Cheers to a fresh start!

It was a good Wednesday afternoon.

The feeling of walking through a door instead of just clicking on a link to join the weekly meeting was wholesome.
After a series of virtual educational meetings, finally, we could mark the fresh re-beginning of the journey of physical meetings on the 7th of September 2022.

It was not an easy task to move from a virtual to a physical platform. Before the meeting started, there were many arrangements to make since the meeting was in OUR NEW GAVEL HOME! We had to clean, we had to find stationary and other equipment, and Sameera sir was there as always to help us with making all those arrangements. Hanging the national flag was one big project there, where we realized how important to have tall members in a family.

There were slight differences between a physical meeting and an online meeting. And Panchanie akki was there from the beginning to teach everything in the formal meeting procedure; from the way to hold the gavel to how to conclude the meeting.

Everything was ready to start the very first physical educational meeting for the new term, and it was the very first physical meeting of our poddo and surely, everyone was so excited.

And then our madam president commenced the 440th gavel educational meeting. We all could see how happy and proud she was on her face. Then the gavel was passed to the toastmaster of the day, Gv. Thathsara and his words inspired the whole crowd. Subsequently, the general evaluator, Gv. Dehan and his team were introduced. Then we moved on to the round-robin session, which was conducted by myself. There everyone spoke about what makes them smile with bright smiles on their faces.

Then came the most awaited session of the day; the table topic session which was conducted by Gv. Malki. It was a quicker session than usual as all the amazing six poddas who spoke, voluntarily picked up the topics and mesmerized the audience with their inspiring speeches.

Apart from those wonderful speeches, the “Ting Ting!” Of Gv. Sanjeeda’s timer’s bell took my special attention. 😉 That fun-filled table topic session was followed by the evaluations. After the Ah-counter’s, Grammarian’s, and Timer’s reports were given, a very well-detailed table topic evaluation was given to each speaker by Gv. Asmitha and Gv. Nirantha.

It was such a nice experience to see everyone’s faces, hand gestures, and stage movements while speaking without connection issues and power cuts.

“Everybody, please come in front to take the photograph.” Other than asking to turn on the webcams! Wasn’t that the loveliest part of the day? After the official procedures are done, the room was filled with small chit-chats, warm hugs, and laughter. It was so loving to meet our talented gaveliers in one place, and the meeting can be called one of the perfect educational meetings in the gavel journey.

Everybody said goodbye after having Gv. Asmitha’s wafers. But we all knew that it was not a goodbye, but a big hello to another wonderful physical meeting in the next week.