Chair's review of 2009

..as presented to the AGM on 9/12/09:
Another busy year for all our hardworking members, with the usual big events and a few others. Our biggest annual fundraising events, the book fairs and the One World Fair, were great successes as usual.

The Book Fairs were slightly revamped this year with new signs and a vast selection of high quality books, many of them new; between them the two fairs brought in a really impressive profit of £4,801, £2608.13 to go to Oxfam's education project in Zambia. A really warm thank you to Helen, Rachel and the very dedicated book- pricing and sorting and carrying crew!

Last month the One World Fair welcomed over 1,500 people to the Town Hall and brought in over £1,200 for Oxfam - mainly from the lovely veggie cafe, so a big thank you to the committee and all the hardworking helpers: cooks, dishwashers, carriers, and various on the day helpers, as well as to the Jazz band. The One World Fair is also an opportunity for us to hold our own stall, and this year we were able to get a number of people on board with our climate change campaign.

Still on the fundraising side, some of our members laced up their walking boots and hit the countryside for OOG: there was a walk in Wells, and one in Port Meadow - on a lovely day in May - only a few dedicated members walked that day but they did really well on the sponsorship. So well done all organisers and walkers! Still on the fundraising side, we had our annual carol singing once again this year, helping get us all into the festive spirit, and held a number of street collections - other members also did their own individual fundraising.

But of course we don't just do fundraising, we also try to get the word out on Oxfam's work and major campaigns, and in May we had a speaker event, where we heard Farhana Hafiz, Gender Officer and Change Maker in Bangladesh for Oxfam's We Can campaign, which aims to tackle problems of violence against women in South Asia. Some of the statistics she gave us were staggering, but it was also wonderful to hear how movements like this can grow and grow and engage people of both genders, and start to bring about visible change in local communities.

Other activities, particularly later this year, were linked to Oxfam's crucial climate change campaign in the lead up to the Copenhagen summit now taking place. Our members took place in the Wave, the big climate change demo in London last week; they also lobbied MPs in November, as part of the Stand Up Speak Out event, raising issues around climate change and the funding of the Millenium Development Goals. We also worked with the Bond coalition, campaiging on the same issues.

Join the candlelit climate vigil Friday 11/12/09 at 5.30pm on Cornmarket St

This Friday a vigil will be held on Oxford's Cornmarket Street at 5.30pm on Friday 11 December 2009.
And you are all invited.





All you need to do to be part of it is to:

• Leave work on time (hurrah!)
• Head to Cornmarket St (outside St. Michael's)
• Join a friendly group of people lighting candles, listening to testimonies from around the world, and sending a message to the heart of negotiations (through tck tck tck coalition members, who called for the vigils to take place).
  

Bring a candle or two if you have them, but we'll bring spares. Wear your fave hat /coat /scarf. Should be a nice event and I hope many of you can join us. The event is being organised by a group of volunteers, in support of tck tck tck, mainly from Oxford's Network for Justice Peace and local Greenpeace group.

One World Fair

Sorry to take a while to post this!

This year's One World Fair was, as always, a fantastic collaborative effort from the group, making us a stack of cash for Oxfam (I think about £1,200 but Tim is still counting up!). more importantly, we got about 1,500 people through the doors, to engage with issues of development and climate change, and provided a forum for local groups to be together and set out their wares.

And we got in the Oxford Mail!

Here is a selection of pictures taken by me on the day - if anyone else has some, please do share (as mine are really very poor quality indeed!).

Sign up for the OOG newsletter

OOG members get a monthly(ish) email newsletter, plus emergency emails if we need to organize an event quickly (e.g. fundraising after a disaster). If you'd like to get these emails too, I have made a form on which you can join our mailing list:
http://oxfordoxfamgroup.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=ce341a03826575128638de056&id=3ff555e53c

Oxfordshire Big Climate Event

There's a "Big Climate Event" coming up on Saturday 7 November. It aims to bring together groups and organisations from around Oxfordshire to share their experiences, and to give practical help and advice about some of the more innovative projects and cutting edge ways of tackling climate change on the ground.

Details at http://www.cagoxfordshire.org.uk/big-climate-event

One World Fair 2009 is nearly here!

Saturday 21 November, 10am - 4pm, Oxford Town Hall

The One World Fair is one of OOG's most important events, bringing together most of Oxford’s fairtrade, environmental and human rights organisations. Last year over 1,500 people came to the Fair. We will be calling members to ask for help. Please help if you can, by:

• volunteering on the day, such as running the cafe (we will be contacting members anyway)
• making food, including our special soup!
• advertising the Fair - you should recently have been sent a poster.
  

Contact me for more details.

Let's brave The Wave!

Most of you have by now heard about The Wave, the big climate change demo in London on December 5th (link goes to Oxfam's Wave pages, or visit the extremely cool SCC Wave website here). It would be great if loads of OOG members could be part of The Wave, and I wonder whether we can arrange to go up to London together as a group? Please reply to this post if you're up for that.

Below is a message from Mim Saxl, volunteer city organiser for Oxford, working with the Stop Climate Chaos coalition. I have her contact details if you want to be added directly to her mailing list. I also thought I'd share this fine piece of video made by Oxfam colleagues in Manchester, promoting The Wave. Please feel free to share it on your social networks.



Dear contact,
This is a quick update concerning Oxford preparation for The Wave on the 5th of December 2009.
Covered in this email:
1) New website
2) Travel update
3) Preparation at Grove House – BOOK NOW
4) Need flyers?
5) IMPORTANT: Numbers


1) New Website: The Wave has an exciting new website: http://the-wave.org.uk/
You and your supporters can really help spread the word about The Wave by uploading your Mexican wave video clips now onto the website.
So, please:
- Link to it in newsletters and e-mails to members
- Host The Wave banner advert on your website's homepage: http://dev.torchbox.com/wes/scc/scc-banner-200x250.html (If you can use the banner ad on your website's homepage, please let our webby Tom know: tom@stopclimatechaos.org, and we'll help you get it onto your website)
- Add the banner ad or web link to your facebook page
- Tweet about it, and retweet our #thewave tweets
- And include the link anywhere else you can think of!


2) Transport: Unfortunately the Megabus deal available from other cities is not available from Oxford, so, this currently leaves 3 transport options:

- The Co-operative has sponsored special buses for the day, which will be leaving from Beaumont Street, opposite the Ashmolean Museum, OX1 2PH, at 08:30am on the day, and returning that evening. Tickets are £5 return, and can be booked from:

http://www.co-operative.coop/ethicsinaction/takeaction/thewave/book-transport-for-The-Wave/#book

To book, you need to be a Co-op member or Oxfam supporter (if you’re not a Co-op member, you can join online for £1). Co-op members can add their membership number and Oxfam supporters can add their Oxfam supporter code (disseminated through their communication channels). 1 member/supporter can book up to 5 other tickets.

- Oxfordshire Climate Alliance / Oxford Stop Climate Chaos has also booked coaches, and tickets for these will be £10/£8 return – still cheaper than the usual buses available. These coaches will leave central Oxford at 10am on the 5th, and return that evening. Tickets and further details are available from the website: http://web.bethere.co.uk/OSCC/ , which is soon to be updated. Note: these coaches will not be arriving in London in time for the 11am service, so please book a place on a Co-op coach if you wish to be there in time for that.

- There third option is that you hop on your bike: There is a team of people cycling, passing by Didcot Power Station on the 3.12.2009. For more info, see http://climatechains.blogspot.com/2009/09/second-wheels-to-wave-route-planned.html


3) Preparation at Grove House – BOOK NOW
Grove House on Iffley Turn is hosting a special banner making day in preparation for The Wave, where you can go and hang out with other Oxford folk and get creative:

‘Join us on Saturday 28th November to make banners & outfits (the theme is blue) and get collectively inspired for the WAVE climate change march in London the following Saturday. If you want to, arrive at 11am for screening of material from the Be the Change symposium. We'll provide hot soup at lunchtime, and tea. Please bring your own banner-making materials and anything else you might like to eat or drink. The Rotunda will be open until about 5pm. To let us know you are coming and help us cover costs, please book a £2 place on the website: www.grovehouse.info


4) Need flyers?
A good number of flyers for The Wave have arrived in Oxford at The Old Music Hall. It would be great if you could email me if you need flyers for any events, and I can pop some in the post or drop them off.


5) IMPORTANT: Numbers
I have been asked by SCC head office to get a good idea of numbers of people coming from Oxford on the day. This is obviously a difficult thing to get right, but for those of you from local groups, I would be hugely grateful if you could let me know a rough estimate of how many people you expect to be coming that you know of from your group. To help, maybe think in terms of 1-10 people; 10-50; 50-100; 100-200 etc, and just drop me a line.
Basically, we’re trying to hit a target of getting 1000 from Oxford along on the day, so this will just help us get an idea of where we are at!


That’s all for now. Grateful if you could send news to me of any up-coming events at which we can publicise The Wave, and as ever, really grateful if you can tell everyone you know about it!
If you are on this email list in error, please drop me a line, and I’ll remove you.

Thanks!
Mim

Hurrah for this sort of thing!

There's been a flurry of activity this last couple of weeks, with a busy period likely also in the run-up to Christmas. Many thanks to everyone who has helped out in any way.

First, the weekend's Book Fair raised a fantastic £2,650 for Oxfam's work. Over 560 people came through the door, many of them finding out about the event by seeing someone carrying a placard in the street (I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's clearly vital. Actually, I rather like doing it!). Thanks to everyone who helped, and especially Helen, who put such a huge amount of work in in the run-up to the event as well as on the day. She is planning a well-deserved break from being Book Fair Supremo, and won't be organising the next one, so if you can volunteer to lead (or just take part in) the organising team, that would be great. It isn't an admin-heavy activity, but we do need someone to keep a track on things, especially the regular pricing.

The previous weekend's Stand Up and Speak Out events were also a great success. OOG members took part in the lobbies of Andrew Smith MP and prospective parliamentary candidate Steve Goddard in East Oxford, and Evan Harris MP in the Town Hall. We raised the issues of climate change and funding the Millennium Development Goals, and the reactions of all three were generally positive.

Saturday 17th saw us out in Cornmarket Street, campaigning with other members of the BOND coalition and making a public call to action on these issues. At noon a big crowd assembled, made lots of noise, waved placards, and even sung songs! A big thank you to our friends at Christain Aid for doing lots of the organising, and also to Maranda from CCOW (Christian Concern for One World), who played a huge role in making Stand Up happen across Oxfordshire. Increasingly, OOG's campaigning work (like Oxfam's nationally) is happening in coalition, which brings us huge benefits in terms of reach and resources. There are a number of local coalitions now, including fair trade, and climate change groups, both of which have had strong OOG involvement. If you are interested in finding out more about this, please get in touch.

Lastly, I thought you'd like to see one of the increasingly famous Oxfam polar bears strutting its stuff in Oxford, carrying the message "humans need saving too"!

Book Fair tomorrow!

Yes, it's time once more for the regular Book Fair. Thanks to all who have offered to help, but if you'd like to turn up and browse on the day, please do! And people tohold placards and walk up and down Cornmarket Street are always welcome....

OOG Book Fair, Saturday 24 October, 9.30am - 4.30 pm, Wesley Memorial Church Hall, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford.

Stand up and Speak Out against poverty

Stand Up event in Cornmarket this Saturday

This weekend, as part of the BOND coalition, Oxfam supporters around the country will be standing up against poverty! This in turn is part of a moment around the world, when millions of people will simultaneously stand up to symbolise their support for our call for a world without degrading, man-made and totally avoidable poverty.

In Oxford, we will be part of this global moment! Come to St Michael's of Northgate on Cornmarket Street just before noon, when we, together with campaigners from the local Christain Aid group and others, will film ourselves taking part. We are calling on world leaders to meet their promises on the Millennium Development Goals to end poverty, and to take action on climate change which will affect the world's poorest people the worst. We are running a stall from 10 until 2, so if you can help at any point in the day, please get in touch, or just show up! We also want to publicise The Wave, a massive national demo in London on December 5th, in advance of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. You can arrange your transport to The Wave via Oxfam if you like.

Oh, if it's an added incentive, we will have polar bears campaigning with us.

The Great Persuasion, this Friday

The Stand Up event is hard on the heels of The Great Persuasion, a co-ordinated lobby of MPs and Prospective Parliamentary candidaites across the UK. In Oxford, we are lobbying in both constituencies this Friday afternoon, 16th October. Thanks to all OOG members who have offered to take part - we now have a good crowd involved in each. If you want to add your voice to the mix, get in touch! We will be calling for the candidates' commitments on the same issues that the Stand Up event is raising: the BOND Manifesto sets these out.

Clearly, whoever is in power after the next General Election (which has to happen by June 2010), they need to ensure that the UK has progressive policies which tackle poverty effectively.

Typhoon and earthquake in East Asia

Oxfam is already delivering Aid to Padang, Indonsia following the earthquake and typhoon last week. More information here
There will be a DEC appeal for funds.

Donations can be made by ringing 0370 60 60 900 or on the DEC website

The DEC consists of: Action Aid, British Red Cross, CAFOD, CARE International UK, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, Help the Aged, Islamic Relief, Merlin, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund, World Vision.

More on this: East Asia Disaster Appeal

Age of Stupid - global premiere and screenings in Oxford

The Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong's film on Climate Change, was released in the UK back in March - but the huge global premiere is taking place today and tomorrow.

On September 21st / 22nd, on the eve of the UN General Assembly's climate session, The Age of Stupid will be launched internationally at the biggest and greenest live film event the world has ever seen. A-list celebrities will walk the green carpet to a solar powered cinema tent in downtown New York, linked by satellite to 700 cinemas in 50+ countries. As the website puts it, "For one night only, Stupid will screen in every corner of the globe, from beachside screens made from old sails in pacific islands and rooftops in the middle east to uber glitzy green carpets in Paris and Amsterdam."

Following the screening of The Age of Stupid, there will be a further 40 minute event featuring Kofi Annan, Gillian Anderson, Mary Robinson, the film's director Franny Armstrong, the star of the film Pete Postlethwaite and other leading thinkers, celebrities and political figures from around the world. There will be live music from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and satellite links to scientists working in the Indonesian Rainforest and at the melting glaciers in the Himalayas. A group of children will speak from the very room in Copenhagen in which all our futures will be decided at the UN climate summit in December.

It won't be showing in Oxford tonight, but there will be two more screenings in October if you haven't had a chance to see it yet:

Friday 16 October
7.30 p.m. at West Oxford Primary School, Ferry Hinksey Road,
with an introduction and talk by Mark Lynas,
Climate Change Supervisor for the film and author of ‘Six Degrees’.
Showing organised by Michael Soth as part of ‘Thriving Sustainably’ – an inspiring and visionary community event taking place in West Oxford Community Centre the day after,
Saturday, October 17th from 9.30am – 7pm.
For more info visit: www.thrivingsustainably.org.uk

Thursday 29 October
8 p.m. at West Oxford Community Centre, Botley Road,
with an introduction and post-film discussion led by
Tim Nicholson, local environmentalist and campaigner.
Find out what local residents are doing to tackle climate change and get inspired or join in.
Event organised by Low Carbon West Oxford.

Both venues are only a few minutes’ walk from Oxford railway station.
No tickets, just turn up!

Further info and actions:

Check out the film's website, which is packed with information on the film, climate change, sxcreenings and other events.

And check out not stupid, the action campaign linked to the film. There are actions you can take, information on the Copenhagen negotiations in December.

Oxford "City Mobiliser" needed

Stop Climate Chaos are looking for volunteer mobilisers in four cities around the UK, one of which is Oxford. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please pass this on.

SCC says:

City Mobiliser Internships
http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/city-mobiliser-internship

Help build The Wave, the UK's biggest ever demonstration on climate change!

Do you live in Brighton, Exmouth, Norwich, or Oxford?
Do you know your local climate campaign scene?
Are you happy talking to people, organising meetings, publicising events, networking with a range of local organisations?
Then we want to hear from you!

On Saturday 5 December 2009, ahead of the crucial UN climate summit in Copenhagen, tens of thousands of people from all walks of life will flow through the streets of London to demonstrate their support for a safe climate future for all.

This is a chance to work in your local area, towards a national event, putting pressure on the international process. We're looking for volunteers who can commit at least 1 day a week from October to December.

To apply:
Read the complete job description and download the application form:

http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/city-mobiliser-internship

Deadline: 5pm, Wednesday 16th September 2009.

If you’d like to discuss the role, please telephone 0207 324 4622 and ask to speak to Lucy, or email jobs@stopclimatechaos.org

Climate change campaigning - planning meeting on 3 September

Message passed on from Maranda St John Nicolle of CCOW - apologies for the short notice!

On 3 September, there will be a meeting sponsored by Oxfordshire Climate Alliance, to look at how people and groups with an interest in climate change can campaign in the run-up to the Copenhagen talks this year. The meeting will be from 7:30 to about 9:15 pm, in the Oxford Town Hall.

There will be a large number of groups coming (over 30 at last count) including sustainable town groups, churches, student groups, charities, and others. Lucy Pearce, from Stop Climate Chaos, will be joining us to talk about the march in London on December 5th, and Ben Margolis from tcktcktck (and Oxfam!), a new global climate campaign, will tell us of their activities. We'll think how we can respond to these endeavours, and then local groups will have the chance to present their autumn campaigning plans (briefly - 2 to 3 mins each!). Once they've done so, we'll split into groups, so people can learn more about/plan the things which they found most interesting and inspiring. Then we'll gather together for a final plenary to look at how we can take things forward.

It would be lovely if a few people from OOG could make it - I will be going along myself.

Naveed

Ox-Tales - have you bought your copy yet?

If you haven't yet made it onto the Oxfam website or into an Oxfam bookshop to get your copy of the four books in Oxfam's fab new series, Ox-Tales, you're missing out!

The books – and stories – are themed very loosely on the four elements and have Oxfam afterwords highlighting different aspects of our work: EARTH (from land rights to farming): AIR (combating climate change), FIRE (campaigning for arms control) and WATER (safe water and sanitation). This exciting project – which The Observer calls “a triumph” – has been delivered in partnership with Profile Books and Hay Festival, together with thirty-eight British- and Irish-based writers, each of whom have generously donated their time and words for free to Oxfam.

The series is lovely to look at, just the right size to fit into a handbag or large jacket pocket, and is crammed full of exciting work from high-calibre authors such as John Le Carré, Alexander McCall Smith, Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Faulks, Helen Fielding, William Boyd, and Ian Rankin. There's such a rich variety to pick from - I think you'll find there's something there to suit every taste, and pretty much every mood. The stories are the perfect length to add interest to an otherwise dull bus or train ride, or to provide a legitimate excuse for a twenty minute flop in an armchair or a tea break in the garden.

And of course it's all in aid of Oxfam's work - if you buy them at an Oxfam shop or on the Oxfam website, £3.50 out of the £5 they each cost will go straight to Oxfam. (If you buy them from other booksellers, this could be as little as 50p).

To buy the books on Oxfam's website, simply scroll back up and click on the book cover of your choice; or find out more, and watch/hear Ian Ranking and Alexander McCall Smith reading their own stories from the collection, on Oxfam's Talking Books page.

Enjoy!

Book fair project update

As some of you will recall, our October book fair raised money for an education project in Liberia. I thought you'd like to read about some of the achievements of the project:

· One hundred and sixty four teachers have improved their teaching skills through in-service training – improving the quality of learning for over 8,000 children.
· Three new libraries have been established, 12 libraries have been re-stocked, and teachers and librarians have been trained to develop a reading culture in pupils and local communities.
· Parent Teacher Associations are established and influencing improvements in 12 schools.

If you'd like to see the full report, please contact volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk

Port Meadow Sponsored Walk

We were lucky to hold our walk in glorious May weather yesterday. The route ran from Lake Street through Hinksey, Osney Island, Binsey, Godstow and Wolvercote, before returning though Wolvercote Common, Port Meadow, the Oxford Canal and Grandpont. Alternatively, the route consisted of the Watermans Arms, Perch, Trout, Red Lion, White Hart, Bookbinders Arms, Brewery Gate and Oxford Retreat (a much longer walk :-) ).

It's a fantastic route, full of a lot of historical and natural history interest. My main memories will be the swallows skimming the meadows that were so densely covered with buttercups, the grass snake that crossed the path ahead of me, and the happy atmosphere of people out enjoying the grand weather. We had fewere walkers than we had hoped, but those that came were well sponsored. Looks like we will raise £600-£700 for Oxfam.

If you missed it, the good news is that you can still get the walk booklet to do your own DIY sponsored walk for Oxfam (or just make a donation if you prefer not to organize sponsors). We plan to get the booklet online soon, in the meantime, email me at volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk to ask for a copy

Book fair helpers

The book fair workgroup met last night (over a curry) to discuss how the fair had gone and how we thought we could improve it. We're looking forward to another successful fair this October, but would really appreciate some extra helpers. Specifically:
1. Is anyone good at mending shelves?! (There's a broken shelf in our lock-up and we're all too rubbish at that kind of thing to give it a go!)
2. Does anyone want to take on the role of liaising with the Wesley Memorial Hall (booking the room, refreshments and organising what time we can get in on the day etc). It's a small job but would be one less thing for the workgroup to think about.
3. Any car drivers out there? We always need help with collecting books and delivering them to our lock-up, and sharing this with more people would be brilliant.
Please email volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk if you are able to help with any of this. Thank you!

More about the OOG Walk, 30 May

Two weeks to go until the Oxford Oxfam Walk on 30 May!
The walk starts and ends at the South Oxford Community Centre, Lake Street (link to Google map). There are 10-mile and 5-mile routes through the lovely scenery that nestles up to that part of Oxford. Even if you have lived in the city for years, you might be surprised! Once again, Cyril Edwards and Naveed Chaudhri have produced a lovely booklet showing the route and giving interesting background about the many points of interest along the way. The route is flat and won't take too long, unless you turn it into a pub crawl, which is possible, & then who knows when you will be back...

• If you want to walk and help us raise funds for Oxfam, start by downloading a sponsorship form.
• For more information or to let us know you want to walk / help out on the day, email volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk.

We Can! Report on the OOG speaker meeting 13 May

We had a great talk last night from Farhana Hafiz - Oxfam Gender Programme Officer, Bangladesh. Farhana spoke about the We Can project, which tackles the problems of violence against women in South Asia. In many countries, social customs and attitudes tacitly condone and support violence against women, and are entrenched in families and communities. Farhana had an figure that 47% of women in Bangladesh had experienced physical abuse. Because the problem is so prevalent, it comes to seem normal and so there is a risk that communities and the judiciary take little action.

Oxfam has been involved in tackling this issue at a grass roots level, recruiting people as "Change Makers". (This Oxfam Video shows one Change Maker, Beauty Ara, doing her stuff, and also describing her own experiences).

Working together for mutual respect is at the heart of the ‘We Can’ campaign. As Farhana put it, the message was not that you shouldn't beat women because they were weak, it is that you shouldn't beat them because they are human beings. One interesting and encouraging statistic was that 49% of the Change Makers in Bangladesh were men - showing that the campaign was avoiding becoming either pigeonholed as exclusively a "womens issue" (as in i'gnorable by men') or alientating the menfolk.


Read more on Oxfam's work on gender equality.

Speaker event

Wednesday 13th May at 7.30pm, St Aldates Room, Oxford Town Hall

Oxfam's Programme Officer in Bangladesh, Fahrana Hafiz, will give a talk about Oxfam's campaign to end violence against women in South Asia. 

Please stay on at the end for drinks and nibbles!

Port Meadow Sponsored Walk - 30th May - calling for walkers and helpers!

Join us for our 10 mile hike through glorious riverside and canalside scenery. Starting from 10am to 1pm at Lake Street Community Centre.

If you want to walk and help us raise funds for Oxfam, start by downloading a sponsorship form.

We also need OOG members who will staff the Walk Office at the South Oxford Community Centre – the job is to sit in the office to greet and register walkers as they start out, and later in the day to sign their forms and offer them some tea or coffee as they return. We need to have the office open from 10 am to 5pm.

And finally, we need OOG members to be “First Walker” and “Last Walker”. First Walker walks the route ahead of everyone else (Friday, or early on Saturday), putting up the route signs as they go. Last Walker goes around Saturday evening or Sunday to take the signs down again. Both First and Last get to walk the route – so you can both be a sponsored walker and help out in this way!

For more information or to let us know you want to walk / help out on the day, email volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Book fair result

Thanks so much to everyone who helped with the book fair, whether you priced, donated, drove the van, lifted and shifted books, or helped on the day placarding or working on the till or door. We raised a massive £2952 for Oxfam's education project in Zambia.

If you're interested in helping out at the next fair, please contact volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk. 

G20 blogging - well worth a quick look!

You will be seeing the news about the G20 over the next couple of days, but you may not know that Oxfam has helped to put together a global blogging group called G20 voice, who are bringing their own perspectives to the debate. You can follow it here, and use the feeds to get up-to-the-minute coverage of what the world leaders are up to - and lots more. Our Head of Research, Duncan Green, is one of the bloggers.

Book fair - 4th April

Most OOG members should now have had a phone call to see if you can help at our book fair on Saturday 4th April. If we didn't get hold of you, it's one of our biggest events so if you can help, even if it's only for a couple of hours, it would be great. We always particularly welcome extra help on Saturday from 5 till about 7 (when we're tired after a long day selling books!) to load the unsold books back into the van and unload them again at our lock-up in Cowley. If you can't help on Saturday then maybe you're free on Friday evening from 5.30-7.30ish to help load the van? Please email volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk if you are able to help. Thank you!

Fairtrade event

Fairtrade fortnight has been and gone and OOG helped out the Broad Street shop with their tasting event on Saturday 28th February. Louise and I spent the morning handing out Fairtrade goodies such as tea, coffee, chocolate, biccies and some very scrumptious fudge. The tactic worked as several people were seen diving straight into the Oxfam shop to buy more of it! We spoke to a few people who hadn't heard of Fairtrade so felt it was a really worthwhile day. 

Put People First rally in London ahead of the G20 meeting

On 2 April, leaders of twenty of the world’s most powerful nations will meet in London for the G20 Summit.The G20 meetings will be a massive opportunity to build a future that works for the benefit of people everywhere, and where global warming isn’t ignored.

On 28 March, just a few days before the G20 meetings take place, you can join a crowd of thousands of people for a rally to call for progress on the big issues that affect all of the world’s people.

Unison health branch are organising coaches from Oxford to the London rally. Tickets are £10 waged/£8 unwaged and you can buy them online here. Alternatively organisers can arrange to meet someone with a cheque payable to Oxfordshire UNISON Health Branch. People are urged to buy tickets as soon as possible to avoid a last minute rush on seats where people might be disappointed. Coaches leave St. Giles, central oxford for London at 9am on 28th March.

Or if you’ve got your own means of transport, register to come to the Put People First rally in London

The G20 and what Oxfam is calling for

In many ways, the G20 is similar to the G8. There is, however, a key difference – size. More developing countries are included in the meetings, meaning the G20 is more representative than the G8, and the presence of Barack Obama at the London Summit has heightened the sense that the world now has an opportunity for genuine change. Here’s what must be at the top of the G20’s to-do list:

Tackle climate change
G20 nations must announce their commitment to a low-carbon future. And the economic crisis must not be used as an excuse for ignoring climate change. By investing in low-carbon jobs, and clean technology we can tackle both.

Keep your promises
Overseas aid money provides some of the world's poorest communities with vital medical treatment, and goes toward kitting-out schools with books and teaching equipment. Wealthy G20 nations must keep their existing promises to increase aid.
At the same time, the G20 must cancel all poor countries’ debts. Until this happens, huge sums of money that could be spent on health and education are being wasted servicing loans.

Further info and actions:
Put people first (External website)

Rally resources (External website)

Write to Gordon Brown: tell him to put poor people first at the G20

One World Fair - first meeting of the year!

As you know, the annual One World Fair is in November; but believe it or not, planning starts now! The first meeting of the organising group will be on Wednesday 1st April at 7.30pm in the Mitre, Oxford High Street. As Julia mentioned in her post a couple of months ago, we need a group of at least four or five people to get this event up and running, as well as, of course, a lot of help nearer the time.

For anyone who's new to the group, the One World Fair is our flagship event of the year, raising a lot of money for Oxfam's work, and, equally importantly, providing a space for groups working on international development, fair trade,the environment and justice issues to come together and reach a wider public with their campaigns, merchandise, and educational materials.

The workgroup is crucial to get the Fair off the ground. Meeting roughly monthly, it organises the venue and publicity, organising the café, and taking bookings from participant groups. This involves some bursts of work, but the load isn't too heavy! If you haven't been involved in running an event like this before, it's great experience of "project management", as well as a rewarding and hopefully fun activity. And if you've been in the group a while, maybe this year, this could be your thing?

Please let me know in advance of the meeting (if you can - but don't worry) if you plan to be involved - give me a call, or reply to this post. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Red nose day 2009

This Friday (13th March) is Red Nose Day 2009. My kids have been excited about it all week, and no-one has nicked the red nose off my car - at least not yet...

I was interested to see this item about red nose day on the Oxfam web site:

Since the last Red Nose Day in 2007, Oxfam has received more than £5.5 million in grants from Comic Relief. The latest grant is helping cotton farmers in Mali tap into organic and Fairtrade markets so that they can get a better price for what they grow and so build a more secure future for their families and communities. This support is vital in a country where one in three people depend on cotton for income and 80% of them live on less than a dollar a day.
At least 70p from the sale of every Nose goes to Comic Relief.

Too late to get your red nose by mail order from the Oxfam catalogue now. (You'll have to pick your nose in person - sorry, couldn't resist that...). Oxfam shops have them, as do Sainsbury's supermarkets.

Possible trade justice campaigning in Oxford

Hi all. Julieanne Porter from Oxford WDM has sent round the following suggestion which OOG people may well be interested in. It would be great to get some discussion going about what we might do to contribute:

Hello everyone,

For those who don't know me, I'm Julieanne Porter from Oxford WDM Group. This email is to ascertain your interest in an opportunity to lobby MEPs on the issue of Trade in May 2009. You may already be aware of the 'Be A Trade Hero Campaign' (see: http://www.tjm.org.uk/) which is being supported by various campaign groups including WDM, TJM, FOE, Action Aid and War on Want.

Maranda St John (CCOW), Bente Madeira (RISC, Reading) and I have been discussing the idea of undertaking a regional MEP Hustings leading up to the MEP elections in the summer. Bente has been able to book Caroline Lucas for 21st May (evening), the only date she now has free. As she is a key supporter of Trade Justice issues it would be ideal to be able to include her. Hence this is the date we are working with for now.

Bente has advised me that, she/RISC has funding from the EU to help with running a husting/trade campaign, and therefore would be able to cover some of the costs, including the hire of a bus to take activists to/from Oxford/Reading. My questions to you are:

1. In principle, would your group be interested in taking part? (No need to confirm numbers etc now, just general idea of interest from your group)
2. Do you feel one big lobby in one town (i.e.. Reading) would be most effective (in terms of lobbying and time/resources to organise)?
3. Do you have strong views on holding two separate lobbies, one in Reading and one in Oxford? Be aware that we couldn't book Caroline Lucas to attend a 2nd event, it would have to be another Green standing for MEP election.

Details like the format of the evening, questions to ask etc, will be discussed once we have confirmed interest and dates. For now, it would be great if you could pass this on to your members, and onto any other groups you feel might be interested in this event. Deadline for initial feedback to the questions above is Wednesday 25th February 2009. The reason for the short timeline is that contacting and booking all MEPs from the South East region will need to be done shortly, particularly if we are to go ahead with the 21st May.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I hope we will be able to discuss this at next week's Committee meeting, so thoughts now would be helpful.

Cadbury Dairy Milk commits to going Fairtrade

As widely reported today, some good news for Fairtrade fortnight:

"Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation today announced plans to achieve Fairtrade certification for Cadbury Dairy Milk, the nation’s top selling chocolate bar, by end of Summer 2009. This groundbreaking move will result in the tripling of sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana, both increasing Fairtrade cocoa sales for existing certified farming groups, as well as opening up new opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system. "
(Press release from the Fairtrade Foundation)

Fairtrade Fortnight event - Broad Street shop 28 Feb

Fairtrade Fortnight (23 February to 8 March) is just around the corner and the Oxfam shop in Broad Street needs extra helpers to work on a stall outside the shop on Saturday 28th February. You would be getting passers-by to taste Fairtrade tea, coffee and other goodies, and also selling Fairtrade goods. Please contact Rachel at volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk if you are able to help.

We have been doing events like this for over a decade, back when Fairtrade was pretty niche - they are usually a lot of fun, as well as being a good way to spread information about Fairtrade. Among our exploits of yesteryear, we organized a "Mad Hatter's Tea Party" for the UK launch of TeaDirect. It somewhat bemused two delegates visiting from the co-operatives producing the tea (it seems that Lewis Caroll is not so big in their part of Uganda). Given the mismatch between my 6'2" frame and the brown plush dormouse costume we had, I am glad that Naveed probably has no photos (though do check the comments box, in case he has!).

More seriously it was very interesting to hear first-hand what Fairtrade could do - their first projects for their Fairtrade premium were to expand the medical facilities they had at their dispensary, and to build a bridge. Without the bridge, some farmers had to trudge for miles on foot with sacks of tea on their backs to get their crop to the co-operative's processing plant. That's the kind of thing buying Fairtrade achieves.

Don't worry - as far as I know, the upcoming event is not fancy dress.

Oxford Book of Soups and Stews - call for recipies

Cyril Edwards has asked me to post this about another fundraising project!

Well, I have no academic book coming out this year, so thought I'd go, in the autumn, for my first cookbook (and also my first self-published book). It's a collaborative effort – I'm just the editor and compiler (and one of the 4 central cooks). Naveed is another. The book will be 128pp, beautifully illustrated, ring-bound and on acid-free paper. Guest recipes have been coming in from far and wide, but no doubt OOG people could offer me more. There will be 3 sections: vegetable; fish; meat, poultry and game. Family recipes are ideal, exotic recipes very welcome, and acknowledgements should be scrupulously made, preferably with an anecdote. So please send me your recipes, preferably by e-mail: volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk

The last date for submission of recipes is April Fools' Day, 2009.

I would welcome help with marketing. Local shops here in Abingdon have been very encouraging. The problem with selling books through Oxfam shops is the splitting of the profits. Oxfam is curiously reluctant about such matters, far too rigid. They shouldn't be. I'm quite happy for half the profits to go to Oxfam, but I would like, in an ideal world, to cover my costs. Laserset in Abingdon will be doing the printing. I estimate the book will cost £6.99 or £7.99.

Oxford Oxfam Group Sponsored Walk

Cyril Edwards, who is organising the walk, asked me to post the following:

As you may recall, we do a sponsored walk every two years. Despite the low number of walkers, the 2008 Shotover walk was a success financially, and it was extraordinarily beautiful.

This year the plan is to start from our Lake Street base, walk to North Hinksey, then across country to Osney, then along the Thames Path to Port Meadow's south side. Thence to Binsey, with a detour to the lovely church, then on to Godstow, and back via Woodcote and the Trap Grounds, returning along the canal path, now so sadly disfigured by new housing developments. Given the weather, I've not yet done the pre-walking, but hope to do so soon. Anyone wishing to join me for the pre-walking is most welcome, if there's a bright day soon contact us on volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk. I'll take my non-digital camera, so the basis for a poster, on past experience, should develop. I'll also write a guide, with a map, and I hope that Oxfam House will print it, as they have done before.

Distance: perhaps 10 miles. Rather shorter than our usual walks, but anno domini!

Provisional date: Saturday May 30th.

What do I ask of OOG?

(i) Cardboard signs. We lost a lot on the last walk, and I've very few left (dating from the Greens). They should be strips of cardboard, with 2 holes, strung, and pointing either right and left, with OOG inscribed upon them. No elaborate artwork necessary, unless you feel so inclined!

(ii) Publicity: Claire Abolins and Rachel Iliffe have been great about this, but we still haven't had many walkers for the last 2 walks (Shotover and the Canal Walk).

(iii) (Wo)manning the reception area. Lake Street must be (wo)manned from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. It need only be one person. There are so many great pubs on this walk (or pub crawl, if you prefer!) that I would not expect many people to get back before 2.00, but walkers feel let down if there is not a warm welcome, and, at very least, a cup of tea. The atmosphere after the return of walkers in 2008, was frankly, wonderful and joyous, and we must try to rescue the photos lots of people took then.

(iv) Most importantly: we need walkers! Despite our best efforts at publicity, the numbers of walkers for the last two lovely walks were low, and this inevitably affects sponsorship negatively. Back in the 90s, we often had mothers walking with prams, and the Port Meadow walk will be, for the most part, flat and not physically demanding at all. (Unless there are floods!) We have, somehow, to make this more of an event with lots of people participating. I'll circulate details in the University, but it doesn't, generally, work well. Ideas, please!

Can you help with any of the above? Contact us on volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk [It would help us if you gave your email the title "Walk"]

In Focus photo project

My colleague Rebecca at Oxfam House has asked me to advertise her photo project aimed at getting 11-14 year olds in Oxfordshire to think about what they'd like to protect from climate change.

The Green Finger project asks children to colour in their index finger in green pen and write on their palm what they want to protect, and then take a photo or video with their palm and Green Finger facing the camera, like this:














Or this:



When children enter In Focus, they join people from all over the world who are telling world leaders and people everywhere to take action and protect the world from climate change, which affects poorest people the worst.

The deadline for entries by Monday 23 March. The best entries will win great prizes! Up for grabs are a Sony Cybershot T77 camera, a Flip Video Mino and digital photo frames. So if you have kids in this age range, or have links with a local school, do let them know about it.

Oxfam Activist News

Read all about it. You can download the latest issue of Activist News (opens as a PDF file) here. Activist News is a monthly newsletter for Oxfam supporters.

Oxford Oxfam Group Sponsored Walk 2009

Plans are getting underway for an OOG sponsored walk this summer. The date is provisionally 30th May. Previous walks have been both a lot of fun and a good fund-raiser for Oxfam. Probably this one will be a circular walk around the Port Meadow area in Oxford. As for previous walks, Cyril Edwards is planning to produce an interesting walk booklet - history and natural history as well as directions. It would not be an OOG walk without there being several good pubs en route.

Watch this space! Come March, both walkers and helpers will be wanted.

Oxford recertified as a Fairtrade City

Good news! Oxford has been recertified as a Fairtrade City in time for Fairtrade Fortnight. This is a process which has to be undergone regularly, and the Oxford Fairtrade Coalition has been working hard to ensure that we still meet or exceed the criteria - which we do! The Coalition, like us, has gone blog-crazy, and you can find details of what's going on during Fairtrade Fortnight on the new site.

In particular, there will be an event on 23 February from 7 till 9pm at Oxford Town Hall to discuss the motion ‘Is trade justice a lost cause?’. Speakers will include Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation; John Hilary, Director of War on Want; Fiona Shera, Head of Trade and Development, DFID-BERR; and Edwin Laurent, Former Special Envoy to the EU for the Windward Islands.

This year, the Fairtrade Foundation are asking us to go bananas,and take part in a world record attempt on the biggest mass-banana-consumption event in history (words I would not have anticipated ever having to write). If like me, you think bananas are there to be laughed at and not eaten, then you may be interested in my Fairtrade banana video:



Or then again, you may not.

Book Fair

Hello everyone

You may have heard by now that the date of our book fair has changed to Saturday 4th April 2009. I hope many of you will be able to come along and help on the day with placarding, working on the till, and generally being a welcome extra pair of hands. Please comment on this blog or contact me if you can help.

We also need good-quality books to sell! If you feel like you need a good old clear-out, we'd be really grateful if you could donate your books to us. Any subject will do - academic, children's, fiction or general non-fiction will all be put to good use. We can collect them if necessary, or they can be brought straight to our sorting room at Lake Street Community centre. If you have a car and can help with collections and driving books around, please also get in touch via this blog.

We also need help with publicity - tell all your friends about the fair, and when you get your poster/s please stick them up where lots of people can see them! 

If you want to be more involved in the running of the fair, you could join us in our sorting and pricing sessions at Lake Street (off Abingdon Road). We can give directions if anyone is interested in helping with this. No experience necessary!

Finally, one of the trickiest things about the fair is getting enough people to help shift books to and from the fair on the Friday and Saturday evenings. If you can help with this please get in touch as the more helpers we have, the quicker and easier it is.

Many thanks!

Rachel

Oxford Forum for International Development

Wow, my first ever blog post!

Oxford Hub has just asked me to promote their annual conference, the Oxford Forum for International Development (OxFID) 2009, on February 7th and 8th in the Said Business School. It's priced at £14 for the whole conference weekend (including two lunches), and they welcome participants from all disciplines and levels of experience, both students and non-students. You can find out more and book on the Oxford Hub website. The theme of the conference will be "Creative Solutions to Urgent Problems". They say it like this:

"The world is approaching a crisis point. Run-away climate change and the global food crisis will continue to be exacerbated as population expands to over 9 billion people by the year 2050. A global financial crisis is reshaping the way the world's economy works. Epidemics of infectious diseases are spreading throughout the world and fresh water supplies are under threat. Slow change is no longer acceptable, urgent action is needed. OxFID 2009 aims to investigate fully the impact of all these factors on developing nations and to bring together some of the world's leading academics, creative thinkers, and NGOs to encourage debate and precipitate solutions."

People who went last year spoke very highly of it. This year's speakers include:

• Dr Andrew Steer, Director of General Policy and Research at DFID
• Aubrey Meyer, Director of the Global Commons Institute and listed by the New Statesman as 'one of the 10 people most likely to save the world'
• Dr Kevin Watkins, Director of the UN Human Development Report Agency
• Lord Robert May, former President of the Royal Society former Chief Scientist to DFID and the U.K. Government
• Benedict Southworth, Director of the World Development Movement
• Robert Annibale, Global Director of Citigroup microfinance
• John Hillary, Director of War on Want
• Oliver Cumming, Head of Policy at Wateraid
• Sam Bickerseth, Head of Programme Policy at Oxfam
• Professor David Rogers, University of Oxford, and advisor to the E.U. on climate change and infectious diseases

There you go, I've done it!

DEC Gaza appeal

A territory is under blockade and its people are suffering. There is war, and getting help to the suffering will be a challenge. Any humanitarian effort might be exploited by one or both of the combatants.
I'm talking about 1942 when a remarkable group of people met in Oxford. They wished to try help civilians in Greece who were suffering as a result of the Allied blockade. (Greece was at that time being occupied by the Axis powers, 1942 being at the height of World War Two.) Allied policy at the time was that the Axis Powers could jolly well be responsible for feeding the peoples they had conquered. And if they failed, the suffering civilians were perhaps more likely to be sympathetic to the Allied cause. Further, there were obvious risks that the Axis Powers would exploit any relief effort - e.g. distribute the aid to their troops, or only to collaborators. Despite these problems, the Oxford committee was eventually able to arrange for relief to cross the blockade and be distributed successfully. The small committee went on to become Oxfam.

The reason for this history lesson is that I'm still trying to understand the BBC's position on not co-operating with the DEC appeal for Gaza. Their position (statement from the BBC Director General here) boils down to two issues:

1. they can't broadcast the appeal without seeming to take sides
2. they don't believe that the DEC will manage to get the aid through

That is, they are raising just the points that the fledgling Oxfam had to deal with in 1942. And of course it is a recurring theme. Most big crises have some sort of human contribution. Whether there is direct violence (DEC appeals for Darfur, or Kosovo) or whether there is a natural disaster exacerbated by human failings (e.g. Zimbabwe, Burma Cyclone Appeal). After so long It's odd to still be arguing about whether you can "just help these people" and bypass- for that purpose at least - the question of whose fault it all is. That might be well worth asking, but in order to save people's lives that might have to be a separate conversation.

The second point was whether humanitarian aid can actually be delivered. Obviously that is a concern. The DEC, basically says "trust us":

"The DEC launches joint appeals when three criteria are met: overwhelming
humanitarian need, ability by DEC members and their partners to respond and
evidence that the UK public want to help. The Trustees judge that these criteria
are met and are confident that that joint action by DEC Member Agencies is the
best course of action in this crisis."(http://www.dec.org.uk/item/322/248/0/0)

(If you are interested in how the DEC plans to ensure money donated to the appeal is well spent, then the DEC's FAQ page has plenty to read.)

Clearly, there is a role for journalists to investigate whether humanitarian organizations actually do deliver what they promised. I haven't yet seen (and don't expect to see) the BBC or any other news organization exposing the DEC as being unable to deliver the aid it has promised. It seems odd (to say the least) for the BBC to pre-empt such a conclusion by managerial decision.

Far from helping the BBC to remain impartial, the whole sad affair seems only to be helping the lunatic fringe of zionist conspiracy theorists (who of course have never thought the BBC impartial, anyway because conspiracy theorists know that everything is a consipracy).

By the way, the DEC say that the Gaza appeal raised £3,000,000 in the first week. That donation link again: http://www.dec.org.uk/donate_now/

Chair update - January 09

Welcome to our new blog!

All the latest news and information about the group's activities and upcoming events will be posted here, so add this page to your favourites or click on 'follow this blog' (lower right corner) now!

This blog belongs to all of us and will only be useful if people really use it to communicate. Please comment on any posts (bearing in mind that this is a public page), and if you are organising an event or activity you may wish to be set up as an author of posts. If so please respond to the email I sent you linking to this page.

We'd also love to hear what you think of our new blog so that we can improve it.

Best wishes,
Julia

One World Fair - helpers wanted

Our next One World Fair will be in November 2009. However, we’ll need to start planning the event in the spring. As you all know, the One World Fair is our yearly volunteer run event that takes place at the Town Hall, bringing together around 40 stalls from a variety of local or national organisations, mainly Fair Trade, Environmental or Human Rights groups, to raise awareness and to sell lots of ethical goodies in time for the holiday season. The event also involves a vegetarian café which sells a whole lot of yummy quiches and soups and cakes made my our members.

We need a lot of member support on the day to keep this big event running smoothly, and whilst we had a lot of really enthusiastic members helping out this year we could still use more! But aside from the work on the day, we could really use help from more members on the workgroup, which seems to have been shrinking in the last few years. The workgroup meets every month for a nice cosy informal chat, and some distribution of labour. Amongst the main jobs the workgroup does are:

• organising publicity (posters around town, ads in the paper and online, flyers, a library display - starting about 6 weeks before, but particularly important for about two weeks a month before the event) – we could definitely use help with this;
• organising the café (checking we have all the equipment we need, rallying the troups to bake and cook, preparing price lists, liaising with the town hall etc… this really kicks in closer to the event) – this is pretty much under control but extra helpers very welcome;
• organising the stalls (contacting all stall holders from previous year with enrolment form, keeping spreadsheets up to date, collecting fees, getting their blurbs for the directory – though we may not have one this year. This requires bursts of very straightforward work that can be done from home on a computer, starting about three months ahead of the event) - this last job is one that we would really love to have help with as we’re down on workgroup numbers.

So please, particularly if you aren’t already involved with a work group such as the book fair group, and would be interested in getting a little more out of being an OOG member, do get in touch. Even if you can’t commit to taking on any of the bigger jobs, there are lots of little jobs that need doing and we would really appreciate the help. I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Climate Change

2009 is a massive year for campaigning for Oxfam, with the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December. World Leaders have so far failed to step up to the mark, either on reducing carbon emissions, or helping developing countries adapt to the effects of climate change. Oxfam believes that Climate change is the number one threat to overcoming poverty. Droughts, hurricanes, and rising sea levels – these are all already destroying poor people's homes crops and livelihoods. And unless we all work together, things are predicted to get a whole lot worse.
What’s the solution? Action on climate change, on a global scale – now.

So, I’m sure I’m preaching to the converted, but if you haven’t yet signed up to Oxfam’s climate change petition, do so now!

If you haven’t seen it yet, have a look at Oxfam campaigns’ animation Face the Music, which shows how poor people are being hit first and worst by the effects of climate change, even though they've contributed least to it.


Membership fees

You may have seen in lower down in the AGM report that the membership fees have been set at the same rate as last year. Those of you who pay by standing order will already have paid your contribution for 2009, but to those who haven’t, a gentle reminder! Please don’t forget to pay your subs asap to Chris.
Many thanks.

Effortless ways to help Oxfam, #1

If you shop at one of the Midcounties Co-operative stores, consider becoming a member of the Midcounties Co-operative. Your shopping then earns you dividends and you can donate your dividends to a charity. Naturally you would want to choose Oxfam :-) .

Some Midcounties Co-operative members events might be of interest to OOG supporters too: in February 2009 there are "Fair and Square sessions " described as "free fun and interactive sessions for members and colleagues of The Midcounties Co-operative to help everyone understand what ethical shopping [including Fairtrade, a long-standing interest of OOG] really means."

DEC appeal for the Gaza Crisis

As you probably know, the Disasters and Emergencies Committee (DEC) has launched an appeal to assist in the the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The DEC is a coalition of 13 major humanitarian agencies including Oxfam - they join forces for major disasters so as to respond more effectively. Oxfam also has a page about the crisis here.

You can donate directly to the DEC appeal online

The DEC has of course been in the news because of the decision by the BBC and by Sky TV not to broadcast the appeal for fears about being seen to lack impartiality, a position that has been roundly criticised by many sources (see here and here and here !). Personally, I think that there is no organization more capable of delivering the required assistance impartially than the DEC, and so this is a bizarre vote of no confidence in the most respected humanitarian agencies.

Among other efforts to make the BBC change its mind Avaaz.org have organized a write-in campaign, which you can join from this URL http://www.avaaz.org/en/bbc_charitable_appeal (NB that if you decide to joining the avaaz.org email mailing list, you will receive mail from them about various humanitarian campaigns.)

Street Collection for Zimbabwe Emergency Appeal

On January 17th, the Oxford Oxfam Group organized a street collection in the Westgate Shopping Centre, Oxford. We collected £262.19, to be allocated for Oxfam's Zimbabwe Emergency Appeal . Thanks to Martin Spires and Annie Thomas for organizing this, and of course to the collectors for their hard work on the day!