The Mangalore Gavel Club has in its closely knit fold, a bunch of youth who are driven to be outspoken, creative and most important of all, with a deep desire to take part in a focused movement which aims at youth empowerment and organized fun.
The gavel club is grateful to the principal of St.Aloysius Pre-University College who has been kind enough to give a classroom for the regular meetings at no cost. The mangalore gavel club does not have budgets and accounts for we do not deal in cash at all, instead we only trade smiles and back slaps. The club is grateful to the toastmaster clubs of the city who have time and again provided guidance, inspiration and mentoring for the club to reach its present stature. Being predominantly constituted by students the club largely lives in its glorious present without fathoming the action packed events that have gone by in the earlier years by the earlier members who have moved away following the course of time. The club nevertheless gratefully salutes the unknown faces that have left the club but left behind a formidable legacy for us to take forward and pass on in due course.
We meet at 10.30am every Sunday morning at "St, Aloysius PU College”,K.S Rao Road, Mangalore.There is an average attendance of 15 per meeting. The members are in the age group of 15-20 years and come from the degree and Pre-University colleges of the city like St.Aloysius, Canara, St.Agnes, MAPS and so on.
The meetings are usually based on a theme. Some of the themes that are fresh in our minds have been Social Networking, National Integration, Bio-Diversity, Laughter and many more.
A typical meeting features the following events in strictly the same order: Sergeant-at-arms opening remarks, president’s welcome, and toastmasters introducing the theme and the prepared speeches and their respected evaluations, table – topic sessions, general evaluator’s time, followed by the special events. All these events are conducted in a tight time schedule spanning a little over two hours. While every meeting is action packed, the members look forward to the meetings featuring special events like debates, turncoats, mock personalities, stress interviews, group discussions etc.
Besides the weekly meetings the members have networked themselves through an open group in Facebook at the link http://www.facebook.com/groups/gavelclubmangalore/. The members often involve themselves in the weekly online debates and post words which can be used as “Word of the Day” for the regular meetings. The photographs of the meetings are uploaded and appreciated through their witty remarks. Details of forthcoming events are posted along with proposed themes and other functionary details of regular meetings. Members communicate electronically using the email address gavelclubmangalore@groups.facebook.com.
Following an internal logo designing competition, the creative artists in a club has put their heads together to design a unique logo for the club. The Gavel Club has many a fan among our group as the club has made a marked difference to their levels of self-confidence, self-expression and motivation. That is the reason we feel the members faithfully turn up for the meetings executing their respective responsibilities volunteered by them. This closely knit group acts like a peer group helping every young member to channelize his creative talent in a positive direction.
The club members take pride in associating themselves with this focused group which has a win-win formula for each of them.
