Fourth Steering group meeting

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The Steering Group met tonight and received progress reports from Roy Thomas and Rebecca Edwards on survey preparation. First thoughts about the conference next March were aired, also publicising the enquiry through the media. Mohammed Jabbar gave a useful overview in a brief paper for the group on Muslim Community life in Cardiff, to be found here.

Meeting minutes here

Second Steering Group meeting

At this meeting we were able to consider overall planning of the research, how it should be approached. We approved an overall timetable that begins with the formal appointment of team from 1st July, to spend two months preparing, then three months intensive fieldwork, including mailed surveys and select in-depth interviews. The use of case studies on religious communities in their relationships with local government was considered to be worthwhile, and members were invited to submit possible themes or stories for working on.

We also looked again at possibilities of appointing additional members, since our first attempt at bringing in people with direct personal experience of other faith community life in Cardiff was unfruitful. Roy proposed inviting two people he knew. Dr Keshav Singhal is a surgeon and a leading member of Cardiff's Hindu Temple. Mr Muhammad Jabbar is a Customs Officer, of Bengali descent, raised in the UK, who belongs to the Crwys Bridge Mosque.

Our next meeting is with the research workers.

Meeting minutes here

First Steering Group meeting

First proper meeting of project Steering Group tonight.

We adopted our terms of reference and a broad action plan.

Roy reported on his negotiations with the University Sociology Department's Regeneration Institute research team. This was the body commissioned to undertake a piece of social and economic research about aspects of life Cardiff in its centenary year as a city, published it as a souvenir contribution to the celebrations. Surprisingly or not, there was no chapter in the book on the contribution of religious communities to the life of the city. It was not part of the briefing the team received.

It seems there is a post-graduate researcher who would be interested in taking on our project, under the supervision of one of the senior staff. It remains to interview them both, and draw up a contract.

The next task is to produce a web-page containing a general description of our project and all involved in it, plus relevant contact details.

Meeting minutes here