Monday 31 March 2008

Ninth Steering Group meeting

This evening's meeting received both the University research report and the fruit of the drafting work on the overall project report, undertaken by Paul Ballard, Roy Thomas, and the Director.

Members will now review these documents and report back corrections and amendments during the course of the coming week.

The next stage in the process will be to issue pre-publication copies to a list of selected people in positions of authority, among religious community leaders and Council members and officers, to obtain some feedback about the product, prior to publication.

Gwilym Morris of 'The Pollen Shop' has been engaged to take charge of the final conference arrangements, and web publication of findings.

Work continues on the production of the database and printed directory of religious communities.

The Director reported that all the project's financial commitments had been met, within the deadline set by FCCBF.

Friday 28 March 2008

Survey report received

The survey report from Cardiff University's Regeneration Institute was delivered today. This enables the rest of the project report writing to be completed well within the revised time scale. This document includes the results of the Spiritual Capital survey, and the public opinion poll conducted by 'Ask Cardiff' on our behalf.

Saturday 15 March 2008

Drafting in progress

A second revised draft of the survey findings has been received from the University. Prof Ballard, Roy Thomas and Keith Kimber are working at writing and shaping various sections of SC research material, gathered over the past nine months, into a full text for publication.

Tuesday 11 March 2008

Steering Group eighth meeting

The meeting planned for the 4th March was postponed until today, because of the unavailability of the survey data report from the University, promised for 29th February in good time for the planned steering group meeting.

Today's meeting received appraisals of the data received late 4th March, and the first draft of supporting material from the project manager within which the research data will be embedded.
An action plan for the production of the final report by mid-April was agreed.

The project manager reported that two public relations companies had been approached about publishing the final research report - and in addition to undertake the preparation and running of the conference at which the report will be delivered - now proposed for the end of May 2008. These are Peter Gill & Associates of Cardiff, and The Pollen Shop, of Swansea.

This is now being planned to run two months behind the initial schedule for this event, due to the delay in receiving the research data to work on. However, this appears to work in our favour, since local elections are called for early May. In the run-up to elections, it would not be reasonable to expect adequate attention to discussing our findings from candidates or local government officers.

Gweini survey report launched

At a lunchtime meeting in the Millennium Centre today, before an audience of church leaders AMs and government officials, with full media attendance, Gweini made public the findings of its two year research project.

The report estimates that the value of social capital contributed in voluntary public service by religious communities in Wales is £102 million, and in the Capital city, approx £10 million.

Gweini's findings can be found here

The Western Mail's digest of the report can be found here

THese findings provide an important context for the reporting of the Spiritual Capital survey.