SLIM toastmaters grabs Golden Gavel

Sri Lanka Institute of Marketing (SLIM) Toastmasters Club bagged the prestigious Golden Gavel Award at the Ovation 2013, the annual Toastmaster conference held in Chennai, India.

This award is given in recognition of a club’s outstanding achievements obtained by fulfilling requirements stipulated by the public speaking world body, the Toastmasters International (TMI) incorporated in USA.

The Golden Gavel Award comes to the SLIM Toastmasters Club, which is relatively a young club, for the first time in its history since it was chartered in year 2008.  SLIM Toastmasters call Golden Gavel award a people’s award because this award represents the level of engagement the members had in various types of Toastmastering activities during the tenure.

To be awarded by the Golden Gavel a club must essentially achieve the Distinguish Club President goals which include a 10 point series of educational awards.  Additionally, a club has to ensure that its officers are well trained by taking part in the officers’ training programs organised by the division, a stable growth in the membership as well as a membership retention program, a great level of administration, representations at the semi-annual and annual conferences, adequate public relation activities through social media and web sites and publication of professional newsletters at every quarter and so on.  

Aforementioned goals invariably want people to be engaged with the club activities where it perfectly provides members the opportunity to appoint themselves with activities which in turn develop them to be better performers in their social and corporate lives.

In fact the real success and results are seen when people progress with their real life activities and when they are blessed with a vast amount of experiences gained through Toastmastering activities. In this sense each and every member of the club contributed towards winning the Golden Gavel for the Club this year. Club Toastmaster President Mihirinie Fonseka said: “I always ensured that the members were fully aware of our targets and that they were made accountable to achieve sub goals assigned to them. However, they were fully supported with the right direction and advice to be successful. My victory is my members’ success.”

She further stated she was able to secure this award as she was given the right guidance and support by the SLIM Council and the Executive Committee, the Area Governor and her Club Executive Committee.