Published on May 12 2006 

MKA Southwest Region BBQ hosted by Devon & Cornwall Qiadat By Bilal Bhatti, Devon & Cornwall Qaid

Overcast Start

It was an overcast morning in Cornwall on Saturday 13^th May 2006 . Since our plans for the day were based on outdoor ventures, the quality of the weather was paramount for the success of the day. We were hoping and praying for good weather.

Everyone met in the Morrisons Car Park in Newquay. At this point we thought it best to shop for supplies for the day before the guests arrived. After a quick shop, our guests from the region made up mostly of Khuddam began to arrive. By the amazing grace of Allah, the weather suddenly became clear, warm and sunny as soon as our guests arrived. We invited them inside Morrisons for some Tea and quick rest after their long drive. I used this opportunity to explain our plans for the day to the excited Khuddam and Ansar, which was to include a tour a Newquay, Laser Combat and a beach barbeque.

The first item on our agenda was the tour of Newquay. The purpose of this tour was to show our guests the natural beauty in Cornwall and the Newquay Growth Area, which is the proposed site for our Mosque - the first Mosque in Cornwall . On the way, we stopped at a beach to take some photos before continuing the tour. Trying to keep six cars together is quite a task, especially when driving through windy country lanes. As you can imagine, we lost half our procession on the way but by the grace of Allah, after some co-ordination through mobile phones, we managed to find each other and get through the tour safely. This led us to our next item on the agenda - Laser Combat!

Laser Combat

After driving through more narrow, winding country lanes with overgrown hedges, we arrived in a small area of dense woodland where we were directed to park. We were walked down to the Laser Combat arena unsure about exactly what was going to happen. The route to the arena was littered with logs and bits of metal that can only be described as trip wires. There were some guns in a pile on the floor with green and blue helmets attached to them. We chose our guns and were put into the corresponding teams, Blue and Green, I was in the green team. Each player was given 30 lives and had the option of shooting a rapid spurt of between 1 to 6 rounds and taking one life off the victim or firing a grenade and taking two lives. Every game revolved around one team playing defensively and the other attacking. The objective of the first two games was to attack the defender's base and hit a target. Unfortunately, this did not seem to work and both teams were unable to grasp the concept in a way to make the game effective and fun. So we changed the game so that instead of trying to hit a target, the aim was to annihilate the other team by killing all their players. Again, one team was given the attacking role and the other was given the defending role. This seemed to work better. My team managed to win the games by only losing one of their players whilst the Blue team lost two of theirs. After 90 minutes our games were finished and we were pretty tired. After some classic photos and a few snacks, we set off for the beach for the main event - the barbeque.

BBQ

We decided to pitch the barbeque in Crantock Beach near Newquay. I scouted the area with Regional Qaid Sahib to find a nice, quite and relatively private spot to hold the barbeque away from sunbathers. Everyone started unloading in the meantime and brought their things towards the site that had been chosen.

Each Qiadat in the region (i.e. Southwest Region) was assigned things to bring for the barbeque. Bristol Qiadat brought Chicken, Swansea Qiadat brought Keema, Devon and Cornwall Qiadat brought Fish and Cardiff Qiadat had the job of bringing everything else, such as Naan, cups, etc. Whilst a few Khuddam were busy cooking the food, some of us decided to relax and some decided to mingle with the locals and enjoy the scenery. The Cornish people are a very friendly bunch and they were more than happy to let us join in with their games.

Once the food was ready, everyone rushed to get some; the scent of fresh Kebabs, grilled Chicken and Fish filled the air. This was followed by Kheer brought by a Nasir from my Jamaat. There was enough food for everyone to fill their bellies. So, to let this food settle down before our guests were to return home, we offered them some tea. Figuring out how to make tea on the beach perplexed myself and Fareed Sahib (our President), who helped to organise this event. There were suggestions of boiling some water on some coals to make the tea, or borrowing water off a life guard. In the end, we decided to use Thermoses and fill them with boiling water and make individual cups of tea. I was sceptical at first as to whether this would stay hot enough for tea but amazingly it did and we had a nice, hot cup of tea.

End of the day

Our barbeque had ended and all that was left was to offer prayers and go home. By the grace of Allah, our guests seemed really happy at the end of the day and were looking forward to coming down to Cornwall again. It is Allah's special blessing that this event went so well. I want to express my special gratitude to Fareed Sahib who's help was fundamental to the organisation of this event. May Allah bless him for his efforts and may He enable our small Qiadat to grown and organise more events like these, inshallah. Ameen.