Just now Iqbal, Izzuan, Bro Umar and I have a meeting with John Spencer, the guy who is responsible for club booking for the University of Canterbury Student Association's (UCSA) facilities. The main issue was to have a permanent booking of a space in the bulding on Friday Prayer and also Solat Tarawih in Ramadhan which is approximately starting from September 12. This is a temporary solution, as a plan of building a proper prayer room will be going to take place in 4 years time.
UCSA Building, 90 Ilam Rd
Alhamdulillah the meeting went smoothly. John is a very helpful and also considerable person. His experience was as much as his age, as he started working there in the early 70's. From our discussion, we managed to resolve the Fiday Prayer matter, as there are not many clubs having meeting on that day. The space booked is inshaa Allah adequate to accommodate hundreds of people. We all agreed upon that without having any problem.
The Entrance
The other thing that needed us to think more was regarding the Solat Tarawih. John told us that there are some policies and restrictions imposed on the usage of any space in the UCSA building. The usage of the space is dependent on the request of other clubs as well. They have allowed the number of club meeting to increase from once to twice a week. That means, the maximum number we can use the space is just twice a week. Plus, there is no outside food is allowed to be brought into the buliding. This is the City Council Policy. If they find out, they will close the whole building. Then how are we going to break fast there? Sounds scary aye..
Upstairs Map
In addition, the UCSA building is too close to Bently Bar and Foundry, in which most of the students drink beer and alcohol there. They are really crazy when they got drunk. I cannot imagine what they will do when seeing the Muslim students walking over the area to attend the night prayer. I'll be responsible if anything bad happens to any of us later.
We tried to find other solution, and one of them is to ask for permission to use the English Learning Centre (the one that we are using now) just for night prayer in Ramadhan. We noticed that no one is using the rooms at night. I really hope that we can get to use them back, as it will eliminate all the possible problems using the UCSA building at night.
Please make du'a so that Allah will make it easy for us....
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