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