Diyanet Edmonton Religious Society established to oversee fundraising for TCS Mosque

Building a $1.5 million Mosque is no easy task and TCS Board of Directors need all the help they can get to raise the necessary funds first and later to run the Mosque successfully.

In an attempt to set up an independent and transparent Mosque fundraising and administration process members from the Turkish Canadian community met in May and came up with the tentative name of "Diyanet Edmonton Religious Society".

A separate non-profit organization will be established. Serkan Sahin is elected as its founding President, along with Tugba Pastutmaz as Treasurer, and Selma Topal Ersoy as Secretary. Adnan Ozturk, and Nesrin Dundar will be the other Board Members for this newly established Society. Diyanet representative (currently our imam Mustafa Kuyuk) will also serve in the Board. DERS will take the necessary steps to apply for charitable status through the CRA as soon as possible.

The DERS team will take over the Ramadan event planning for 2018 and will kick off the official fundraising activities for the Mosque this summer.

TCS Mosque now has a Development Permit And a New Address

We reached a major milestone for the TCS Mosque Project on April 19. Our Development Permit Application has been officially approved by the City of Edmonton.

We now have an address for the planned mosque officially, which will be 15460 105 Ave. NW.

We thank planner, Samantha Buccino and all the other City of Edmonton staff who reviewed the traffic, fire safety, landscaping etc. plans and given us the green light for building this mosque in a mature neighbourhood.

Our work is not done yet. Our development permit has a few conditions we have to meet before we can submit the building permit application. Our project team will be working hard in the next few months to pass those remaining hurdles. Also, the plans submitted at the Development Permit stage are just the beginning. Our Project Consultant Suat Demirer will have to work with our volunteer engineers and hired architectural firm to complete many many pages of electrical, structural, mechanical, and architectural projects in the coming months.

TCS Presents Mosque Project during Canora Community League AGM

On March 18, TCS Treasurer and External Relations Coordinator Sim Senol attended the Canora Community League's Annual General Meeting to present our plans for our mosque project to the community league members.

Our plans were met with great enthusiasm by the community members as a way to revitalize the community. Councillor Andrew Knack was also in attendance and shared his support for our project shortly after the event. We thank him for his continuous support for our project.

It should be noted that there are efforts for many other volunteers that help move our project forward. For this presentation our resident baklava expert in Edmonton, Ercan Kaya, made his wonderful delicacies to share with the Canora Community League members. Needless to say, they were a culinary hit!

This presentation was made as a part of our community engagement plan. We will continue to reach out to the community members to seek their feedback for our project. We hope that this website will also serve as a venue for all interested parties to share their comments with us.

Small Fundraising and Promotional Tour for TCS Mosque at Pakistani Association Event

We continued our efforts to promote our Mosque Project with a small fundraising activity thanks to the Pakistani Canadian Assocation of Edmonton's Women's Day Event.

On March 11, 2018 TCS External Relations Coordinator Sim Senol was joined by our President Ahmet Topal and his generous wife Sevgi Topal at the PCAE Hall.

Sevgi donated hand made scarves and shawls and Sinem made some home made Turkish food to sell at the event. Though the funds raised were just a drop in the bucket for this $1.5 million project, we were still able to make great connections within the Edmonton Muslim community.

Development Permit Application Submitted!

 After receiving feedback and direction from the CoE Planning team, TCS Project Consultant Suat Demirer went to work and finalized the drawings for the TCS Mosque with our architecture firm, Camred Architects, Inc. They have finally completed all the necessary plans required for the development permit in early March. On March 9 2018 our President Ahmet Topal, Vice-President and Project Consultant Suat Demirer, and Treasurer Sim Senol submitted the development permit application to the City of Edmonton.

Now the waiting begins.... We should hear back from the City in a month or so about whether we have formal approval to build our religious assembly building in this mature neighbourhood.

Parallel with the development permit application we are also launching our community engagement plan to present our project to the Canora Community Members, so that we can get their feedback and support.

TurCanora Phase I - Project Presentation meetings held this week

The plans and documentation for our development permit application are ready, so we are taking them on a tour!Turkish Canadian Society Board Members were busy making presentations about our TurCanora Phase I - Mosque Project this week as a part of our community engagement plan.

On Tuesday, February 27th we first presented the finalized conceptual designs and site plan to the Turkish Canadian community.
On February 28th, several community members that live in close proximity to our Cultural Centre joined us for a project presentation at the TCS Gym. Our Treasurer and External Relations Coordinator Sim Senol gave a brief presentation about the Society's plans and the projected timeline of the project.

A similar presentation was made after the Friday Prayer service by Project Consultant Suat Demirer.

Overall the community has been very supportive of the project. No objections were raised. Through these presentations we have informed the community members that we'd be using the www.turcanora.ca website for project updates and for collecting feedback.

Camred Architecture Inc. Selected as Project Partner

After reaching out to several architecture firms and receiving quotes from 4 companies TCS Mosque Project Development and Construction Committee (Ahmet Topal, Suat Demirer, and Sedat Çıplak) selected Camred Architecture Inc., as the design company for our project.

Camred agreed to work with our volunteer designer Suat Demirer as a project consultant. Mr. Demirer continued to do all the CAD drawings of the project as a volunteer.

With the addition of Camred to the project team, project started moving faster towards formal Development Permit application.