Issue 430th September 2014

In this Issue, page

New Member Profiles 3Club Achievements 5Recent Club Events 6Club Contest 7Member Speeches 8

#CANDORSLIIT Toastmasters Club NewsletterDiscover the Meaning of Life with Toastmastering

SLIIT Toastmasters ClubDistrict 82, Division E, Area E1Club No: 1410480

Sri Lanka Institute ofInformation TechnologyNew Kandy RoadMalabeSri Lanka

Tel : +94 11 241 3900Fax: +94 11 241 3901

email :sliit_toastmasters@sliit.lk

Message from the President Darshika Koggalahewa CCOver the years, SLIIT Toastmasters club has attracted unique per-sonalities who provides dynamic, fun, quality and who embraces the Toastmasters trademark. We enjoy the support and power of a core of club members who have compassion, enthusiasm and in-novative ideas. Our club provides a pleasant, calm, and encourag-ing environment where we learn to step out of our comfort zones and start our own exciting journeys of self discovery. Personally, I believe we all need to understand and be understood by the people we meet in our day-to-day lives. We all know that

communication between people is a fundamental necessity, personally, professionally and in public interactions. Toastmasters provide a great opportunity to learn how you can articulate the ideas and impress the others with your own talents. A Toastmasters club is the place where Leaders are made. It is true. It is also the place where self-confidence and self-esteem is built by providing constructive evaluations and tips for improvement. We Academics can have the innovative ideas and the best thoughts but if we do not communicate what we have in our minds to our students in a way they understand, then our ideas and thoughts are of no use. So I urge you all to take this message across to all the members of SLIIT family and the students and get them to join the Toastmasters movement. After all, it is friends helping friends. Join SLIIT Toastmasters with this year’s theme “Discover the meaning of Life with Toastmaster-ing”

Message from the VP Education Maliendra Gunawardena CLToastmasters Club is one place where members could be groomed as skilled communicators and leaders. SLIIT Toastmasters Club targets to improve those skills in the members by holding regular meetings during the year. Regular meetings will enable the members to play roles which improve essential skills needed by leaders such as lis-tening, facilitation and time management skills etc. and also offers opportunities for their members to speak and be evaluated. We, at SLIIT Toastmasters Club always make it a point to offer the best

evaluations from experienced toastmasters and try to share knowledge and experience of dis-tinguished members of the Toastmasters’ fraternity by inviting them to our meetings. During the year, we have gained immensely by the presence of several Distinguished Toastmasters such as DTM Zameen M. Saleem, DTM Sudash Liyanage and DTM Padmini Samarasinghe. We plan for educational achievements of our members in such a way that the club could sus-tain its distinguished status in the coming years. We have produced one Competent Leader, TM Samantha Thelijjagoda so far this year while TM Malitha Wijesundara aims to be both a Competent Leader and Competent Communicator by December! TM Umanga Pilapitiya and TM Dakshi Tharanga aspires to do their 10th speech project together in one meeting and be-come Competent Communicators together! 2014 is going to be an action filled and successful year for SLIIT Toastmasters! So join hands and share our experience and success!

Editorial Board

Club Members (2014 -15)

TM Koliya PulasingheTM Theekshana Suraweera TM Maliendra GunawardenaTM Malitha WijesundaraTM Lakmal RupasingheTM Darshika KoggalahewaTM Samantha TheliggagodaTM Dhammika De SilvaTM Yasas MallawarachchiTM Anuradha JayakodiTM Dakshi GeeganageTM Umanga PilapitiyaTM Chathurangika KahandawaarachchiTM Buddhima SubasingheTM Rohana ThilakumaraTM Gobithas TharmarajahTM Muditha TisseraTM Anjalie GamageTM Dasuni WegapitiyaTM Abarnah KirupanandaTM S M B HarshanathTM Amalinda GamageTM Yasantha Chamara SamarawickramaTM Pesala WalgamageTM Anupiya Nugaliyadda

Message from VP Public Relations Dhammika De SilvaI would be glad to become the VPPR for year 2014/2015 in the SLIIT Toastmasters Club. During the period that I served as the acting VP-PR, I learnt that whatever I had to do, I had to do it extremely well. It also made me aware of my shortcomings and how I needed to improve myself to become a great leader. Cur-rently, I maintain the SLIIT Toastmasters notice board and the Facebook page actively for which I am amply rewarded with positive feedback

I receive from the members and others. I have supported the VPM to gain new mem-bers through public relation activities. Currently we’re in the process of reconstructing the SLIIT-Toastmaster’s web page. I would like to invite SLIIT Members to learn, improve, enjoy and be inspired by joining the club.

Message from the Secretary, Buddhima Subasinghe

Toastmasters International empowers people to achieve their full potential and realise their dreams. Through all member clubs, people across the globe improve their communication and leadership skills, and find the courage to change and in be the change you want the world to be. In addition, as the Sec-retary of the SLIIT Toastmasters Club, I am responsible for all Club records and correspondence while maintaining the Club Constitution, Bylaws and all other official Club documents in-clusive of mailing the club officer list to World Headquarters

within 10 days after elections, handling correspondence, keeping club files and records and reading meeting minutes. Moreover, as a Toastmaster, I am glad to mention that Toastmas-ters International is seen to be the leading movement devoted to make effective oral com-munication a worldwide reality.

Message from the Editor, Rohana Thilakumara

It is a pleasure to present the 4th issue of biannually published SLIIT Toastmaster Newsletter. I am delighted to be the Editor of the Newsletter while taking up the responsibilities of Vice President Membership. This gave me an opportunity to review the activities of the SLIIT Toastmasters Club and record them in the Newsletter in rich multimedia formats. This responsibility directed me to learn desktop publishing in a duration less than half a day and produce a reasonable newsletter. Free Tutorials

available in the YouTube on desktop publishing have immensely helped producing this newsletter. This Newsletter is created using an evaluation version of Adobe Indesign. The revolutionary ideas of information freedom, sharing digital resources in Youtube and other similar philosophies in the world wide web have smashed the barriers for information free-dom in the recent history of the world. I would like to express my sincier gratitude to those who sent me the Speeches and relavent photographs of SLIIT Toastmaster Club events. Furthermore, the royalty free images and graphic elements freely available in the world wide web has made this Newsletter creation interesting, challenging and innovative. I be-lieve this Newsletter will encourage the Club Members to produce quality speeches so that they get recorded in the Newsletter and become available to a wider audience. Finally I would like to thank the members of the Editorial Team, that gave me their fullest support to produce this Newsletter.

TM Rohana ThilakumaraTM Maliendra GunawardaneTM Umanga PilapitiyaTM Buddhima Subasinghe

SLIIT Toastmarsters Club New Members 2014 -15

wwwMuditha Rangani Tissera

TM Muditha Tissera joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. She is a senior academic staff member at the Faculty of Bussiness of SLIIT. and she was at Millenium IT as

a Senior Systems Engineer prior to joining SLIIT.

Currently she teaches Information Systems subject. She is a proud mother of two children

Abarnah KirupanandaTM Abarnah Kirupananda joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. She is a lecturer attached to the Faculty of Computing of SLIIT currently following a MSc at University of Moratuwa,

She is a member of BCS and holds a Diploma in Bha-rarha Dancinng. She is also an active LEO in mul-

tiple District 306

Anupiya NugaliyaddaTM Anupiya Nugaliyadda joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. He currently works as an Assistent Lecturer at the Faculty

of Computing of SLIIT. His research work

on web brousers search engines sparked an inter-est in the global

research community.

Dasuni WegapitiyaTM Dasuni Wegapitiya joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in June 2014 as a new member. She is a senior lecturer attached to the Faculty of Computing of SLIIT.

She is the editor of the SLIIT newsletter

and a trained and qualified psy-cologist on student counselling

S.M.B HarshanathTM Harshanath joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in September 2014 as a new member. He is a lecturer in Multimedia at the Faculty of Computing of SLIIT. He is an energetic and reputed

athlete who won several awards at interschool

competitions. He is a proud father of a little daughter.

Isuru Amalinda GamageTM Amalinda Gamage joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. Amalinda is the Sergeant at Arms in year 2014/15. Currently he is a Research Assistant at the Faculty of Computing,

SLIIT. He graduated with a First Class

Honours in Bache-olor in Electronic Engineering Degree of Sheffield Hallam University, U.K.

Gobithas TharmarajahTM Gobithas Tharmarajah joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. He was elected He is a senior academic staff member at the Fac-

ulty of Engineering of SLIIT. He was the

winner of the Hu-mourous Speech Club Contest held on 26th September

2014 at SLIIT

Rohana Priyantha ThilakumaraTM Rohana Thilakumara joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in June 2014 as a new member. He was elected VP Membership for the term 2014/15. He is a

senior lecturer at the Fac-ulty of Engineering

of SLIIT and the former head of the Dept. of Electrical & Computer Eng.

Anjalie Wasana GamageTM Anjalie Gamage joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. She is a senior lecturer attached to the Faculty of Computing of SLIIT. She is a Physical Science gradu-

ate from Sri Jayawar-danapura in and Holds a BSc and an MSc in IT from SLIIT. She is a proud wmother of

two children

Yasantha Chamara SamarawickramaTM Yasantha Samarawickrama joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. He is an academic staff member at the Faculty of Engineering, SLIIT. after graduating with First Class Honours

in Bacheolor in Electronic Engineering Degree of

Sheffield Hallam Uni-versity, U.K. He was a member of SLIIT Gravel Club.

Pesala WelgamageTM Pasela Welgamage joined the SLIIT Toastmasters Club in August 2014 as a new member. He is a research assistant attached to Faculty of Computing, SLIIT.He is a graduate of BSc (Hons) in Infor-

mation Technoly Degree program at SLIIT.

Currently he is work-ing on a Biomedi-cal Engineering project.

SLIIT Toastmasters Club was Chart-ed in 2010. BCIS Toastmasters Club was instrumental in the establishment of SLIIT Toastmasters Club. Theek-shana, Koliya, Malitha, Samantha, Maliendra Anuradha and Lakmal are the current Charter Members of the club.

Progressive Members

Samantha Thellijjagoda CLTM Samantha Thelijjagoda is a Charter member of SLIIT Toastmasters club. He has served the club as VP education in 2011/2012. He has won humorous speech and evaluation contests at club level.TM Samantha Thelijjagoda, is currently the

Head Department of Information Manage-

ment and Postgradu-ate Course Coordi-nator of SLIIT.

Umanga PilapitiyaTM Umanga Pilapitiya has served SLIIT Toastmaster club by being the Treasurer in 2011/12 and VP Public Relation in 2012/13. She has won many contests in Impromptu speech category

in area and division level. TM Umanga

has obtained her bachelors’ degree in IT from SLIIT in 2011 masters’ degree in IT at

SLIIT.

Malitha Nayanjith WijesundaraTM Malitha Wijesundara is a Charter Member of SLIIT Toastmaster’s Club. He was the VP Membership in the year 2011/12. He has participated competitions at club level and won awards for the

Speech Evaluation Contests. He has also coordinated the Club Speech Contest in 2014 as the Contest Chair.

Dakshi Tharanga GeeganageTM Dakshi Tharanga has served SLIIT Toastmasters club as the Secretary in 2011 / 12. At present she is the Treasurer 2013/14. Dakshi has served as a judge in area level speech contests. Dakshi

graduated in IT from SLIIT in 2011. Currently Dakshi is reading for her masters’ degree in AI at University of

Moratuwa.

Chathuranganie KahandawaarachchiTM Chathurangika is a Lecturer attached to the Faculty of Business. She is a graduate of SLIIT. She has completed her MBA at Uni-versity of Sri Jayewardenepura. She served the SLIIT Toastmasters Club as the Treasurer in 2011/12. The Toastmasters nourished

her life by improving her leadership and communication skills which enabled her to become successful in her career.

Yassas MallawarachchiTM Yashas Mallawarachchi currently holds the position of Head, Software Engi-neering Services Division. Moreover he is

attached to the Faculty of Computing as a Senior Lecturer. Mr. Yashas joined SLIIT Toastmasters

club in 2012.

Maliendra Gunawardane CLTM Maliendra Gunawardena is a charter member of SLIIT Toastmasters Club and had served the Executive committee as the Treasurer in 2010/2011. She achieved the Competent Leader award in 2012 and now aspires towards becoming a

Competent Communica-tor. She is a member

of the Faculty of Business of SLIIT and is currently a Senior Lecturer teaching Account-ing and Finance

related modules.

Koliya Pulasinghe CC, CLTM Koliya Pulasinghe is one of the charter members involved in the establishment of SLIIT Toastmasters Club in 2010. He was a Mentor at EXCO in 2010. In 2011/12 he was the President and the club won the Distin-guished Club status, the Smedley Award and Beat the Clock award. In 2012/2013 he

was the Area Governor of Area 3 of Divi H. In 2013/14 he was a Lieutenant Division Governor of Division O. He was instrumental in establishing SLIIT

Gavel Club.

Darshika Koggalahewa CCTM Darshika has served SLIIT Toastmas-ters club as Sergeant at Arms in 2011/12, VP Education in 2012/13 and the President in 2013/14. He has won many Speech and evaluation contests in Area level. Darshika

received his bachelors’ degree in IT from

SLIIT in 2011. Currently he is reading for his masters’ degree in AI at University of

Moratuwa.

Lakmal RupasingheTM Lakmal Rupasinghe has served SLIIT Toastmasters club as a Sergeant at Arms in 2010/11 and as the president in 2011/12. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the de-partment of Information Technology, SLIIT.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in IT from SLIIT.

He obtained his MBA from Post graduate institute of manage-ment in 2008.

Theekshana Suraweera ccTM Theekshana Suraweera holds the position of Dean, Faculty Of Business at SLIIT. Prior joining to SLIIT, TM Theek-shana was a lecturer in Information sys-tems at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He holds a PhD (Canterbury), MBA (Sri Lanka) and MSc (Reading). He

was involved in number of IT projects at UNDP.

He was a member of the Sri Lankan Civil Service. He is a competent com-municator

SLIIT Toamasters Club Progressive Members

Dhammika De SilvaTM Dhammika De. Silva holds the posi-tion of VP Public Relation in 2013/2014 excutive committee. He is attached to the faculty of computing as a Senior Lec-

turer. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in information technology from SLIIT. He is cur-rently reading for

his PhD.

Buddhima Hansinie Subasinghe TM Buddhima is at present an aca-demic staff member at the Departments of Computing and Multimedia of SLIIT. She holds a B.Sc (Special Honours) degree

in IT from SLIIT and a B.Sc. from the Curtin University.She is a Presenter at the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Cooperation, the Na-tional Television of Sri Lanka and also as a

Producer.

Anuradha Jayakody TM Anuradha has served SLIIT toast-masters club by holding many positions such as VP Public Relations (2011/12) and President. (2012/13). He has partici-pated in many area lcontests representing SLIIT Toastmasters Club. TM Anuradha completed BSc from University of Green-wich, UK and reading for the PhD at Curtin

University, Australia.

Club Achievements

The Installation Ceremony of Coke Toast-masters Club 2014/15 was held in August 2014. TM Darshika Koggalahewa and TM Maliendra Gunawardane represented SLIIT Toastmaster’s Club at the occasion

The Installation Ceremony of BEPS Toast-master’s Club was held on 28th August 2014. TM Rohana Thilakumara and TM Dhammika De Silva participated the occa-tion representing SLIIT.

TM Darshika and TM Rohana attended the installation Ceremony of SJMS Toastmasters Club on 19th September 2014 at Access Tower, Union Place, Colombo.

DTM Zameen M Saleem participated the 64 the meeting of the club on 7th August 2014, as an evaluator. DTM Sudash Liyanage, visited 64th meet-ing of SLIIT Toastmasters club in Septem-ber 2014 as an evaluater and delivered a presentation on “How to do a productive Evaluation” DTM Padmini Samarashinghe visited 66th meeting and evaluated speeches of club members held on 11th September 2014.

Buddhima Subasinghe was invited by IPM Toastmasters club and the RALPH Toast-masters clubs as a guest speaker in their club level Humurous and Evaluation Contests

SLIIT Toastmasters was able to recruit eleven new members during the first quarter of the year and entitled to the Smedly Award for the year 2014/15.

TM Samantha Thellijagoda completed their Competent Leader and Competent

The club officers attended the officer train-ing program held at Vocational Training Institute, Narahenpita on “How to develop a Quality Club” and on Judges Training held on 20th and 27th of July 2014.

Message from TM Koliya Pulasinghe CC CLDissemination of knowledge is the main objective of any higher education institute. Oral communication skills of an academics is essential to achieve that objec-tive. SLIIT, one of the premier institutes in Sri Lankan Education which produce business, computing, and en-gineering graduates, identified the importance of oral communication skills of its academics and established SLIIT Toastmasters Club on 06th May, 2010. Since then academics from all faculties participate in Toast-master meetings to sharpen their oral communication skills which helps dissemination of their knowledge.Toastmasters meeting is a time tested learning environ-ment which create numerous opportunities for partici-pants to learn oral communication skills and leadership skills by doing meeting roles and through attentive ob-servation. Evaluation sessions of the meeting promote reflective practice and critical analysis. Toastmasters meeting promotes mutual understanding and mutual help which help other activities of the institute. Most of these values are being integrated to academic pro-grammes conducted by SLIIT. SLIIT Toastmasters club holds vibrant club meetings where participants do their projects enthusiastically. Because of the passion of the members, the club has become a Distinguished Club two times from the inception. Club started a Gav-el Club for students aiming inculcate oral communi-cation and leadership skills in students. I hope SLIIT Toastmasters Club will be able to become a President’s Distinguished club for the year 2014/2015. I believe it can achieve this goal comfortably because of the pas-sion and enthusiasm of its current members. I wish all the very best for the SLIIT Toastmasters Club.

Club Events

The 5th Installation Cer-emony of the SLIIT Toastmasters club was held on 8th August 2014 at SLIIT premises. TM Samantha Thellijjagoda was the chief or-ganizer of the event that led him complete the Competent Leader path of the Toastmasters Inter-national on the same day. DTM Niranjan De Silva was invited as

the Chief Guest.

Prof. Ashok Peries was the Guest of Honour at the occasion. TM Punsirimewan Kam-burawela, the Division Governer of Division E and TM Rohitha Mullegama Area Gov-erner of area E1 were present. TM Kam-burawella inducted the new members while TM Rohitha Mullegama installed the Club Officers for the year 2014/15.

5th Installation Ceremony of SLIIT Toastmasters Club

The outgoing Executive Committee was released form their further responsibilities by TM Rohitha Mullegama in the absense of outgoing president TM Anuradha Jayakodi who was at at the Curtin University, Australia on an academic exchange program.

Toastmasters Darshika Koggalahewa, Maliendra Gunawardane, Rohana Thilaku-mara and Dhammika De Silva were elected the President, Vice President Education, VP Membership and VP Public Relations respectively. Toastmasters Dakshi Tharanga, Buddhima Subasinghe, and Amalinda Gamage were elected the Treasurer, the Sec-retary and the Sergeant at Arms respectively.

DTM Niranjan delivered an excel-lent speech on his Toastmastering experiences with Co-lombo Toastmasters Club during Nineties and Prof. Ashok Peries talked about his experience with

University of Moratuwa Toastmaster’s Club being the person to first break the Ice.TMs Rohana Thilakumara, Anjalie Gamage, Gobidas Tharmarajah, Dasuni Wegapitiya, Muditha Tisera, Abarnah Kirupanada, Ama-linda Gamage, Yasantha Samarawickrama, Anupiya Nugaliyadda and Pesala Welgamage were inducted as new members at the instal-lation ceremony..

A peaceful and romantic evening gather-ing followed the installation ceremony. The student study area of the Business Faculty building in the ground floor was converted into a five star hotel dinner hall. TM Muditha Tisera organized the folowers and decora-tions and Ms. Piyumini Wijenayake was teh MC of the event. TMs Rohana Thilaku-mara, Maliendra Gunawardena, Theekshana Suraweera sponsored hot drinks served prior to the dinner.

The Club Competition 2014/15 - Humorous and Evaluation

The Humorous and Evaluation club contests for the year 2014/15 were held at SLIIT premises on 26th September 2014 with the participation of SLIIT Toastmas-ters, SLIIT Gavel Club representatives and participants from Toastmaster Clubs in the District 82. TM Amalinda Gamage, TM Yasantha Sa-marawickrama, TM Buddhima Subasinghe and TM Gobidas Tharmarajah participated the Humorous Speech Contest and TM Buddhima Subasinghe, TM Darshika Koggalahewa, TM Umanga Pilapitiya and TM Dhammika De Silva participated the Evaluation Contest.

TM Malitha Wijesundarachaired the Humurous and Evaluation contests, while TM Rohana Thilakumara looked after the duties of Sergent at Arms as TM Amalinda Gamage was participating the contest. TM Abarnah and TM Anjalie played the Timer roles.TM Maliendra Gunawardane coordinated the activities with the chief judge as a senior mamber of the club

TM Mahinda Karunakara from BCIS Toastmasters Club performed the duties of the Chief Judge with the help of other judges from clubs in the division. TM Lakshika Liyanarachchi from IPM Toastmasters Club delivered the Test Speech, titled “TEAM work DREAMs the DREAMWORK” for the Evaluation Contest.

TM Darshika Koggalahewa won the First place of the Evaluation Contest, and TM Umanga Pilapitiya became the First Runner-up. TM Gobithas Tharmarajah won the First place of the Humurous Speech Contest, and TM Buddhima Subasinghe secured the First Runner-up position. Two contestents were disqualified by the judges.

Newly elected Executive Committee for the year 2014/15 of SLIIT Toastmasters Club.

Seated from leftTM Maliendra Gunawardane (VP Education)TM Buddhima Subasinghe ( Secretary)TM Dakshi Tharanga Geeganage (Treasurer)

Standing from leftTM Darshika Koggalahewa (President)TM Rohana Thilakumara (VP Membership)TM Dhammika De Silva (VP Public Relations)TM Amalinda Gamage (Sergeant at Arms)

My Point of ViewBefore I proceed, I would like to thank Ms. Maliendra Gunawardena, Vice President Ed-ucation of SLIIT Toastmasters club for giving me this opportunity to speak about myself in front of this wonderful audience. I think this is the first time I am going to speak about my-self in English, in front of an audience. Usu-ally it is other people who speak about myself in corridors and dark corners in popular lan-guages. Therefore I think this is a great op-portunity for me to present my point of view about myself for everyone`s information.

I was born in a remote village called “Kitha-la-Gama” in Matara District in Sri Lanka, as a premature baby at my Grandparents house. “Kithala” in Sinhala means ash plantains and it was abundant in the village. I think the God wanted me to eat lot of ash-plantains and chosen to be born there. According to my mother, I was of the size of her palm at birth and everyone had thought that I would not survive. However I did, because my mother was the most courageous and determined woman I ever met in my life. She made me survive. For this simple reason, many peo-ple do not like my mother. I am sure some of you in this audience would also agree.

I met the most wonderful people in my life during my Secondary Education. They were the guiding stars of my life. I regret I can’t mention all the names but I cant stop men-tioning four remarkable names. Mr. Paul, my English Teacher, Mrs. Nanda Senanayake, my Sinhala Teacher, Mrs. Seetha Wickra-masinghe, my Science Teacher and Mr. Siri-soma Boralugoda, my Mathematics teacher. I still remember the day I cried in front of Mrs. Seetha Wickramasinghe asking her to

take me to her class for me to enable learning English from Mr. Paul. And she did it.

Today I think it was a cornerstone of my life.To talk a little bit about my personal life with-out disgracing the other people involved, I would like to mention about a situation I have. That is, most women irrespective of age like me for my personality and character. Some people say I look like a woman, which I do not agree. Others say, I have the genes of a woman, which I don’t know. Whatever it is most women like me as a person. So men think, this is the most fortunate thing for a man to happen, being liked by women. How-ever only me and my Grandfather knows the consequences. The first consequence is that, I become a prime suspect of unplanned preg-nancies of women. I accept the ones that I am really responsible because its my accountabil-ity. The problem is that I get the blame for the ones that I have nothing to do with. The sec-ond, connected to the first, is that those men who have concerns about this come to kill me.So when I have a personal problem like this, I usually go to my Grandfather to get advice. He was a well educated per-son in his generation with ample experi-ence in life. He knew Sanskrit, Astrology and Ayurvedic Medicine. When I said this to him, he said, not to worry. This is an is-sue in our family tree. Apparently he himself and his grandfather also have had this issue.

He said however, in every cloud there is a silver line. His Grandfather had given him a recipe of a Magic portion, that helps one to go invisible if someone tries to kill him. How-ever, it was in Sanskrit and I had to learn San-skrit. I said that I have enough trouble in using ? and ? in Sinhala Language and I may not be able to learn Sanskrit. Furthermore, I said that I have heard about this new Science in the western world called “Quantum Mechan-ics” that could teach me how to go invisible.

About the same time, I got the opportunity to go for higher studies at Bristol University, UK, in an area related to En-gineering and Physics. It was a great op-portunity for me to persue my objective of learning to become invisible. I spoke to people and read many books on Quantum Mechanics. I got frustrated, fascinated, ex-cited and occasionally disappointed. I do not have much time to explain everything, but I will mention few things that struck me.

I learned that Matter is nothing but Con-sciousness. That is when you observe Matter in quantum scales, the Matter behaves as if it knows that it is being observed. Furthermore, it tells you spooky things such as The World before life on Earth did not really physically exist. This is because, according to Quantum Mechanics for something to really physi-cally exist, there need to have a conscious observer. In the absence of a conscious observer, nothing really physically exists.With all this confusion and excitement I came back to my Grandfather and said,“I am Happy to Learn Sanskrit”

Then he said, the ancient people did things for very good reasons. They were much more in-telligent and thoughtful than many of us live today. Therefore without wasting time look-ing for new technologies and sciences, trying to understand what ancient people already knew and documented is the way forward. And that is what I am doing today!My life had been a struggle for survival as a premature baby at the birth. After Forty odd years it is still a struggle for survival from the men who try to kill me. Thank you for listening

Ice Breaker : TM Rohana Thilakumara

Ice Breaker : TM Anjalie Gamage

Prefect with a HeadMy dear Toastmasters, how many uncles and aunts do you have? Anyone has more than 22? Well, I have 22. What I mean is that my father has 9 brothers and sisters, and my mother has 13. Incredible isn’t it? One of my mother’s sisters maintains a family tree starting from our grandpar-ents. When a new member is added to the family he/she is given a number. So, I’m number 39th in the family, and my son, who is the last to be added to the family so far, is the 100th Member. By the end of this year the number will increase to 108 as five of my cousins are going to be blessed with babies within the next few months. My father was the first in his family to enter a state university. He and my moth-er, both born in the South, were the first to migrate to the City of Colombo, in search of greener pastures. My father al-ways says that education is the most valu-able treasure that anyone can gain, and he himself is an example of a person who has succeeded in life through education. He wanted his two daughters also to have the best education possible. It was extremely difficult to gain admission to leading schools in Colombo at that time. But my father was able to realize his cherished dream at last, when I finally gained admission to Sirima-vo Bandaranaike Vidyalaya, Colombo 7.’ I always consider that as the greatest gift my father has given me. He never gives up when it comes to a challenge and he is never afraid to do the right thing. That’s how we were brought up too. I spent 13 years in Sirimavo as a student and I am still closely linked with my school as a very active member of the past pupil asso-ciation and also as a parent. I owe much to my school for making me ‘who I am today.’

At school I tried my hand at everything that came my way. I was in both Junior and senior eastern bands, I played Basket

ball, hockey and netball, I held positions in many clubs, including United Nations school organization, Photography , science, arts and drama clubs, and I was the Squad leader too. The most difficult thing that my teachers could do was to keep me in class. I used to go to school very early, and keep my School bag on my desk for everyone to see. Then my class teacher used to mark my at-tendance as “present,” by looking at my bag, because they knew that I was somewhere in school. I was either at the grounds, music room or at the auditorium practicing a drama.

As a result of being constantly out of class, I was given various punishments by my teach-ers quite often, ranging from being made to stand on a chair for about an hour, biting off my nails, having to kneel in front of my entire class, and having to clean the school pond. However, despite all this, I was among the students who got the best results for O/Ls, with a distinction even for English Litera-ture. Our Principal at that time, Mrs. R M L Jayasekara, appointed me as the Head Prefect of the School because of my ability to multitask. Only thing missing was some flesh because I was skinny as a skeleton at that age. My parents were delighted as they never thought that coming from an aver-age family without much influence, their daughter could become the head prefect of

one of the leading schools in the country. However for me, my head prefect ship was another path to freedom. Because this gave me all the more reason not to be in class, and not get punished for it! I was all over the school, organizing events, monitoring stu-dents, and I was the first to volunteer to rep-resent my school at various outside events. The very first speech I had to do as Head Pre-fect was at the United Nations Peace Confer-ence held in Colombo. I actually did it be-cause I didn’t want to be second to the Head Prefect from Visaka Vidyalaya. It was an im-promptu speech but everyone was impressed, and that made my principal also very happy. During the same time I participated at the na-tional games as the squad leader and also at many other events outside school. Howev-er, there was only one disadvantage because I didn’t get much attention from boys in area of love. Their initial reaction always was “OMG she’s the head prefect of Sirimavo” and talked to me with some respect. How-ever I got the chance to associate and col-laborate with prefects of many other schools and some of them are still good friends. During our days we used to abbrevi-ate HP in many ways, but my friends used to call me “Prefect with a Head”.

and that’s the title of my speech today. I am in-debted to my school for making me who I am today, and for polishing my leadership skills and most of all making me a modest human being. My ambitions changed from time to time. First I wanted to become an aeronautical engi-neer. So I selected the Math stream for A/Ls My parents and all my.

about 50+ relatives wanted me to become a Doctor, because at that time I was the first to get 8Ds for O/Ls. However I knew I couldn’t stay in one place to study subjects like Biol-ogy or Zoology, so I selected to do Maths, to everyone’s dismay. Then one day I faint-ed after seeing an operation done on our TV, and my parents finally decided I had taken the right decision. But with all the extra ac-tivities I was doing I just managed to secure a place at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at the University of Sri Jayewardenpura. My secret ambition was to become a Pilot. At that time the courses were every expensive so I managed to sneak out an application to join the Air Force. But unfortunately the letter for an interview came straight to my moth-er’s hand in the post, and that was the end of my Air Force Pilot dreams. I have kept that ambition on hold, to pursue in my next birth.

Story of Number 9 Is number 9 actually cruel??“Life is just like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you should keep moving”09.09.1989 at 9 P.M a baby was born with a birthday and birth time full of “9”s.Ev-eryone suspected that I would be cruel as “number 9”.But they realized that I was not like that when I grew up. My grandfa-ther was among the people who enjoyed my birth most. That was because I inherited the exactly same skin color as him. He cried in joy “He will continue my generation”.My mother was a graph man by profession and my father was a chemist. Both of them enjoyed the variety of children when my sis-ter was born after 4 years of my birth with an extremely fair complexion. Now they have me, a son who is very dark and fat. And a daughter who is very fair and slim.

A stranger will never ever identify me and my sister as same family members even af-ter scanning two of us for thousand times.I believe I met most of the interesting peo-ple in my life when I entered Ananda Col-lege, Colombo 10 achieving flying colors at Grade 5 scholarship examinations. I owe a huge debt to my school for raising me in

a Buddhist cultural background enriching my life with education, social experience, extracurricular activities and discipline.

I still can remember how I cleaned the cob-webs in each and every class room in the Mathematics section as a punishment for singing songs in the class room. I can re-member the ferocious slap that I got from venerable Hemaloka thero as a punish-ment for playing indoor cricket in the class room with my friends. I was an exception-ally bright student when I was doing my ordinary levels. I obtained A grades for all the subjects with an island rank of 78. Un-fortunately I couldn’t repeat my academic excellence when I was in Advanced levels.I believe the first presentation in my life was done in front of a girl to whom I was so much attracted. I was mesmerized by her beauty. I presented to her about my love for her and how much she was worthy to me.This was my first exposure to impress an audience. I was so nervous. Hand eye coordination, gestures, body language and eye contact was hardly there. She rejected and refused me so badly. Then I had to practice at home more than 10 times at home how to propose to her. Finally I succeeded. She said “Yes, I love you, . Now

she is in relationship with me in life for about 5 years. I am so happy that she is quite healthy now and graduated from university of Moratuwa recently. She is the woman behind my success and I am the man in front of her success.Since my childhood I had a strong pas-sion for physics and telecommunications. I am really happy that I brought a tear of happiness to the eyes of my parents when I graduated this year from SLIIT as a gradu-ate in Electronic Engineering. My ambi-tion is to do my postgraduate studies in the fields of telecommunications or photo-nics. I have a strong passion for teaching as well. I believe that was inherited to me from my family background. Two of my grandfathers were principles at schools and two of my grandmothers were teach-ers at schools. And my role model in life, my uncle is a head in a famous Sri Lankan university now. I always believe that “In learning we teach and in teaching we learn”.As a youngster who turned 25 just two days before a have a lot of experiences in life up to now. There are successes and failures among those experiences in my life span.Successes and failures depend upon our de-cision makings and judgments in life. “Good judgment comes from experience and the experience comes from the bad judgment”

Then my interest shifted to computers. I did a computer course at IDM and got interest-ed in Programming. Then I joined SLIIT as a student in the first batch, completed both Degrees, in Physical Science and In-formation Technologies in the same year. Never during my school days did it ever occur to me that I would become a teacher one day. When my father suggested that I start teaching, I asked him, “Do you think that I have the patience to teach kids?” But ever since I left school I got oppor-tunities to teach. It must have been my

destiny. First, it was at my school as a vol-untary teacher for A/L Maths, then as an assistant teacher at the Institute of English, Maharagama. While I was doing it as a job, I managed to complete two full time degrees. Then, soon after completing my degrees I was offered teaching positions at the two universities, but accepted the offer given by SLIIT since it was a permanent position. Now here I’m in my 10th year as a lecturer at SLIIT doing my first Ice breaker speech. After finishing my Master’s degree I got married to my boyfriend of 7 years and

my fast and furious life became calm and quiet. After 7 years of marriage we have two kids a beautiful girl and a hand-some little guy, both like their father. I feel I have achieved much in my life. However, I still have some secret ambitions up my sleeve to achieve before I die and if I do manage, I’ll shift them to my next birth. Let me end my speech with my favou-rite quote “ Work Hard. Never Give up. You will be rewarded someday” Thank you and over to you toastmaster.

Ice Breaker : TM Yasantha Samarawickrama

AquaponicsMy dear toastmasters,

How many of you have hobbies? I’m sure all of you do! Now think about your favourite hobby. Are you able to get your family involved in your hobby? Is it an inexpensive hobby? Does your hobby reward you in multiple ways? I think I have found a fantastic hobby that is not only enjoyable but also gets my family involved, inexpensive and rewards us in multiple ways!It is known as Aquaponics. It is all about growing fish and plants together. Aqua-culture is growing fish in a recirculating system. Ponos is the greek word working or labour. You may have heard of a simi-lar term “Hydroponics” where plants are grown in water with nutrients without soil.

It is only by accident that I came across Aquaponics!We have an ornamental fishpond, which is about 10,000 liters in capacity. There are about 20 fish of different kinds, from 12 to 18 inches in length. One difficulty in hav-ing such a pond is that, from time to time the water has to be replaced. If not, the fish waste gives rise to the level of ammonia in water. The moment this level exceeds 0.2mg/L, the fish start dying. Replac-ing water in a 10,000 liter pond with fish is by no means an easy task. The moment you stop doing that, the fish will be dead.Therefore, I was looking for a solution, that would automatically take care of this prob-lem. That was the time when I came across the website backyardaquaponics.com .

The site was dedicated for Aquaponics which provides an excellent solution for my problem. All I had to do was to start growing veg

etables using the pond water. The process cleaned my pond water so that the water could be fed back to the pond. The sci-ence behind aquaponics is very simple.

The primary process is known as the nitro-gen cycle. When the fish in the pond are fed, they di-gest and break down the food and produce waste. Fish excrete ammonia through urine, faeces (approx 17%) and their gills (approx 80%). The nitrification cycle is the process by which the ammonia produced by the fish is converted by one type of bacteria to nitrite and then by another type of bacteria to nitrate. The Nitrosomonas bacteria convert the am-monia into nitrite and then the Nitrobacter bacteria converts the nitrite into nitrate. Nitrates are the most accessible form of nitrogen to the plants. Fish also can tol-erate higher levels of nitrates in the sys-tem compared to ammonia and nitrites. Why is aquaponics so cool?

According to the research carried out at the University of Virgin Islands since 1978,

•Aquaponic gardening uses 90% less water than soil-based gardening because the wa-ter is re-circulated and only that which the plants take up or evaporates is ever replaced.•Aquaponic gardening is necessarily organic. •Aquaponic gardening is four to six times as productive on a square foot ba-sis as soil-based gardening. This is be-cause with aquaponic gardening, you can pack plants about twice as densely as you can in soil and the plants grow two to three times as fast as they do in soil.

•Aquaponic systems only require a small amount of energy to run a pump and aeration for the fish. This energy can be provided through renewable methods.•Aquaponic gardening is free from weeds, watering and fertilizing con-cerns, and because it is done at a waist-high level, there is no back strain.For me, Aquaponics has not only saved the hassle of maintaining my fishpond, but it has started providing me organ-ic vegetables. I have already harvested spinach, cabbage and chilly while egg-plants, tomatoes and beans are on the way. Since this has become a source of organic food, my entire family happily approves, the time spent in my aquaponic garden. I would welcome all of you to consider Aquaponics as a rewarding past time.Thank you.

Level 7 Speech : TM Malitha Wijesundara

Malitha Wijesundara

Malitha Wijesundara is a product of Royal College, Colombo. He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering degree with Hon-ours in Electronic Engineering from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom in 1998.He was a founding member and later the president of the Sri Lankan Society of the University of Warwick Students’ Union.He was then offered a scholarship and en-tered the National University of Singapore, were he completed his PhD in Distributed Computing & Storage at the age of 29.He then joined the Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology, where he was the youngest to hold positions of Head of IT Services, Head of Department of Elec-tronic & Computer Engineering, Dean - Academic Affairs and Dean - Faculty of Computing at SLIIT, the position he holds at present.He is a consultant for a number of governmental and private sector organi-zations on ICT and ICT education.He was a vice-president of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) and at present he is a council member of the Computer Society of Sri Lanka.He is also a charter member of the SLIIT Toastmasters Club.

Role Players Time Role PlayerPresidentTM Darshika Koggalahewa, CCGeneral EvaluatorTM Darshika Koggalahewa, CCToastmasterTM Dakshi GeeganageTimer Introduce Toastmaster and hand over sessionTM Buddhika SubasingheAh- Counter 3.25 p.m Toastmaster Set the stage for the meetingTM Anupiya Nugaliyadda Introduce and invite General EvaluatorGrammarianTM Gobithas Tharmarajah 3.27 p.m General Introduce the evaluation teamRound Robin Master Evaluator *Timer *Ah-counter *Topics Evaluator *GrammarianTM Maliendra Gunawardena Hand over session back to ToastmasterTable Topic MasterTM Yasantha Samarawickrama 3.32 p.m Toastmaster ROUND ROBIN SESSIONTable Topic Evaluator Introduce and invite Round Robin MasterTM Dhammika de SilvaPrepared Speech Evaluators 3.45 p.m. Toastmaster TABLE TOPIC SESSIONDTM Rayhan Wanniappa TT Master TM introduces Topic Master and invites to start Table Topics sessionDTM Trishma Pinto Topic Master conducts Table Topic session

4.00 p.m Toastmaster PREPARED SPEECHES SESSIONCommittee Members 2014/15 TM Invites prepared speech evaluator/s to explain the objectives of the speech

President TM Introduces the speakerTM Darshika Koggalahewa, CC Level 1 Speech (Ice Breaker) by TM Amalinda GamageVP Education Level 2 Speech (Organize your speech) by TM SMB HarshanathTM Maliendra Gunawardena, CL Level 8 Speech (Visual Aids) by TM Malitha WijesundaraVP Membership ACB Level 2 Speech by TM Drashika KoggalahewaTM Rohana Thilakumara 4.35 p.m. Toastmaster Request General Evaluator to issue the evaluationVP Public Relation General General Evaluator calls for reportsTM Dhammika de Silva Evaluator *Timer *Ah-counter *Topics Evaluator *GrammarianSecretary Prepared speech evaluation by the speech evaluatorTM Buddhima Subasinghe General Evaluator's evaluationTresurer Hand over session to ToastmasterTM Dakshi TharangaSergeant at Arms 4.55 p.m. Toastmaster Hands over session to PresidentTM Amalinda Gamage 4.56 p.m. President Give closing remarks

Ask comments from audienceMeeting Schedule Any other matters.

2nd and 4th Thursday ADJOURNNext meeting: 23rd October 2014 5.00 p.m

Call meeting to orderNational AnthemWelcome AddressWelcome guests and ask for brief introductionsBring up club news, announcements and call for reports from officers

3.20 p.m

Recognition of new members

Fellowship

SLIIT Toastmasters ClubClub 1410480, Area J1, Division J, District 82

AGENDA – 35th MEETING - 12th December 2011 at 3.40 p.mRoom 503A, SLIIT, Malabe Campus.

ActivityPresident

AGENDA 69th MEETING – 2nd October 2014 at 3.20p.mRoom D302, SLIIT, Malabe Campus.

SLIIT TOASTMASTERS CLUB1410480, Area E1, Division E , District 82