My life at the Pokémon fan club — By Gv Lakindu Kaveesh Siriwardena

Honestly, it all started in a weird way… and it all happened so soon that I can’t imagine where to start or to end… but I guess I’ll start somewhere.

One day my dad asked me if I wanted to learn how to do public speaking and to gain leadership skills. I was a simple-minded child who was only fourteen and I really didn’t want anything other than Pokémon cards (a card game that I love) and Hot Wheel cars so I replied by saying “Nah I’m cool”.

But on Tuesday of the same week when my dad was driving me to school he said “Son I’ve decided that you need to improve on your public speaking skills, so I’ve decided to sign you up for the Toastmasters Gavel club”

I gave my father a confused look and said “well I don’t see how cooking and knowing about gravel can improve my public speaking skills”

“What??? You know what Lakindu? they might have Pokémon fans there as well” replied my father.

And that is why I thought that gavel was a Pokémon fan club during the first few meetings that I attended.

But a few months after I joined gavel I realized that gavel was more than just a Pokémon fan club (it took me a few more weeks after that to realize that it actually WASN’T a Pokémon fan club) and that it was actually a public speaking club. A few more months passed on and people gave speeches some were inspiring, some were funny and some were just not very interesting. But there was something I realized, no matter what your speech was everyone would always inspire you to do more speeches and help you out when you needed help with your speech. I was still creeped out about the fact that I had to speak in front of an audience so I just kept quiet and listen to everyone else speak.

But then one day during the 9th gavel installation the president (Sahana Nandakumar [great speaker if you haven’t listened to any of her speeches I advise you to listen]) gave a speech and in that speech, she mentioned something about gavel being a family… I was still simple-minded and fourteen so I didn’t understand what she said…

A few months later I got this book… it was called the CC manual… it was a book with different speech levels and they were called prepared speeches so basically all you had to do was prepaid on a speech topic and speak about it during the club meeting sessions and all the cool kids at gavel we’re doing speeches from this manual so one day I decided to do a speech from the CC manual… but I got scared and signed out at the last minute saying that I’ll do a table topic speech and try that out first before I went to the CC manual.

So on the next club meeting, the table topic master called me up to the stage to do a table topic speech (for those of you who don’t know what a table topic speech is you basically have to give an impromptu speech on a certain topic that the table topic master gives you).I was so nervous that I didn’t know what to say and even though I can’t remember what I said I’m sure that I muttered a lot of jargon and a lot of slang words up there. But then from that day onwards, I decided that I need to improve so I started to take part in the table topic session. And even though I was EXTREMELY bad at first my evaluators kept on inspiring me and helping me out with my speeches so I improved with time.

And then one day I decided to do my first prepared speech (the ice breaker). So On the day of the speech, my evaluator read out the topic and invited me to do my speech… I went up to the stage, smiled at the audience and… Hit my head on the wall… (no seriously, for all of you who weren’t there I seriously went to the wall near the head table and slammed my head on it… thrice) everyone was shocked at first but then they all realized that it was part of my speech and when I continued my speech everyone laughed at my jokes and applauded when I said some kind of funny story and after the speech everyone came to me and congratulated me on completing CC one, my evaluator (Jemini) said that I did a great speech and everyone said that the speech was funny. And I well I was extremely overjoyed I had a slight headache, yes, but I was happy. And from that day onwards I started doing prepared speeches more frequently (I was extremely glad that I found a set of people who actually laughed at my jokes without just starring at me like I’m an alien from mars).

A few years passed and I attended a few gavel events and helped organize a few events as well… I also got the position as the Sargent-at-arms (my first ExCo position, yay) and then I completed my CC manual a few weeks after that… I started doing the ACB manual and the year after here I am as the secretary of the gavel club (huge honour honestly). I’ve achieved a lot from gavel I’ve achieved leadership skills, communication skills, public speaking skills and made friendships that’d last a lifetime. But even though I got all of that from gavel I feel like the greatest thing I’ve achieved is that I’ve understood the meaning of the words our past president said during our 9th installation. “Gavel is a family, the Gavel is a family because…” ooook Wait Wait Wait a moment… if I tell you why you won’t be able to find out why gavel is a family by yourself right? so for all of the gaveliers who are already in Gavel, I advise you to find the reason for Gavel to be a family by yourself because if I tell you the reason now it won’t have the same effect as you finding it out yourself and for all of you who haven’t yet joined the club… well, why not join us and see for yourself?

And when you find out why gavel is a family why not come and tell me why you think so? And we’ll compare notes and see if we have the same reason. (My names Lakindu Siriwardena, you can find me running around the meeting hall, if you need me)