Simple English Wikipedia says “A custom (also called a tradition) is anything which lots of people do, and have done for a long time. Usually, the people come from the same country, culture, time or religion. If something is usually done the same way, you might say that is the "customary way" of doing things. The meaning of culture is similar to the meaning of custom. A custom is more about practices, while culture is more about ideas or a group of customs. A custom overall is just similar to culture and culture means the way of life of a people.

Readers might be wondering why I started the editorial with a citation from the internet. Although I cited that text from internet, the meaning has been known to everybody and there is nothing new in the above text. IESL too has some traditions and customs as it consists of a group of people from a similar educational and professional background representing quite similar ideas and they do exist for more than a century.

Traditions could be very old and sometimes there may be requests to change. Sometimes engineers did complain that IESL was not guiding its members to equip with latest technology. One such example was the membership registry. It was very old and some records were even illegible. Two years ago, the traditional book keeping on membership was changed to advanced software, and now with certain limitations of maximum number of membership, members enjoy the benefits.

The other side of traditions at IESL is on council and management. There are certain traditions or customs that usually control radical changes. One simple example is the process of becoming the president of IESL. Traditional way of learning the customs of IESL is to join sectional committees, then the council as a young member, member, fellow, vice president, president elect and finally become the president. This learning cycle is a wonderful experience for a youngster on how to handle tense situations, to gain experience from different committees, to be familiar with financial regulations and most importantly to obtain guidance from seniors. Lack of experience and lack of guidance from seniors could eventually make a half boiled leadership.

I compared all these things to raise an important matter; soon you will be requested to propose amendments or resolutions to be discussed at the next AGM which will be held in October. It is your responsibility to propose changes for common reasons, but NOT for individual objectives. Last few years, some resolutions were negative and personal. Make use the opportunity to change the IESL for the better, but NOT to make it worse, because some traditions could be beneficial in the long run for the IESL.

Udeni P. Nawagamuwa
nawagamuwa@gmail.com