The Speech I made When I Finished my District Presidency Term at 8th Annual Leo District Conference 306 A2

Mark Twain once said, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them"

Chief Guest of the Occasion District Governor Elect, Lion Asanga Samarasekara MJF JP, all the other dignitaries at the head table, Leo leaders, Lion leaders, Leos, Lions, parents and my friends.

In life, if we do not achieve results, even if we have superb skills, we will be equivalent to those who don’t have them.  Leos, we are in a movement that tech us to achieve results. That’s how Leos get differentiated among others.

11 months back, in a same like District Conference, I did an acceptance speech when I was appointed as the District President of 306 A2. And I have brought that script today. If you can remember, I said there that this will be the “Year of Leadership and Fellowship”. And I asked everyone to take the leadership of their roles, and become “Leaders without Titles”. Leos, as pledged, we now have lots of new blood taking leadership within our district. I was counting the number of new Leos we have inducted during the year, it was around 351 members.I must thank every Leo member of my district, for taking the leadership and for working like one big family for a year.

Looking back the time we have passed, I feel very happy and proud of being able to lead such a wonderful set of brothers and sisters in 306 A2. We have extended 9 Leo Clubs, expanding our horizons to reach the boundary of A2, Monaragala is a milestone of the history. That was the highest number of club extension in the Multiple 306 A2 for the year and we got awarded for it at Lions Multiple Convention. We brought the first ever school clubs to the district, which was in our dreams for many years. Now 306 A2 has reached the milestone of 30 Leo Clubs.

Not only that, Leoistic year 2012/2013 have added lot more milestones to the history. We were able to keep a very strong administration in the district. The actual credit of that goes to all my Club Presidents, Council Officers and District Chairman for Leos for the wonderful job done on that. They are the people who have done the hard work, and I just did cheering to them. The Presidents’ Camp held in Kitulgala in the very beginning of the year, where we empowered Council Officers and Club Presidents with knowledge, right attitude, and built that strong bond of friendship between them.

Leos, the year we have just passed is full of achievements. The Leo Camp held in February was another record breaking event in the history. We had over 120 Leos taking part in the camp in Matale, making it the camp with the highest number of participation in the history. The first every A2 Sports Day, Healing with Talents – talents show, the newsletter “HeartBeat” have added colors to it. Remember Leos, during this short time, we had 2 Leo Camps, a Sports Day, a Talents Show while maintaining all the other annual events.

Not only locally, we have achieved a lot in international level also. District President’s Malaysia visit to attend International Relations Camp was a peak of it. You can see we have brought benefits from there to our Leos, so that we are sending Leo of the Year and Most Outstanding Leo Club President to Malaysia for a Youth Exchange Program in next July.  Our October Membership campaign was a great success bringing 156 new members to the district. We received 52 October Membership Growth Awards for that. As leaders, we can be truly proud of our world class achievements during this year, specially being the world’s top Leo District to win highest number of Leo October Membership Growth Awards. Today, I can very confidently say; as a Leo District, we are at top 10 Leo Districts in the world, if properly evaluated. I owe a lot to my Leos and Lions of A2 for their commitment and the support extended to me in achieving those results. Thank you very much again Lions, Leos and friends for the wonderful work.

So, as I said in the beginning, Leos success is all about using ours skills properly to achieve goals. And we have achieved lots of milestones this year. I am sure by now, our Lions are feeling very proud of their Leo District. As a District President, I am very proud of A2. I know it was not an easy job, specially for me, being a guy from outstation, and without having luxury of transport, being have to walk and travel by bus. But be happy, we all see the results of those today.

We have read good books this year.

Thank You.