President Talks
Founder of perabeats under Sports Council
It was a dream that has been prevailing for many years. In the past when we came to university, the Sri Lankan University Sports was powered by “Moraspirit” group. Since 2009, it was a heartfelt dream of ours to start such media group in the University of peradeniya, yet no one took the initial step. Even when we came back after winning SLUG, in all three years it was Moraspirit site, who interviewed us. During the last year of my University life, I became the President of the sports council. By now the dream that has been long hidden in my heart had become much greater and I got to work with the people who had the same passion. Krishan Jayawardana, Dulanja Subodhana, Bhasuru Gunathilake, Madush Malan and Manna Uthum joined hands with me in making our dream reality. By that time Moraspirit had become the giant piller in the field of University games. We just couldn’t even imagine going up against them. Yet we never gave up hope.
Krishan knew how to make websites. Subodhana was student from computer engineering, both of them were team members of the basketball team. They started this project yet there was the need of financial support. As I was the president of the sports council back then, I carried out various projects and started to promote “pera beats” with the money collected. It was presented as a project of the Council. The greatest problem we had from the beginning is the need of a good photographer. One night, while I was scrolling through Facebook, I came across some breathtaking photos of our University which was captured by an elder brother, Upul Pallekumbura. He had Brilliant ideas and craze to take photos. I had a chat with him in FB and to him for our project. Later our website became more famous due to the talent of Upul Pallekumbura.Since he was a friend whom I met during chess in childhood, it was easier to work with him. The other problem we had was, the need of article writers. We were fully inexperienced in the field, yet we somehow made a website and started our journey. The name ” pera beats” was invented by me, it meant the Heartbeat of our peradeniya. And our slogan was ” feel the beat of the lion’s heart”. However the launched our website in 2012, may 09th in the Colors Night. It was launched by former VC of University of Peradeniya, Prof. S.B.S. Abeykoon.
We felt if we repaid our mother peradeniya who gave rise to many national level players through all the years. Yet the hardest part wasn’t still Over. As I said, it was a difficult task to find article writers. Somehow we found some with great difficulty. At this moment Pramuditha Perera did a great work. Due to political divisions in the university, the students were divided into two groups and yet it was not quite possible to get hold of the best English writers. As we somehow got that part done, the unity of our photographers and the team of perabeats helped us to get updates quicker than other media bodies. We also had a great help from other universities as well. Within a few months we were able to gain a much greater fame than others, but due to the academic strikes and minor staff strikes in 2012 we lost a lot. Even though I left the university at the end of 2012, I was so happy because we did the memorable thing that will last for years. Afterwards Subodhana got the responsibility of perabeats.
The name perabeats and the first Moto were my ideas. The site was done by Krishan Jayawardana and Dulanja Subodhana. The photographers were handled by Upul Pallekumbura. Thilina Dissanayake, Pulasthi Basnayake and Tharaja Palihawadana supported Upul a lot. Pramuditha Perera and Kithmini Kehelpannala put a great effort on writing articles in the site. Finally I should say that all people who did sports those days did a lot of work to build up perabeats. Today I would like to share this happiness with all of them. The dream that had been prevailing in our hearts for many years came out as a result of the team spirit.
Rajeendra Kalugampitiya
Founder of perabeats Media Society
After our first work
President of Perabeats Media Society 2016
*Revitalizing perabeats*
My Perabeats story began as a photographer in the year 2014. Those days, I was an enthusiastic photographer from Faculty of Engineering Student Publication Society (ESPS). During that time, I got a great opportunity to contribute for perabeats as a photographer. Those days’ perabeats was not a society but it was part of media and photography division which operated under the supervision of Sports Council of University of Peradeniya. In the year 2014, Dulanjana Subodana was the president of University Sport Counsil and also the captain of basketball team. He had a responsibility to prepare teams for the Inter-University Games and needed a way to encourage University sports by media promotions. Dulanjana asked me to join perabeats to contribute to university sports. I accepted his request because I was a hockey player of the university team and I had the same intentions he had. That time Dulanjana and I had to put our maximum efforts to re-establish perabeats sports media division. We changed its logo (earlier lion design to font design) for successful branding and marketing. And also we had intentions to cover every Inter-University games and colours night from 2013-2014
Despite having a few photographers, me and Dulanjana worked hard together to achieve our dreams but unfortunately we couldn’t archive our targets and goals as we wished. Year 2015 was a hard time for perabeats. I and my team mates couldn’t give much contribution to the perabeats due to educational commitments. During a time like that Nuwan Tharindu, Carrom men’s team captain, former vice president of Sports Counsil wanted to join perabeats. As a Vice President, he wanted to revive perabeats again and with his and support of sports captains, we were able to successfully cover all the inter-university games in 2015.
With all that effort, we were unable to find its missing beat of becoming a unique society in the university history. Though with slow & tiring beginnings, we were adamant on resuscitating perabeats to realize the dream we dreamt together.
Beginning of 2016, I got an offer to lead this unwavering enthusiastic team. I got the opportunity of a lifetime to strive this society to success with the experience I gathered over the years as a member of the team.
In the process of revamping the society, we decided to kick-start perabeats as an independent society of the University of Peradeniya. It was not easy to start society from the beginning. I accepted the challenge and sports council gave their remarkable support throughout my journey as the first ever president in the independent perabeats society. Naindu Liyanage and Sameera Abeysuriya became a first Secretary and Vice President respectively. The vision we were striving since its inception and the experience we had gathered throughout the years gave us the confidence in starting a new chapter in perabeats. We changed our traditional way of working one by one, initiative by initiative. We started with crew recruitments first, we analyzed our past failures, we were always working on implementing new concepts and finding measures to overcome challenges. We had meetings every week and we had t-shirt distributions for contributions to the society during the mid of the year as a token of appreciation. Our main concern was to train and guide our junior members for perabeats, to stabilize the future for the society. Seniors and juniors worked as one team.
We started a photography lecture series to educate juniors and search for potential talent. We knew that sheer dedicated talent would be the driving force that will steer this society into a path no other society in Sri Lanka University circle has ever taken before.
Mid of the year, we were given the great opportunity to cover Sri Lanka University Games (SLUG) which was held by University of Wayamba. The coverage was outstanding and exceeded expectations. The sacrifices made by each and every member in the team paid off. And we became famous within a short period of time which was fascinating and an overwhelming moment for our team. This made us understand the potential of the society and made us introduce perabeats Life by expanding our coverage, putting forward a new step on behalf of the society.
perabeats Life was a playground for enthusiasts. We covered almost every event we were offered. Eventually, society became very famous among the Universities in Sri Lanka. Among the inspiring and amusing stories, challenges faced, unity was the thread that bound us all together as one team and the reason behind our enormous success. The year 2016 can be marked as the most decisive and significant year for the society,
The year we started a golden chapter for University media. It is now moving forward far beyond our expectations. I would like to wish all the very best for the perabeats crew for their future endeavors. I hope the society will go beyond our wildest imaginations and stay true to the motto we all believe in “Expect the Unexpected”.
President of Perabeats society 2016,
Maneesh Wickramasuriya.
Vice President of Perabeats Media Society 2016
Success is a team game, and perabeats have proved it. This is my run down the memory lane as a person who loves Perabeats
In the early days, Perabeats existed as a media division under the sports council of the university for which the former founders like Rajeendra, Subodhana contributed by finding photography talent within the university and joining it with pera sports under this brand name. Maneesh, the mastermind behind the renaissance of the brand name was an early sports photographer who understood the requirement of strengthening it as a separate club for the betterment of pera sports during his junior days and then showed the right leadership as a senior student. That is when the things started and informal discussions happened between us where we were already good friends since he supported my ideology of putting photography, passion and creativity of the brilliant minds within the university to good use.
Putting up a team at inception was the biggest challenge we had. Initially, perabeats was little known and only known for ‘photography coverage of university sports events. But we could see it as a gold mine of opportunities for the students to bring their talents into play while giving back to the alma-mater in countless ways.
New beginnings meant new branding, and Prasanna and Nirmal came up with the simplest and impactful perabeats logo design. It was a very strong point when it came to gaining public attention.
Naindu played a brilliant role as the secretary and his ideas were in par with Maneesh’s dream of making Perabeats the club which can make the highest impact in the university. He had the brilliant talent of negotiation and conveying the intentions of forming such a club to different pressure groups. We made sure the group was a mix of talent, links to sport, links to different faculties and different batches. I can recall a lot of members who came forward with different ideologies and talents; some who did not complete the initiated journey with us, some who stuck with us till the very end and the new faces that joined us along the way. All of them contributed to the growth of perabeats in numerous ways
Once the perabeats team was formed, we really looked into the purpose of the club and how we could contribute as a team to that purpose. During the days of inception, we observed some common problems in the university sports arena.
- Players were little known
- Fresh talented players were giving up on sports since their talents went unknown.
- The sports did not attract crowds to sports events even though it was the largest residential university of the country.
But we saw one place it did attract a large crowd, THE INTER FACULTY FRESHERS’ MEET. And we were so excited about making our presence there! Nights went planning how to make it happen and make perabeats a known brand within; we were pretty sure it was the best opportunity to kick start the club. That is when we reached out to all sports teams coordinating the freshers’ games to hunt down the special talented players who were new to the Pera soil. As the intensity of the tournament grew, we created a chance for those emerging players to be known among the university students we created awards such as the “perabeats upcoming player of the tournament” “perabeats most popular player award” and they were awarded at the final awards ceremony. This little project itself created an invaluable bond between the sports teams and perabeats where we helped each other at all times. And the best outcome we had was, the players we recognized continued to play for the alma mater until the end of their university life.
We obviously had zero financial strength at the inception although the good bond between with the sports teams helped us stand strong and not to forget the PERA CRICKET team who gifted us the first internet router and it was such a wonderful gesture by a sports team. More than anything, this meant we were in the battle together.
With such a motivation, we really worked hard on bringing updates of Sri Lanka University Games held in Wayamba University of Sri Lanka and it was a grand success as all sports teams helped us in so many ways. The sacrifice of time and commitment was the key to success. We could develop a very good bond with other university media clubs and ‘Wayoscope’ became our special friend at the end of the tournament. We could also promote our famous tagline #cheerforpera at the end of each sports tournament
We were always motivated about being the mediator between the general audience and the sports teams. (that is why we came up with the tagline #cheerforpera)
We observed that the residential community generally gathered around all aesthetic events in numbers which we thought would be useful in building a bond between sports and the students. Many arguments went on whether we should lose our focus on Pera sports but it was agreed by the majority that we can reach a better audience and make a bigger impact and that is how PERABEATS LIFE was created. Surprisingly, it was embraced by the university community which really helped the media club to grow to what it is today and we observe that the roots have grown deeper and the branches have reached new heights.
Looking back, it is with ultimate satisfaction that I say the club is an absolute success. Being a strong media group can make so many positive impacts to all university activities as a whole if new ideas and new applications are put into use by a set of motivated people. Perabeats has no limits in terms of growth. It is a place everyone can enjoy, a family everyone can be a part of, a classroom to learn new things, a school to teach, a laboratory to experiment and a theatre to showcase your talent as a Pera Undergraduate. Today we move forward with the university students, academia, other community clubs, sports teams, other universities, university organizations during all major events of the university and the list can go on.
I wish nothing but the best to perabeats in the years to come!
Sameera Abeysuriya
President of Perabeats Media Society 2017
2017 was a challenging year for perabeats. It was the second phase of the great transformation which began in 2016. Forged with the spirit of 2016 crew members, perabeats saw the need of fresh heads full of creativity and inspiration. After SLUG 2016, this is the first year we are bringing full media coverage for Inter University Games. Even though SLUG is held in one location in one month, Inter University Games are conducted throughout various locations spanning for several months. Being equipped with limited equipment and personnel, it is a big challenge to coordinate with all universities and bring live updates and coverage for the sports events throughout the island. For the first time in sports media coverage history of University of Peradeniya, perabeats began live streaming of University Games in 2017 with rugby finals broadcasted through YouTube channel. Apart from the aesthetic events and sports events, the educational and academic events in the University need to be highlighted and they lacked media presence. perabeats saw the importance of highlighting academic presence of all the faculties in the University. There were already media societies established for media coverage in the faculty of Engineering and faculty of Science namely Gauge Newsletter and Science Reporter but they were limited to faculties. With the aim of uniting media platforms within the university and connecting academia with the outside community, perabeats Insights was established targeting all major academic events, symposiums and workshops held within and outside the university. Today, it has partnered with several International platforms linked within the University such as Rotaract and Aiesec. A good media crew is forged with creativity, skills and talent to face any challenge. Perabeats carried out several workshops to forge a talented crew and bring out the uniqueness in University students who love photography and videography. In 2017, perabeats blog was opened for all creative people who could publish their creativity for the whole world to see. For fundraising, perabeats carries out several projects such as selling T-shirts, badges and stickers with unique designs that highlighted the pride of UOP. I wish all the best for perabeats, for the years ahead to come.. Rules are meant to be broken and success is a never ending journey achieved through dedication and hardwork.. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED..
Pasindu Perera [President Crew 17]
President of Perabeats Media Society 2018
2018 was an unforgettable and a remarkable year for Perabeats. perabeats had to face its next phase during this period. The family then was quite stable. We had an energetic family from almost all the faculties in the University, but compared to the previous years the workload was heavy because at that time perabeats was a name quite known by everybody not only among students but also among most of the academic staff. At that time, perabeats was the main media body of the University of Peradeniya giving coverage for almost all the events in the University ranging from Sports, Academic events and Aesthetic events. During this phase creativity and innovative ideas was in need for perabeats. This time we were in need with people with the passion to do something new or to be skillful enough to think out of the box. perabeats Open Day was a result of this out of the box thinking. For the first time in the university history perabeats was able to reach the audience outside the university. With the sponsorship of Camera.lk, we were able to held media workshop successfully for both University students and students outside the University. This event made perabeats even reach much exposure outside the University. Apart from the former, for the first time in University history, perabeats was able to become the first media body which had the privilege to cover the Convocation Ceremony inside the gymnasium. This also was a huge opportunity for perabeats.
Apart from that, Perabeats was able to cover the Inter University games even more creatively in 2018. With the Donation of a Drone from our Former President Maneesha, we were able to expand our limits of videography and photography. We were able to reach to the level of Drone photography and Videography. This lead perabeats become the most remarkable media body out of all the other media bodies. At that time no other media bodies were able to reach to this position.
The journey we came across was not an easy one, but a really tough. We covered almost every event which were offered. perabeats would not reach this state without the commitment of the perabeats family. There were many days most of members had to work without sleep even for a minute. perabeats is all about attitude. Finally I would like to say perabeats is not just a media society. It is a family which is bound together. We faced so many challenges but we were able to face them all since we acted as a family as one team. I wish all the very best for Perabeats family for their future endeavors.
Ruchira Madushan
- President of perabeats media society 2018
