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)