The Management Club Cricket Sixes 2007, organised by the TMC and sponsored this year by Delmege Forsyth and Co. Ltd., was held at the P Saravanamuttu International Stadium on Sunday, December 9, 2007.

It indeed was a great day of cricket and sportsmanship with Capitol AEI emerging champions for the second consecutive year beating South Asia Gateway Terminal ‘A’ team in a well played exciting finish. The tournament, open to all mercantile sector firms, had 34 teams registering this year representing varied fields and industries viz. 3 M Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., Asia Siyaka Commodities (Pvt) Ltd., Bogawantalawa Tea Estates Ltd., Bridges Worldwide (Pvt) Ltd., Capitol AEI (Pvt) Ltd., Capitol Overseas Courier Services (Pvt) Ltd., Cargo Boat Company Limited, Citibank N A, Computers & Telecommunication Systems (Pvt) Ltd., Dellogistics (Pvt) Ltd., Eastern & Allied Agencies Ltd., ETS Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., Forbes and Walker (Pvt) Ltd., Freight Systems Logistics Lanka (Pvt) Ltd., George Steuarts Group, HSBC, Kingslake Engineering Systems (Pvt) Ltd., Mercantile Produce Brokers (Pvt) Ltd., MIL Holdings (Pvt) Ltd., Perera & Sons (Bakers) Ltd., Pership Group, Premium Trading & Logistics (Pvt) Ltd., Prudential Shipping Lines (Pvt) Ltd., South Asia Gateway Terminals, Soft Logic Ltd., Tritel Services (Pvt) Ltd., Union Assurance PLC. Six members, including a female, made up the teams. 

An enthusiastic committee chaired by Rohitha Mendis organised a day full of fun for kids and adults alike with something for everyone to enjoy giving memorable moments to carry back with them. The day’s proceedings commenced with the hoisting of the national flag and anthem along with flags of TMC and CMI. Also displayed prominently were flags from participating teams.  No match is complete without the sounds of a papara band and we had them right through in all their glory keeping the crowds on their toes as did the DJ present and with Karaoke lead by Dayan, MC for the day (our own TMC member) had almost the whole stadium joining in. 

Dayan like the pied piper even had the children gather round singing, dancing, answering the many questions put to the crowd. With food and drink organised to cater to all taste buds, it was a great day also for socializing and networking.

Not only cricket, TMC also had a competition for the participating teams in a Fancy Dress up.  Creativity and imagination came out when the teams and their supporters dressed up a fellow member in hilarious well thought of costumes with the bundles of assorted paper handed out, a riot of colour indeed it was. The contestants then had to dance the baila while also trying to keep their paper costume intact!    

Individual achievements too were noted and recognised amidst the fanfare at the cricket awards ceremony.  

It was a remarkable and rare opportunity when the TMC Cricket Committee had also organised an exhibition match by the team from the Sri Lanka Cricket Association of the visually handicapped. Totally or partially blind team members showed us that a handicap like that is no barrier for sportsmanship teamwork to work at and achieve great heights, no matter what.

The Management Club which was inaugurated in 2002 came about because the Executive Committee of The Chartered Management Institute UK, Sri Lanka Branch felt that professional managers in Sri Lanka lacked an exclusive facility for themselves, where they could meet, greet, interact and network with their peers and exchange thoughts, views and ideas though there were many clubs available in Sri Lanka for sports and recreational activities.

The vision of the TMC is to bring together professional managers in order that they may interact with one another, develop their potential management, leadership and business skills to the fullest and make a substantial contribution to society. With the main objectives being to provide an opportunity for the growing population of professional managers to meet and greet regularly at interacting programmes of value and worth, infuse sharpen and develop management, leadership and business skills beneficial to our members all year round through management presentations and other fora, to have the opportunity of an acceptable, congenial venue, to have exclusive access and use of certain facilities free and at discounted rates, very similar to the ‘Colombo Club’.