President of the Month – Why Though?

Blind Walk was quite an eye opening event. A little bit more eye opening for us RACUOCFMF-ers, because that is the day we found out that our beloved President Rtr. Shehani Leo (we’ll be referring to her as Leo in the rest of the article to make life easy), had become the President of the month of September in the Rotaract District 3220. Why eye opening you may wonder? Because all our eyes became wide and large and people saw no blinks as we wondered why she got it. Like, seriously why?

It was towards the end of the Open Mic Night following the Blind Walk and about the 20 of us who were remaining there were chit chatting and improving “fellowship” in true Rotaract style. Someone walked in to the room with Leo and announced the news of her life (figuratively and literally) and suddenly all we heard were “Congratulations!” and the demand for a treat. At the hype of the moment, we too joined the party and celebrated her day with her, and then carried on with our lives like normal humans. But here we are, a month later, trying to figure out how and why she got it. So obviously, in true RACUOCFMF style, we are going to take you through this journey as well.

Note : Leo is reading this for the first time now as well so if you are Leo, HI, we love you :’)

Okay, so there is no doubt that Leo is certainly a hardworking, passionate, ..… *inserts a long list of adjectives*….. President. And there is no doubt that she puts 100% into everything that she does. (This time, only literally). But we assume this is true for all Presidents. At least most of them?

So what is it that sets her apart?

Well, there are certainly some qualities in her which are, for the lack of a better word, interesting!

First of all there is the fact that she fits the definition of most animals you’ll see in a zoo.(You’ll literally hear someone saying she looks like a new animal every week, pug somehow is famous). And then there’s the fact that she is a walking talking broken radio, which has a wire that finds a place to plugin close to everyone she meets (as literal as it gets). Her “Plug-Ventures” are something we can create an entire article series out of so let’s leave that aside for now. She also has this obsession, and we mean obsession, with getting all her single board members to date someone! Anyone! And sometimes everyone!

But obviously none of these contribute in her becoming the President of the Month.

But then there’s the fact that she’s extremely enthusiastic. Most of her enthusiasm lies in Rotaract, because honestly, she’s in love with Rotaract than most of our members are with their human partners. While most people lose sleep over other human things like midnight flirting and studying, she loses sleep over either doing Rotaract work, or trying to figure out interesting ways to make things better for our club. This results in our board members getting unexpected (not so unexpected now) midnight calls from her. Her ideal Friday night is spending time on a Rotaract related conference call.

This also results in her being highly passionate and motivated towards making our club better every day. She certainly is a great leader, who has a very charming and enduring way of getting work done. So charming, that by the end of it, you’d do it all over again for her. She possesses some of the best leadership qualities that we’ve noticed lacks in many people, such as transparency, listening to opinions of all, a chill attitude and sheer positivity towards everything.

She motivates her team to get creative and trusts them completely in the process, giving us the true freedom to be creative. (Hence why even putting up this article is possible). She is kind, caring and extremely friendly, which certainly makes it much more fun to work for the club.

Well, after all of that, even we’re coming to the realization that, “that’s why.”

Jokes apart though, we are not surprised that she got recognized as the President of the Month as we honestly don’t know anyone who deserves it more. And now we’re going to insert that long list of adjectives that we were too bored to do earlier.

She is a hardworking, passionate, understanding, motivating, kind, caring, funny, encouraging, bold, trustworthy, patient, humble and compassionate leader that all of us truly draw inspiration from. We honestly couldn’t be more happy for and proud of her and as board members of RACUOCFMF, on behalf of the entire club, Congratulations Leo!

HOLD ON, that’s not the end. We saved the BEST for the last.

Leo does have a Partner when it comes to Rotaract and that’s none other than “Puma” – Her Shadow and Our Secretary! (Piyumi Abeywardhana)

And together, there’s no doubt about the fact that,

“They can make it happen for our fellow friends like no other :’). It’s their friendship that makes us thriiiiiiiiiiiive.”