The boss lady and the handsome duo...

Rota Spark kick-started in early December as we all receive a call from our  Co-Director Chathuni akki saying that;

This is one of the signature projects in Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa and you don't have much work to do all have been done by us.

Once she told us that we were appointed as one of the chairpersons in this signature project, Rota Spark. It was a great honor for all of us and for Upeksha. It was a memorable moment as her Rotaract journey started by winning the last year's wallpaper competition of Rota Spark. Chathuni Akki had chosen eight wonderful souls to chair the projects. Their final effort, dedication, and teamwork made Rota Spark 2022 a successful event.

Rotaract Club of University of Moratuwa is one of the most outstanding clubs in Rotary International District 3220. As a club, we have conducted award-winning projects in recent years as well as produced skillful young undergraduates to the industrial world. Identifying the new breed of youngsters who process numerous skills begins from Rota Spark and bearing that responsibility on our shoulders at that time was an honor for us.

I, Yanush Abeyrathne was appointed as the chairperson of the project Orientation with the talkative Upeksha and Rucheewa the owner of the vehicle aka “club eke wahane”. First, to reach the newbies we planned a massive PR plan which includes flyers videos from the past members and we reached every district in Sri Lanka. I and Rucheewa tested Upeksha's patience level as we two made her change flyer designs many times with the help of Chathuni boss. We even challenged our senior director lakshani akki that we will bring 700 registrants and we nearly accomplished this by having 678 valid registrants for Rota Spark 2022.  Out of three co-chairs of orientation, Upeksha was the boss, even the 6 feet and two inches tall Rucheewa would face her wrath as she wants the work to be completed six hours before the deadline she had set.

Our main consideration was to improve their overall attitude and create a fruitful interaction among the newbies who joined Rotaract Mora. Therefore, students were divided into eight houses according to the Lord of the Rings theme, to make an optimistic interaction in-between them. There was an equal distribution when grouping them into houses. All eight houses have the same combination according to their districts, faculties, and other parameters.  Then, different kinds of fun competitions were played among students with the purpose of developing cooperation and communication with each other.  Some of them were group competitions (Intro Video Competition) whereas some of them were individual competitions (Graphic Designing Competition). During the planning of the events, we gave special attention to manipulating the stress level of students that could be created while they were engaged in these games. All the competitions were planned at a minimum stress level for the newbies and also, we gave a major focus on the effectiveness of the final output that can be received by the newbies by participating in the competition Simultaneously, we have organized a graphic design (Lord of the Rings theme) competition and a video editing competition. To increase the effectiveness of the video editing competition we added some guidelines that the participants should state their favorite project and how they feel about joining the club. By initiating this the newbies were able to gain knowledge about the club’s projects and obtain a better idea regarding the club by themselves which is very effective for them and us too.

In the graphic designing competition, we received 552 valid submissions,  300 submissions in the last hour causing havoc in Chathuni akki's mind and stressing her out. So we decided not to release the house-wise submissions as some houses will be demotivated. To ease the stress level of the boss myself Upeksha and Rucheewa took a group call with her and it started with her saying “anee mta mongal wage meh lamai mahansi wela Ignition open week wala haleida dannne na, ignition eka sathi ekai eka packed wela pissu wage” so we eased her stress ensuring that there won't be any problems and change the topic to crushes and other stuff regarding the project.  The call started around 12.30 am in the morning and ended around 4.30 am.

Ultimately, when we were planning the final event, we were highly concerned about the enjoyment level (Went out of the box from the normal boring Zoom meetings) Accordingly, the selected theme was ‘Lord of the Rings’. Eventually, the final event was completed as a successful and interactive session (The moderating was conducted in Role Plays too) which included quizzes, songs, and interactive sessions from the Rotaractors.

When we consider the final day event, last-minute changes were added. New eight lord of the rings clips were added to the final day event as instructed by lakshani akki. To have an interactive moderating session we contacted the cute couple Malintha and Saeedha and to make them agree to do the event we had to apply some highland butter. On the day of the orientation day Chathuni akki was already stressed and when Malintha could not join the rehearsal on time her stress level multiplied by 1000000, To add a bit of more stress Upeksha also joined as the official stress partner with her since Upeksha was terrified that the event could not be completed. She was continuously repeating “ Ane akke mokada karanne , malintha ei ne welawata?” Finally Malintha arrived and released the stressed atmosphere. While the director and the co-chair were stressing out, Nisal was calmly completing the presentation which was completed on time.

After all the behind-the-scenes commotions and last-minute plan changes, the orientation day event was completed successfully with House Mordor winning the first stage.