Abbasi Islamic Centre Project

100 Day Pledge: Publish a outline project plan listing the key milestones that we will be working towards and who will be responsible for them.

As you are aware, the overall strategy for the Building Committee is to:
1. Analyse the viable options available to the community in an impartial manner and get them costed,
2. Understand the community’s income and donations, as well as approaching Banks – to understand our budget,
3. Present this impartially at a referendum in September 2012 so we can all have a discussion and move forward to the implementation stage.

As part of this strategy, we are following the combined best practice recommendations of the following organisations: (1) The World Federation of KSIMC (Capital Projects Process), (2) The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA Outline Plan of Work) and (3) Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment (Constructing Excellence Guide to Procurement).

We have summarised how each of these processes fit together into an outline plan of the activities that we will be carrying out in order to build the new centre. The outline plan can be downloaded from here.

Team Member

Area of Responsibility
Abaas Bhimji  
  • Costing up all of the various options that are available to the community.
  • Co-ordination of the WF, RIBA and Constructing Excellence stages.
Bill Houle
  • Property developer who is responsible for finding new sites for the community to move to.
Bob Ghosh
  • Architect responsible for design the new centre.
  • Submitting planning permission application.
Kasim Sumar
  • Head of Community Engagement
Gulamabbas Peera
  • Compilation of needs analysis detailing the minimum and desirable specifications of a new centre.
  • Investigation of fundraising strategies.
Mehdiya Jaffer
  • Community Engagement (Vice)
Murtaza Master
  • Community investment strategy
  • Identifying new areas of community investment
Sajjad Hassam

  • Analysis and evaluation of census data that is relevant to the project.
  • Analysis of outputs of previous consultation exercises.
  • Committee secretary.
Project Accountant - Volunteers Welcome
  • The current revenue sources and expenses of the Jamaat.
  • How much of the free cash flow that is generated by the Jamaat can be utilised towards the capital expenditure involved in building the new centre.
  • The capacity within the community to generate funds for building the new centre.
  • How the community will pay for the maintenance of the new centre.
  • Work with the Jamaat office to keep an accurate account of how much has been received in donations (including huqooq and non-huqooq funds, conditions of donations etc.) and how much has been spent towards the construction of the new centre.
Graphic Designer - Volunteers Welcome
  • Preparing marketing materials for the project

As you will see from the outline plan, many of the processes are interlinked and therefore many aspects of the work will be carried out by multiple people working together. Therefore, for the sake of simplicity, we have outlined below the general responsibilities of each of the team members in working towards the construction of the new centre below:

As mentioned above, we are still looking for a project accountant to look after the finances of the project. Some of us may question as to why a separate person is needed if we already have a Jamaat Head of Finance and Treasurer. The reality is that these individuals are incredibly busy with looking at the various other aspects of the community’s finances and therefore, we need someone specific for this role. Naturally, the person who fills the role will have to work very closely with Navshad Kanani and Inayat Moledina. For further information on what the role entails, please see here.


Finally, we are also looking for a graphic designer to work with the community engagement team. The responsibility of the graphic designer will be to prepare marketing materials for the Building Committee specifically. For example, presentations we are making to Councillors should be well-designed to reflect well on our community.


If you are interested in volunteering for any of these two positions, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..