The Lead - Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

01 THE LEAD

First Issue The Official Newsletter of
Leoistic Year Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya
2020/2021

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

CONTENTS

123
District My Our Christmas is
President’s Perspective Your Smile
Message

45
Loka Lama Dina
Samaruma (II) ෙසෙනහෙ
ගමන

67 8
Talk with Stress and Our The Leading to
Leo Body Talents

9 10
The Leading to Editor's Note
Puzzle

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

DISTRICMTESPSRAEGSEIDENT’S

As the District President and the Former Zonal Director of
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya, seeing the very first release
of 'The Lead' - the official newsletter of Leo Club of
Uragasmanhandiya has been one of the most awaited
moments for me in this Leoistic year. Therefore, needless to
say that I am beyond happy to share this message with you all.
A strong and active member base is the key to success of any
club or organization. Having worked hand in hand with you all
last year as the Zonal Director, I have personally witnessed
the enthusiasm and the capabilities of the club members,
which I greatly admire. It should also be mentioned that
throughout the past year the friendly nature of the members
made me feel this as one of my own clubs, gifting me many
valuable memories to be cherished forever.

This year as a district, our main objective is to promote new
ideas under the theme 'Inspire Innovation'. The contribution
of Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya in this journey of
Innovation is highly commendable. While stepping out of your
comfort zones and initiating innovative projects, you have also motivated and inspired others to think
innovative while promoting the concept "Made in Sri Lanka" with projects like "A Walk to Future". This is
exactly what we expect from all our Leos this year.

With all the successful projects carried out by Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya last year, the bar has
already been set high. I believe that under the leadership of Leo Radeesh Laksitha the club will be able to
achieve greater heights this year. In order to be successful, we must always accept challenges. You have
accepted one such challenge in introducing this official newsletter. While appreciating the efforts in
releasing this newsletter I wish all the best to my beloved Leos of Uragasmanhandiya to break the
boundaries and introduce novel initiatives to the district.

Always remember “Innovation survives only when people believe in their own ideas." Therefore, believe
in yourselves, think outside the box and make sure you inspire the whole world through your innovations.

Leo Praminda Vindika
District President
Leo District 306 A2

Page 2

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

MY PERSPECTIVE

It gives me great pleasure to pen down this message to our first ever newsletter. This
indeed is one of the successful works we stepped on together. I would like to share my
thoughts here, through “THE LEAD”.

Social changes have a significant impact and it is crucial that we understand how those
movements are shaped. Even this pandemic situation is a huge challenge for all of us. But
we, Leos, didn’t let it challenge us but we challenged it. We will be challenging it. It’s
because we play a great part in a greater society. Our mainstream work is to provide help to
the people in the community.

One of the main questions that people trigger today is “What exactly makes them happy?”
Some may say money, some may say friends... but ours is something different. “Our happiness
is your smile”. That’s the passage we have. That’s the path we go. We give them but take
nothing instead of their happiness. That’s the only earning we expect.

When looking back, Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya has done a huge piece of work with the
collaboration of other Leo and Non-Leo Clubs as well as with the Lions Club in a way we
could. During this past Leoistic Year 2020/2021 we were able to conduct 10 community base
projects and were also able to make over 3000 people happy including children as well as
adults. However, the count doesn’t exactly matter. What matters is the way we make them
happy and their response to us.

When mentioning this newsletter, it’s also one of the tasks we completed successfully, which
shares knowledge among others. But it’s not the end. We have a long way to go ahead and
we’ll be supporting it together as much as we could.

And at last, I’d like to say that it’s a pleasure to be a part of Leoism. Since It changed my life,
met new friends, built-up new connections, experienced new things, It even skilled my
communication manner and also gave me happiness by helping others and many more.

Leo Nethmi Jayasekare
Secretary
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 3

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

THE LEADING TO PROJECTS
OUR CHRISMAS IS YOUR SMILE

They also close their eyes and pray as a wish for Christmas as other children in the world.
It is time to prosper it a reality in the blink of an eye.
On Christmas Day, we were able to wind up our project "Our Christmas is your smile " with the
collaboration of Batuwnhena youth members successfully. Lots of people joined us to achieve our
project. With the help of them, we were able to pack sixty-four valuable gift boxes separately for all
the children.
The day before the project, all the members got together and finished packing the gifts at one
member's residence. Early in the morning on the day of the project, all the members gathered again at
another member's residence to prepare the morning snacks and meals for giving alms in the morning
for all the children.

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Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

Then as planned, we visited two childcare centers with a decorated bus under the theme of Christmas.
As well as a member of our Leo club dressed up as Santa Claus to surprise kids. That added a different
kind of value to our project.
After giving the alms and distributing the gift boxes following sanitary rules, we sang and danced
together with the little children and did more fun events within a distance among the children and us
with the Santa. The participation of the District President of Leo District 306 A2, Leo Praminda
Vindika in the event added great value to the occasion.
Also, the little ones had made beautiful Christmas cards for us. Finally, as a momento, we will always
have the Christmas card they gave us with their love and so glad we were able to be a part of their
smile!

Leo Achini Lakshika
Project Chairperson
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 5

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

THE LEADING TO PROJECTS
LOKA LAMA DINA SAMARUMA (II)

That Children’s Day that
Was set aside for the
Little children….
I remember we were looking forward to it
Looked forward to it as much as we were looking
forward to it…….but…..
How sad would those little kids be if no one came to
see them make them so happy?

The project was organized by the members of the
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya to prevent the
closure of G/Beligaswella K.V and to provide school
equipment and food to all children in need.

Zone director(zone B2) Leo Dilitha Ranjuna, zone
chairman(region 9-zone1) Lion Themiya Wijesena,
(IPDG) Dr: Nilanga Perera, zonal director of
education (Elpitiya) Mr.Sampath, zonal director of
education (Benthara) Mr.I.Jayarathne, Deputy
chairman of Pradheshiya sabha Karandeniya Mr.
Nimal Bandu were the guests on the occasion.

With the help of all the kind donators and funds, we
were able to collect a lot of gifts for children. In
addition to all the children in the school, several
preschool children were also presented with gifts.

All the school children in poverty were able to
receive stationaries and their families were given a
bag of dry food. Besides Lions Club of
Uragasmanhandiya donated the school with
stationery as well as books for the library.

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Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

Also happy to say the little ones at the school
organized a lot of dancing and singing events for us
and the members of our Leo club became the dancing
teachers for them on that day and within 10 minutes
they practiced five dances with the children and
showed them all the dances.

All the guests, principal, teachers and parents were
very happy to see it. They complimented us a lot on
that. Besides on the same day, we celebrated Adults
day together with the parents of the children. From
that, we were able to change the attitudes of parents.

Eventually, we played with the kids and sang songs,
and happily parted. We were also happy because the
project went successfully as we expected.

Leo Dinidi Thiloka Wijewardana
Project Chairperson
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 7

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

THE LEADING TO PROJECTS
ෙසෙනහෙ ගමන

ෙසෙනහෙස ගමන අරෙගන 2020 ඔ ෙත බ මාෙ 3 ෙව දා අ , ඌරග මංහ ය

ෙය වරැ සහ ංහය යා ෙබාෙහාම ෙ ෂ ස හ ෙව න. ඒ අය තම

කරා ය කා ෙර හෙ ෙ වා කව ර කාර ලබන ස, ඉ ඒ අයව බල න ය

ගමන අ අ ම ෙ නෑ. කෑම ෙ ල සමග ස ට ෙන දය අරෙගන තම අ

ෙසෙනහෙ ගමන ෙ .

ඉ ෙඅ කරා ය කා ෙර හලට අ ම ෙයළ කරග ආහාරය ,ව නා ඖෂධ,

ධ ප යාගය රා ය එ කම ඌරග මංහ ය ෙය සමාජෙ අ ඌරග මංහ ය

ංහ සමාජය එ ක අ වැ බැදෙගන ෙ ට න ගමෙන ෙර හදව වලට සහනය උදා

කර ඔ සමග ත ගායනා කර සැදෑ යාමය ස ගත කර න අපට අව ථාව උදා උනා.

අෙ ම ෙය වරැ එ න ඉ ප කළ සං ත වැඩසටහනට අපව මයට ප කර

ඔ , කා ෙර හෙ අ මලා,අ කලා,නං ලා අප සමග එක ෙවලා ඔ ෙ ඉ ප ද

කළා. ඒ වෙ ම ෙමාෙහාතකට ෙහ ඔ ෙ බර කතා අමතක කරව නට අ ට හැ ම

ගැන හතමා ස ට ලැෙබන අතරම ඔ ෙ බර කතා ෙශ කා තය ම ෙනා ස දායක

අවසානය ලැෙබ න යැ රා ථනා කරනවා. ඔ ෙ අත ඉතාම ස ට

සැදෑව ගත කළ අ ඔ නට ස නා.

ඉ ... ය ක මෙ බල ම මෙය ය ෙර හදව වලට ඉ ම ම ෙර වය
ෙ මහ ය න අපෙ ඒකායන පැ ම .
ලගාෙ වා

තය ව කරව නට තම ධනය, මහ ය,ශ ය කැප කළ ඔබ ය ෙදනාට අපෙ
උපහාරය ම ෙ වා!
Leo Shanika Lakshani
Project Chairperson
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 8

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

ෙසෙනහෙ ගමන

Page 9

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

TWAITLKH LEO

A friendly conversation with Leo Danushi Wijewardana

1. Hi!! How are you doing in this pandemic
situation?

Well, staying safe and home while trying to stay focused.
I think times are challenging for everyone, but we should
quickly adapt to the changes. Speaking of the positive
side, I think the situation gave me an opportunity and
time for self-learning, a lot of reading, and focus on some
things I’ve had no time for.

2. How did your Leo life start? And what made you go
into Leo?

It all started back in 2016, when the Orientation
Committee of our district then, came to our campus and
did an Orientation Program for us.
They gave us insight into the movement and we were quite impressed and eager to join a movement that has
both social service as well as personal development opportunities. I started my Leo life as a club director of the
Centennial Leo Club of Sri Lanka Technological Campus and later I served the Club as the secretary.
I‘d like to express my gratitude here for the District President of the year 2016/2017, PMDP Leo Lion Kesari
Senevirathne PMJF, Orientation Committee Chairman PDP Leo Kasun Lokugamage, Orientation Committee
members, and our Leo Advisor Lion Noel Palliyaguru for making that move to start the Leo Club of Sri Lanka
Technological Campus.

3. As the chairperson for the Editorial Panel Leo District 306 A2, how is your experience?

It is a very good opportunity for me and I’m learning day by day being in the position. So far, I was able
to learn new skills, new platforms, and well, lots of interesting newsletters from all the clubs too,
meaning I enjoy reading them. Along with my editorial team, we’ve been working hard to achieve the
targets allocated to us by the district. So being in the position I think my skills are developing day by day.

Page 10

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

WTAITLKH LEO

A friendly conversation with Leo Danushi Wijewardana

4. What major achievements have you had in Leo?

Speaking of personal achievements, I became the Most Disciplined Leo – 2nd Runners up, Most
Outstanding Leo Club Secretary -1st Runners up in 2017/2018, and Most Outstanding District Unit Member
for the year 2019/2020. Apart from that, I think the biggest thing I have in the Leo movement is the skills I
gained, and the big family of our A2 Leos as friends.

5. How do you balance your work and personal life?
Most of the time I had to balance my academic life and my other works. I believe that being a Leo or being
a volunteer is also quite important in life. I try to work on the things at hand and have a separate time
for the works. Whatever, I do, I try to put my maximum effort towards it while staying focused. I think
that worked for me to achieve some things in my life.

6. How do you feel being a Leo?

Well, I think I’m really grateful for this wonderful movement. It indeed helped to improve me as a person,
a lot. I wasn’t very good at presenting when I came to the campus and being a Leo, speaking a few words
in front of an audience in one general meeting changed me a lot. So, for many of us Leos, I think that
experience is the same - the improvements in their life. As I mentioned previously also, the movement
helped towards developing my soft skills such as presentation skills, reporting skills, teamwork,
leadership and communication skills, and many more. Not only that, the satisfaction we have after a
good social service project- I think that is something we remember for a long time in our lives.
LEO is all about Leadership, Experience, and Opportunities. I think it is when you take that opportunity it
gives you experience. It is that experience that makes you a great person-a great leader one day.

7. Have you any advice for new Leos and prospects?

Try to work for a cause, because the quality of your
contribution will determine the quality of your life.
When you work to improve the lives of others, your
life improves automatically. Leoism is a great
platform for this!

Thank you Leo Danushi!

Page 11

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

STRESS AND OUR BODY

What is stress?

Stress is a feeling of emotional or physical tension. It can come from any event or
thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous.
Our body reacts to stress by releasing hormones that make our brain more alert,
cause our muscles to tense, and increase our pulse.
There are two types of stress,

Stress Acute (Short term stress)
Chronic (Long term stress)

In short term, stress reactions are good because they can help us handle the situation
causing stress. But when in long term due to these reactions our body stays alert,
even though there is no danger.

What is stressful for you?

Some of life’s most common sources of stress include,
1. Stress at work
2. Job loss and unemployment stress
3. Financial stress
4. Caregiver stress
5. Grief and loss

In today’s world, chronic stress, long-term stress is common So let’s take a look at it.

CHRONIC STRESS

This is the stress that lasts for a longer period. We may have chronic stress if we have
money problems, family problems like an unhappy marriage, or trouble at works. Any
type of stress that goes on for weeks or months is chronic stress. If we tend to get
stressed out frequently, like many of us in today, our body may exist in a heightened
state of stress most of the time. And it can lead to serious health problems and
chronic stress that disrupts nearly every system in our body.

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Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

STRESS AND OUR BODY

What are those health issues?

1. Depression and anxiety
2. The pain of any kind
3. Sleep problems
4. Autoimmune diseases
5. Digestive problems
6. Skin conditions such as eczema
7. Heart diseases
8. Weight problems
9. Reproductive issues
10. Thinking and memory problems

If we already have a health condition, chronic stress can make it worse. So we must
learn how to get rid of this condition.

How can we improve our ability to handle stress?

1. Get moving (Regular exercise can lift our mood)
2. Connect to others (The simple act of talking face-to-face with another human
trigger hormone that relieves stress)
3. Engage our senses (Relieve stress is by engaging one or more of our sense-sight,
sound, taste, smell, touch, or movement)
4. Learn to relax (relaxation techniques)
5. Eat a healthy diet (The food we eat can improve or worsen our mood)
6. Get your rest (Feeling tired can increase stress)

By improving these habits, we can feel less stressed, more productive, and
emotionally balanced.

Leo Chamudi Thennakoon
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 13

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

THE LEADING TO TALENTS

රැ බ න මනර සැදෑවක ක සලන නහ කැ දන
හග නද ඇෙසන ෙමාෙහාතක ප සලක වය තට ෙගන ෙදන
ව පවසන
මට ආස ය නග නට රහ ෙන ෙ ෙ මය
න මැ මට රැ ෙලාවකට ය සරසන

ත සම ත ෙමාෙහාතක ෙනා ට හද රැ ග වන

දකලාෙව ෙව ෙමාෙහාතක ට හෙ සමන රගන

මට ආස ය නග නට ෙ යම වාලන

මටම රැ ෙලාවකට ය ඔ ව ෙ ෙ මය

ෙලාවම ස මත වැ ෙමාෙහාතක ං ෙ ට රවන ඔරවන
ෙසා මා ත බර ෙමාෙහාතක
මට ආස ය නග නට සැ නැවත සැ ෙසන
තට නැ මෙගම ෙලාවකට
තව තව ත යාෙවන

ෙසා රැ බැ ම ෙසා රැ ෙ මය

ෙලාව මැද ව ත ෙමාෙහාතක තරවැ ඇය ඔබ ෙව ලබන
ෙව ෙත ෙනාර ෙමාෙහාතක
මට ආස ඉ ල ය නට ෙනාග ෙ ඔබ අ සන
හ යක ෙ ෙමෙගම ෙලාවකට
ළදැ යක ෙ වන

ෙක ල හැ ම ඇයට ෙ මය

ෙලාව එපා හැ ෙමාෙහාතක මවක ෙ ද හද සනසවන
ෙලාෙව සැගෙව අවැ ෙමාෙහාතක ලදක ෙසෙනහස සැම ට පතන

මට ආස ය නග නට ර ව හ මෘ වන
මටම ෙව ෙසා රැ ෙලාවකට රැ ය ඔ ට ෙ මය

Leo Sanuri Udeshika
Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya

Page 14

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

THE LEADING TO PUZZLE
Solar system

The solar system is the gravitationally bound system of the sun and
objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. As we are a part

of the solar system we must have some idea about it... so have
some fun with this crossword puzzle about Solar System.

Page 15

Issue 1, Leoistic Year 2020/2021

EDITOR’S NOTE

“A great magazine is sort of a net of ability” – Candace wheeler
Since this is our first newsletter I feel it’s better to start my note with a

quote from Candace Wheeler because this saying vividly explains the value of a
magazine. She was America’s FIRST WOMEN interior and textile designer. She is
often credited as the mother of interior design. As her saying I think we could
able to accumulate the abilities of Leos of Uragasmanhandiya. So Leading toward
success we, Leos of Uragasmanhandiya initiate a great chance for our very own
Uragasmanhandiya leos to show their ability and skills through our first ever club
newsletter “THE LEAD”.

As leos, we already do so many services to society. One of the main purposes
of leoism is sharpening the very own talents of leos through social service. As
leos, we were able to present our commitment to society, physically as well as
virtually in many ways. And through that, we gain so many experiences and we
could polish up our personality.

As a result of those hard work, we could come this far and this newsletter is
another big step of Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya. So I warmly welcome all of
you to read this and give your valuable feedback to us. It will be a great strength
to us.

Finally, I would like to thank my club members and everyone who helped us
and helping us in every aspect and every movement.

Leo Chamudi Thennakoon
Chief Editor

Page 16

SIGNING OFF

“VOLUNTEERS ARE THE ONLY HUMAN BEINGS ON THE FACE OF THE
EARTH WHO REFLECT THIS NATION’S COMPASSION, UNSELFISH
CARING, PATIENCE, AND JUST PLAIN LOVING ONE ANOTHER.”

– ERMA BOMBECK -

STAY TUNED

Leo Club of Uragasmanhandiya