With all of us stuck at home with the prevailing pandemic situation, the Rotaract Club of University of Colombo, Faculty of Management and Finance decided to pull off the 12th Rotaract birthday in a grand style virtually. Even though the birthday falls on 12th October, we thought of holding the celebration on the 17th of October 2021 as it was a Sunday and would be advantageous for many Rotaractors to join the celebration. The main objective of this project was to bring back all the past presidents and secretaries to one stage as they were the main reason why our club shines elegantly. Needless to say, the present club members were so enthusiastic to meet the past members and listen to their memories and advice.
After all the committee members along with seniors arrived with “ගැම්මෙන්” having the party background and filter to commence the celebration, our two moderators Rtr. Thinara and Rtr. Chovini started off the session full of glamour asking the audience to have a virtual filter and the virtual background provided, if possible. As usual, Rtr. Arshad our beloved president was ready to welcome all the past Rotaractors and members with his astonishing words. Needless to say, the video that was next up on the agenda pulled out the hearts of all our participants. In the meantime, Rtr. Thiwanka the video editor of the committee, received invitations for many projects witnessing that breathtaking video. Thereafter Rtr. Gayan was there to entertain the audience. Then the two chatterboxes of the club, past president Rtr. Shehani and past president Rtr. Aamina managed to lift up the enthusiasm of the audience to the next level with their inherent talkative skills. When our moderator Rtr. Thinara asked “What was the first impression on Rtr. Aamina”, Rtr. Shehani answered the question by saying “මට නම් හිතුනෙ මාර පණ්ඩිතයි කියලා මුලින් මෙයාව දැක්කම”, making the entire audience laugh. Next came Rtr. Kalani, who was capable enough to make the audience dance even in this virtual platform by singing “Kandy ළමිස්සි” and “හීනයක් වගේ ඔබ ආවා”.
Afterwards our moderators moved on to the next couple of past Rotaractors, Past secretary Rtr. Thilini and Past secretary Rtr. Amandhi and directed a set of interesting questions. We were lucky enough to capture their valuable advices and got to know how being a Rotaractor would help us in the future.
Handing over the controls to Rtr. Tharushi and Rtr. Nisansa for moderating, our two moderators Rtr. Thinara and Rtr. Chovini left the spotlight. Next up was the entertainment act by Rtr. Asheian who sang his first Sinhala song on a Rotaract event, which made the board members and executive committee a bit suspicious on whom he was referring to by singing “මගේ සිහිනේ ඔබයි”. Past presidents Rtr. Lishan, Rtr. Niangika, Rtr. Praveen and our very own DRR PP. Rtr. Akhila enlightened us about their wonderful journey through Rotaract. Listening to their good old memories, our present members were encouraged to thrive for excellence through all the obstacles. Afterwards Rtr. Shaheni’s heavenly performance made the zoom chat box filled with lovely comments as usual.
Making the entire Rotaract family hyped up to the extreme, the quiz was held through the Kahoot app. The quiz included all the fun facts of our Rotaractors and some general questions. As the quiz was going on, Rtr. Malinka was teasing Rtr. Gayan behind the screen, saying “ඔයා තමයි 1st yearsලගෙ Romeo”. However, at the end of the quiz, the whole club got to know that Rtr. Gayan is the new Romeo of the 1 st year Rotaractors, how to spell Rtr. Asheian’s name properly, the social media influencer of the club, the upcoming TikTok star and many more. It was quite a big game for the 1st place between our president Rtr. Arshad and our beloved secretary Rtr. Oshadi, while Rtr. Shehani mentioned “මේක president secretary සටනක්”. Despite all the “කුණු කතා” such as “ප්රශ්න ටික leak වුණා නේද?” Rtr. Oshadi, our beloved secretary won the quiz leaving the question “මොනවද මල්ලි දින්නම දෙන gift එක?” back at the WhatsApp group. The final bullet of the event was the Rtr. Oshadi’s thank you speech which she delivered in a grand style, added with the happiness of winning the quiz, despite the fact that she was unaware of the committee’s decision to not provide any gifts.
Being a virtual event, we missed an unspoken tradition on special occasions. But since it’s not called a celebration without a scrumptious cake, the Exco, BODs and chairs of the project gathered on a separate day to cut the cake and wish for a successful year ahead.
Likewise, the project was concluded successfully with the hope of celebrating the next birthday physically, surrounded by all the members of the RACUOCFMF family.
