Present: Amir Ahmed, Naseem Bint Ahmed, Mike Gettleson, David Routledge, Fiona Gibbs, Duncan Struthers, Alison Fothergill

Invited Guest: Angela Flux from Healthy Hillingdon – stayed for part of the meeting.

Apologies: Elizabeth Kemp, Harjinder Singh, Anil Mitra, Rabbi Hillel, Tunde Balogun, Chris Yates

1.Forthcoming Events

30th Oct 10am – 2pm Discussion about facilities and activities for older people who live in the north of the borough. Venue: Haste Hill Golf Club, The Drive, Northwood. A light lunch will be provided. Confirm attendance with Healthy Hillingdon.

13th Nov. 1:30pm – 2:30pm Review of the Week of Peace. Should HIFN take the lead next year? Fiona to confirm venue.

27th Nov. Child Poverty Event in Birmingham. David attending.

2.Streets Ahead

Credit Crunch Brunch confirmed. It will be held at the Hayes Muslim Centre, 3 Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 3NB at 10am – 12noon. The event will include a drop-in for advice and support with benefits, housing and finance issues. Amir and David to liaise with regard to the food for the event.

3.Audit Update

HIFN Exec have been searching for a suitable website to manage the information from the data collection audit. Up to this point, HIFN have looked at websites used by other faiths and web database tools such as Joomla to use for their site, but have not found anything to meet their needs. Professional web designers from BT and Reuters have been approached, but they require complex technical infrastructure to support their designs.

Barnet Council’s Voluntary Youth Service has had a website, Faithbook, developed for them. ( This website seems to meet the requirements of the system that HIFN require. In addition to the website, the council have produced a glossy booklet detailing all of the information that can be found on the site.

Two approaches have been made to an IT university graduate and an organisation to quote for the work to develop a Faithbook style system for HIFN. The IT university graduate, who is based in Nottingham, works in IT management, but wants to enhance his website skills. The organisation is the one which developed the Faithbook website. The latter has provided a quote for £1700 to:

  • Complete the design and development of the system.
  • Register the domain name and host the website for 2 years.
  • 1 year’s annual maintenance.

The second quote from the Nottingham based graduate has yet to be received.

After extensive discussions, the Exec agreed that they should move forward with the organisation rather than the IT graduate. This decision was based on the fact that that the organisation had a proven track record ie they had already built Faithbook, and seem to be able to manage the whole development process. Duncan to arrange a meeting with them and to take two other members of the executive with him in addition to Alison.

Points to consider in relation to the design:

  • The data must be owned by HIFN.
  • Each screen containing faith information should be printable in a format that can have holes punched at the side and be added to a file binder.

Once the website has been developed, the Exec want to produce a Faithbook style book for HIFN. Need to confirm that the book is not copyrighted. David to confirm.

Exec agreed that the faith groups should be provided with a deadline of the 1st December to return information by for the data audit. Alison to manage.

4.World Aids Day

Angela Flux from Healthy Hillingdon discussed ideas about how to provide faith leaders in Hillingdon with more information about HIV.

Exec agreed that a Faith Breakfast would be held on World Aids Day, 1st Dec at 8am to 10am – possible venue Christ Church. David to confirm. Discussions would include: basic awareness of HIV training for leaders, breaking social taboos, and what are the barriers of talking about HIV with the community?

5.Week of Faith

A number of events for this week have been arranged. The list of events will be distributed early next week.

At events during this week, Healthy Hillingdon will provide HIFN with boxes of red ribbons. Duncan to liaise with Angela Flux.

Ruislip and District Affiliated Synagogue will be organising an event. Mike will confirm the details by the 23rd October.

Hayes Muslim Centre will organise an open day including an exhibition, talks, drop-in on Thursday, 19th Nov between 2pm – 5pm.

Duncan and David to contact the Quba Islamic Centre, Golden Crescent, Hayes and the Hindu Centre, Cowley Mill Road, Uxbridge respectively to ask if they are making any special arrangements

Date of next HIFN Exec meeting: 26th November 2009 at 12 noon to 2pm at the Hayes Muslim Centre, 3 Pump Lane, Hayes – event follows Credit Crunch Brunch.

Meeting held: 22nd October 2009 Page: 1 of 3