A. No, this is an attempt to stimulate thinking so that all segments of the Canadian Muslim community can collectively give serious thought and make progress towards:
Visioning and strategic thinking;
Clarifying the paradigms which determine our community behaviour;
Explicitly defining a common destination; and
Identifying the long-term objectives shared by various segments of the community.
It is hoped that this exercise will help various segments of the community align their action plans, projects and programs with the common shared vision, thus promoting collaboration and increasing synergy.
A. They all have been well-intentioned and useful attempts. This exercise is taking those wishes of the community one step further in three ways:
This symposium will focus on the visions, paradigms and objectives that drive the Muslim organizations instead of specific projects and activities.
This symposium will be geared toward proactively defining where our community should be in a certain number of years.
This symposium seeks to bring the vision of the thinking minds and the leadership skills of the leaders of the community together to collaborate in designing the future of the community as a whole.
A. Their speeches in conferences are designed to inspire common audience about a certain theme. In this symposium they will be sharing their objectives, paradigms and vision explicitly, instead of being implied by the context of their talks. They will be spelling out how and what the community should be like in 10, 20, 30 years.
A. CIPS is a think-tank and as such its role is helping the community develop its long term vision, objectives, and strategies.
A. Every established organization in Canada has its friends and foes. Certain segments of the community refuse to be a part of any exercise if an organization they do not like is involved. CIPS is a broad-based community institute which is independent and not aligned with or influenced by any individual organization. It sees itself as belonging to the whole Muslim community - every segment of it. We have presented the idea of this symposium to major Islamic organizations, leaders and young Muslim activists. The response has been very positive, enthusiastic and supportive. There is a strong feeling for the need of this kind of exercise and willingness to participate. We hope that there will be widespread participation from all segments of the Muslim community in Canada (not only GTA).
A. The Muslims organizations are requested to:
Send their leadership/key representatives to attend the symposium through out the full duration of the symposium;
Take the key points highlighted in the symposium back to their boards/membership and deliberate on them in their board/community meetings; and
Provide feedback and suggest what CIPS should do as the next steps in community goal setting process.
A. For many reasons such as:
Effective entities always keep re-evaluating their mandate, programs and approach to become more effective and successful; they continue to ask themselves: Are we doing the right things; are we doing them the right way; are we doing them effectively; are we getting the results we should? This is a collective exercise to do so.
This is an opportunity to learn from experiences of the communities in other countries where Muslims are a minority.
This is an opportunity to expand horizons from day-to-day or short term to long-term and from personal wisdom to collective wisdom.
This is an exercise in learning by sharing.
A. May Allaah bless you for thinking strategically. That is what we need to do collectively as well. Your participation may help and encourage others to do the same. In addition, you may pick up valuable ideas to further improve on what you already have, or determine how your organization's vision advances a certain need of the community
A. The project so far is being financed solely by the donations from the board of directors of CIPS. We will naturally be seeking donations from individual Muslims who are enthusiastic about this project. We also hope that all Canadian Muslim organizations participating and supporting this project will sponsor the symposium.
A. CIPS feels that this is an internal soul-searching and paradigm clarifying exercise for the Muslims and deserves a focused, concerted, and undisrupted attention from all participants. Making it public may attract some elements that may be disruptive to its proceedings or may sidetrack the discussion of this short two-day symposium thereby wasting the valuable time of all participants.
A. Please visit the volunteers tab at www.c-ips.com to identify which committee you would like to work on and/or send an email to info@c-ips.ca.
Back to Vision Project main page.
Contacting presenters and seeking their commitment
Explaining / discussing what is required of them and working with them in preparation of presentation
Collecting and distributing their papers
Developing agenda, program flow and time schedules for the two days of symposium
Conducting program and preparing closing presentation
Arranging publication of proceedings
Identifying / reserving appropriate facility
Arranging audio/visual aids -- sound system, presentation equipments, on-site recording, etc
On-site registration, badges and security
Arranging hotelling, transportation and security of guest speakers
Arranging accommodations of out-of town participants
Food/coffee arrangements during program
Contacting potential participants and encouraging registration
Promoting to all Muslim activists, and Muslims organizations, getting them excited about it
Performing formal registration
Seeking sponsors and supporters
Keeping people informed of the progress of the project
maintaining mailing and contact lists of potential, interested, supporters, sponsors etc.
Disseminating results to the contacts
Raising funds
Preparing budget
Collecting money
Keeping records and accounting
Preparing periodic reports and financial statements
Back to Vision Project main page.