Abbasi Islamic Centre Project

Alhamdulillah, we have made good progress in the first 100 days and most of the pledges have been achieved. The table below sets out the pledges and a summary of what progress has been made in achieving each pledge. You will also see a link to an article explaining in a bit more detail about each pledge.

Pledge

Status

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

Completed

 - Please see here for the plan.
Engage local MPs and Councillors in order to canvass their support for our aspirations of building a new Community Centre

Completed

 - Meeting with Roger Godsiff on 5th July.
- Councillors in are co-ordinating diaries.
Arrange a meeting with planning officers and other specialists to understand Birmingham City Council's planning policies with regards to places of worship.

In Progress

- Architect has advised it is too early for this to be done – we should go with a specific scheme and once the project plan document has been completed.
- We have published a summary of the Council’s policy with regards to places of worship and this can be found here.
Kick start the process on following the WF Capital Projects Process, so we can raise money from other Jamaats around the world

Completed

 - Email sent to CoEJ to advise them that we would like to follow the process.
- Project plan being drafted in line with requirements.
- Meeting with Gulamabbas Kassam (CoEJ assessor) arranged.
Ask the volunteers of the Ghusal-Kaffan and other committees (e.g. Nyaz, Nursery) to visit other newly built Jamaats in the UK to learn from their designs (and feed that back to our architects).

·Postponed

 - Consultation panel has taken longer to set up than anticipated so a visit has yet to be arranged.
- Working to get this completed in Q4 2012.
Arrange a handover meeting (and publish summary minutes) with the previous MAP committee and the EC to ensure a smooth handover

Completed

 Meeting held on 5th April 2012. Minutes can be found here.

I realise that some of you may be disappointed that I did not achieve everything that I promised to do and for this I would like to apologise. Nevertheless, I am a firm believer in setting ambitious goals as it forces a person to push themselves to try and achieve extraordinary things. The last 100 days has been a case in point in this as the team has working extremely hard in laying the foundations for the road ahead. They are truly remarkable people and I feel blessed to be working with them.

I look forward to hearing any feedback you may have and/or answering any questions.

Shaheed Fazal{jcomments on}