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!).