Monthly Roundup- July

July- The first month of the Rotaract calendar! Our club had many key highlights during the first month itself. Such highlights are presented below

District Assembly
The Annual Rotaract Assembly of District 3220 is the most anticipated event in the Rotaract calendar where it brings together all the clubs in the District and felicitates the remarkable work done by each of the clubs. The 25th District Assembly was held on the 4th of July 2015 and our Club UOC FMF was able to stand out with the other leading clubs by winning many key awards and citations.

Our incoming President Rtr. Praveen Fernando as well as our incoming Vice President Rtr. Ruvindi de Silva were awarded the Effective Rotaractor citations. Our IPP Rtr. Romanthi Anandappa was awarded the President of the month (February) while Rtr. Praveen won the award for the Most outstanding Rotaractor of the month (February). In addition to this Rtr. Shehan Xavier was awarded the Spirit of Service Award for his immense dedication and commitment to the various activities of our club during the year. Our club also had one of the best newsletters in the past year in the District and thus Rtr. Supun Walpola won bronze in the Most Outstanding Editor of the Year award category.

Our club scored big in the avenue of International understanding by winning Gold for iGenius 2015 in the category of Most outstanding International Understanding Project of the Year. iGenius is a fun-filled quiz organized as a joint project by our club and the Rotaract Club of Colombo-Midtown.

iGenius winning Gold for Most outstanding IU project of the year

Our project “Future for Us” was nominated in the category of Most outstanding Community Service Project of the year while “Happy Street Pooch” was nominated in the category of Most outstanding Public Relations Project of the year.

At the District Assembly our Immediate Past President Rtr. Romanthi Anandappa was appointed to the District Rotaract Committee as the Joint-Director of Professional Development.

New Club Logo and Theme

During the month our club launched its official logo which was designed by our Director of IT Rtr. Radun De Silva. The logo represents the theme our club has adopted for the new Rotaract year 2015/16 which is “Team Work makes the Dream Work”. This theme is to represent the fact that the dreams that we have for the club won’t be successfully accomplished unless all our members work together as a team with equal level of commitment and dedication. 

Official Logo of RC UOC FMF

Meeting Under the Shade- Inaugural Board and General Meeting

The 1st Board meeting as well as the General meeting was held on 15th of July at the Independence Square Park. The meeting was held beyond the brick walls and Air Conditioned rooms to give the members a relaxed and soothing atmosphere during the meeting. This was a part of the Green Life initiative which is a new avenue commenced by our club in order to have dedicated focus on conservation of the environment we live in. This also coincides with the ‘Greening Sri Lanka’ initiative by the Rotary District 3220 with the objective of planting one million trees. 

Meeting under the Shade

Another motive of this inaugural meeting was to give the members a detailed understanding of the overall concept of Rotary and Rotaract thereby ensuring all our members start working in the new Rotaract year with a clearer vision and objective. 

 Setting plans for the future

During the month the club was able to come up with plans for the upcoming year in terms of the projects to be undertaken, the duration and the ultimate objectives to be achieved. Each avenue director was given the responsibility to prepare and present their plans to the Board of Directors and are expected to provide continuous updates on how they plan to implement each of the projects

Blog launch
The official Blog of our club was launched during the 1st General meeting. Incoming Treasurer and Former Editor of our club Rtr. Supun Walpola, who won bronze at the District Assembly for the best newsletter, officially launched the Blog and published the 1st blog post. Other contributors to our initial blog posts, namely, Rtr. Praveen, Hiruni, Ruvini and Aqeela, also took part in launching the blog.

The Blog launch

 The Blog, maintained by the Editorial, seeks to keep the members informed with continuous updates of internal and external club activities while also using the blog to communicate with outsiders with regards to the activities of the club. The blog is kept active since it was launched and thus we have reached over 900 views within just 15 days of launch. This was possible thanks to all the members of the club who willingly came forward to write articles to be published on the blog. 

1000 Likes on Facebook
During the month the official Facebook page of our club reached 1000 Likes. This historic landmark was achieved as a result of active involvement in social media and using them effectively to interact with other Clubs and members. If you have not Liked our page yet go hit the Like button below

External events 
During the month our club members got themselves actively involved in many events organized by other clubs. One such programme was the Young Social Change Platforms that was organized by the Rotaract Club of NSBM in partnership with UNFPA. The objective of this event was to create awareness of sexual harassment among the youth and thereby make a social change. To read more about the Young Social Change Platforms click here.

Our club members also participated in Global Village 2015 that was organized by AIESEC in Sri Lanka. In addition to this The members represented the club in the installation ceremonies of other fellow clubs, namely, Wellawatte, University of Moratuwa, College of Chemical Sciences, Battaramulla, Centitinental United and Faculty of Law- University of Colombo. This was a great opportunity for the members to build a good relationship with the other Rotaractors.