOR. He spoke about our veteran Gaveliers, the past and the roots of our club, the progress the club has made over the past few years as one of the youngest clubs in the university. With his last speech, he inspired us to raise the Gavel Club that we all love to new heights while we are here.
We also modified or replaced our usual Table Topics session and did something special for the anniversary, and we called it the “Infinite Debate”. We had some really interesting debate topics lined up for this session, but we had to limit it to just one debate because we were running out of time. So, we chose the most important topic out of them that was necessary to be settled once and for all; Fried Rice vs. Kottu. Our intention was to settle the dilemma that we all face as Sri Lankans when we go out to eat most of the time; “Should I get fried rice or kottu?”. I was in the team Fried Rice, as any sensible person should be, and we fought hard to ensure that Fried Rice came on top, but in the end it all came down to Gv. Ravindu’s judgement, who had stolen the authority from the panel of judges. He ruled in favour of team Kottu. It was obvious the judgement was biased, and he also admitted it later by mistake.
After the Infinite Debate our President, Gv. Chinthani gavelled the meeting to an end. We all had smiles on our faces. Our club had grown a year older, and within the past year we also grew up with the club. New members joined the club, we expanded our reach on a lot of platforms. As members of the club, we gained the courage to not fear embarrassment. We grew together. The next year of the Gavel Club has already started and I’m sure I’m speaking for everyone when I say that we are ready to grow up and grow old together.
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