Database compilation completed

Work on compiling and checking the faith-groups database for the Borough of Cardiff is now complete. This represents 195 religious community groups and 17 administrative organisations, which have been identified due to information about them published on the Web.

The number of websites relating to religious communities in Cardiff Borough seems to have increased in the year during which the research has taken place. This may be partly due to the availability of new on-line publishing tools, but also due to improved placement of existing sites, making some sites more readily findable. It is noticeable that some commercially sponsored specialised information providing websites do not provide up to date information. This can lead to misleading searches and requires additional error checking.

Independent error checking of the information gathered into the Spiritual Capital database will be essential before its web publication next month.

Report ready to go

Following corrections, the full report is now ready for printing and private circulation, before public launch. It's proving difficult to acquire a suitable venue for the conference and document launch on our preferred dates - 4th or 5th June.

Project funding all accounted for

Acknowledgement was received today from the Community Development Foundation of receipt of the final project reports and financial statements required by their management process, submitted at the end of last month.

Tenth Steering Group meeting

The draft of the report, commentary and selection case studies to accompany the University and 'Ask Cardiff' research reports is now complete, following further work to re-organise some of the content, proposed by Professor Ballard. It was received by the Steering Group for a period of detailed corrections and amendments.

Work on the accompanying database is half complete, and its final format for web publication is under discussion with Gwilym Morris of Pollenshop.

Copies of the draft report will now be circulated to a list of a dozen people for evaluation, and hopefully for endorsing comments for use in the publication process. Archbishop Barry Morgan has agreed to be its first reader person outside the project, also Paul Orders of the City Council's Policy Unit.

The Steering Group has agreed to the publication of up to fifty copies of the full report, and a print run of at least two hundred and fifty copies of an eight page digest of the report and its recommendations. If it is possible to find funding for a Welsh translation of the digest, this will be produced bi-lingually. However, the project costings at the outset failed to factor in the need for translation, which could be of the order of £1,000.

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.

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.

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.