I went to the earlier events a few years back and was badly dissapointed by the organisation and content.

The next year I got in touch with the organisers about volunteering at the event and boy was I in for a shock! They couldn’t even adequately (and safely) organise briefings for a few hundered volunteers! I felt that if they couldn’t do that they definately weren’t fit to organise an event and BE TRUSTED with the responsibility of thousands of people. I could actually see why things went badly - and I didn’t want to be responsible for something that could be so wrong.

Training/briefing for the volunteers was poor. In earlier years the volunteers seemed to be there for a free ride (many people just wanted to volunteer with the VIP’s) and the the volunteers who did want to help weren’t equipped to deal with situations that could arise.

Before I get ticked off for critising - when you are involved in organising an event on this scale - it has to be done right or not at all. The potential for something going wrong is immense. I think that its only luck that nothing worse has happened!

I would actually not go back - and actively advise others to not bother (I do not think islamic knowledge gained or peace enhanced by this event). I actually feel its my responsibility to stop people going.

As someone at the MCMexpo commented it is more like a funfair.

The fact that the organisers didn’t consider the implications of a clash with another event makes me cringe.

My advice to all is don’t go and to the organisers do it properly or don’t bother. There are many events organised throughout the Uk which are larger and much more organised - the organisers should employe a professinal events management company!

(ps as a side note when I attended the Islam Channel offices for the briefinh I saw boxes of credit card details (from online donations) lying around without security - any of the volunteers could have grabbed them. They were not moved until I asked staff there to take them away).

All in all less amateaur

The other thing that got me was the mess - I was in the bazaar hall at packing up time and the mountains of rubbish were unbelievable.

All of that said, I do agree Islam Channel do have a tough job, as it’s one thing to say that you cannot please everyone all of the time, but its another trying to please even a fraction of Muslims at any one time.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8222868454007028039&hl=en

wa salaam.

It sounds like the conference was a disaster for global peace and unity. Many of the kids attending the parallel MCM Expo are at a very impressionable age. The harassment and general rudeness exhibited by many Peace and Unity attendees can only have damaged the image of muslims in the eyes of the kids attending the MCM Expo.

I’m not religous nor do I believe in racism. Everyone has their own beliefs and should respect another person’s culture. But I just wanted to respectfully mention that bag searches were not just confined to the colour of a person’s skin.

Thanks for the comment sister Heather. I avoided the nasheed artists generally, as I almost always find them painful to listen to.

I can only comment from the perspective of a TV viewer. I’d assumed from the delay in the TV coverage of the main stage that something had gone wrong with the timing. Not knowing what was happening was frustrating because our kids didn’t want to go to bed until Native Deen and Zain Bhikha had been on.

When it comes to the speakers and performers, I’d prefer the organisers to give precedence to quality over quantity. I understand that for some of the younger people, the chance to see so many nasheed artists is the main motivation for attending the event. However - and I pray Allah forgives me if I’m being too harsh - some of the nasheed artists, especially on the second stage, were painful to listen to. I think it would be better to let the ones who can sing in tune, have a longer slot. I’m on the fence when it comes to the issue of music, but we know that it alienates a lot of the brothers and sisters, so why do this for the sake of including some very superfluous bursts of music?

It’s a similar thing with the speakers. It’s a real shame Sheikh Haytham wasn’t given longer to speak about Islamic finance, especially as it’s so topical. On Sunday I’d been looking forward to listening to more of the scholars speak, but again we had the delay in broadcasting. We gave up on the GPU at some point late in the early evening when they started broadcasting the artists on the second stage performing the same nasheeds they’d performed on Saturday. It’s not clear from the Islam Channel website if and when it will be possible to catch up on the things we missed.

I hope that the organisers of the GPU aren’t too disheartened by negative feedback (including my own), because these events take years of hard work and critical evaluation to get right.

Haha…