– A VPE\u2019s slightly overdramatic report of the 174th Meeting of the Gavel Club of the University of Colombo – <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Coronavirus pandemic has kept us all at home and is making the world suffer, as we know all too well. There are a few things that are benefitting because everyone is being forced to stay at home. We all know that Netflix is thriving, and our data plans are all going for a six, but one more thing that is benefitting from the virus (that I must admit, I never saw coming) is the attendance sheet for our Educational meetings. We have had two educational meetings so far, and we have had more than 35 members at each of them, and my little VPE heart is happy about everyo\ufeff\u5fc5\u5229\u52c1<\/a>\n<\/span>ne jumping at the chance to play a role at meetings. (thanks so much, guys!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n We did, however, miss out on having a good old Awurudu party this year \u2013 it is strange for us all to spend this wonderful time without the sound of bickering relatives in our ear, compliments about how much weight we\u2019ve lost or how good our kevum is this year and worst of all \u2013 without \u201cganu-denu\u201d (I personally am more interested in the \u201cganu\u201d portion of the tradition). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since Gavel UoC is famous for its slogan \u201cGavel Never Stops\u201d, we decided to take Awurudu to a virtual level and see what we could do with the resources we have. What ensued was, at the very least,a good laugh for everyone that took part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a few games arranged that we could play with each other online, courtesy of our very imaginative ExCo members at the helm. All of the roles were taken up pretty quickly for the educational meeting as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What first happened was a gritty, nail-biting contest to crown the Awurudu Kumaraya and Awurudu Kumariya \u2013 with many, many nominations to consider, about 24 hours to vote and campaigns launched by contenders all across their respective platforms, we racked in around 3000 votes \u2013 to have 3000 of anything is a pretty great thing at this day and age, so to have this sort of buzz going was amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our grandmaster and club President GV Uditha will tell you that the voting wars were tense, exhilarating and super unpredictable, as Gaveliers are known to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The 174th educational meeting \u2013 Awurudu in the Time of Corona \u2013 kicked off at 4pm on Zoom. With an audience of about 37 at its peak, the meeting was, I would say, successful! We had enough people to fill a physical room, virtually. Toastmaster of the Day, GV Nethma handled the meeting with confidence and grace, and all the other role players did their jobs exceptionally well. After 4 great table topics, we adjourned the meeting and got to the Awurudu shenanigans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During the meeting, GV Ishani gave us clues about the \u201cSangawunu Amuththa\u201d \u2013 a person so mysterious, so difficult to locate, that she had to give us two additional clues along with the original three clues that we got at the beginning. We really racked our brains on this, but only one of us emerged the winner (read on for the identity reveal). <\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s great about Gavel UoC is that we are all friends, so it is guaranteed that at any time of the meeting, some sort of joke will be made, laughed at, and hushed. Take away the serious(ish)ness of a formal meeting, and it is literally a bunch of friends hanging out and catching up, through a medium that we never thought we would need. The post-meeting fun began with a competition to see who could drink 1 litre of water the fastest. What started with around 12 competitors readying their bottles of water, progressing to scrutinizing if someone\u2019s bottle was actually filled, to deciding what level of a 1.5-litre bottle should the water be up to, in order to qualify for the game and with random people having their screens off when they were supposed to be on (you know, the usual), the competition was afoot. As someone who watched this game, let me tell you \u2013 riveting stuff! <\/p>\n\n\n\n The great battle was won by GV Anusith, whose amazing feat will be remembered forever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We then progressed to what was my favourite game of the evening (and you\u2019ll understand why after the next few sentences) \u2013 Guessing the song! GV Kaumadi played out 6-second snippets of songs ranging from all genres (the 80s, 90s classics to rap to pop music) and participants had to guess the name of the song and its artist and scream it out loud for everyone to hear. If you got it right, you got a point. She was very lenient with us, even letting us choose the genre of music most of the time. What I witnessed here was a lot of \u201cthinking face\u201d expressions \u2013 and some of those were hilarious. We all yelled out the names of the songs and had the time of our quarantined lives. After playing for about 40minutes, GV Kaumadi added up the scores and declared ME the winner. While I soar on the wings of victory, I would like to say to all of my fierce and worthy competitors: good game; well played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, GV Uditha indulged us all in a high-stakes game of \u201cKanaa Mutti\u201d \u2013 his screen took over ours and we guessed with all our hearts to find the right one, but alas, this game was too great for us to conquer. It was great fun, though. The comment wars were interesting as well, with certain Gaveliers forgetting the \u201cone comment per person\u201d rule (you know who you are).<\/p>\n\n\n\n