Election Hustings Oxford East

Monday 19th April, 7:30pm, Headington Baptist Church

(78 Old High Street, OX3 9HW)

Updated 12th April 2010.

Come along and question some prospective parliamentary candidates for Oxford East on issues related to Justice and Peace!

Issues on the agenda:

• Aid and Poverty
• Arms Trade
• Climate change
• Human Rights
• Nuclear disarmament

With:

Ed Argar (Conservative)

Sushila Dhall (Green)

Julia Gasper (UKIP)

Steve Goddard (Liberal Democrat)

Andrew Smith (Labour)

It is anticipated that a lot of people may want to attend this event, so please come along early if you want to get a seat! (Maximum capacity of the event is about 230).

Please contact me, rchristinetucker@hotmail.com, if you need any more information.

Spring Book Fair

Thanks to the hard work of a large number of people, we managed to raise a total of £2,175.41 at the Spring Book Fair this Saturday (27 March).

While this wasn't quite as much as we have made in some recent fairs, it's still a great result. Particular thanks go to the dedicated pricing team, and to Martin Spiers, who has done lots and lots of driving around in the last few weeks (how he manages to turn the van around at the end of Lake Street I do not know!).

The fair was relatively quiet this time, but with plenty of regulars in evidence, as well as people who saw the placards in the street. Sadly, we didn't make the programme of the Oxford Literary Festival, which usually more than compensates for the lack of students when we hold the fair outside term time.

Owing to some clever analysis of the till roll (not by me!), we should be able to work out how much we make from the different categories of books, and what the average spend is on each category, so hopefully we can make things even better next time. We reckon we had over 700 people through the doors, although it's very hard to be sure without counting them individually.

We have had some lovely books given to us over the last few weeks, so thanks also to all those who donated or who sourced or collected donations. My favourite titles included "What not to wear on a horse" (sadly still unsold at the end), "Human problems and how to solve them", and "Wallabies in the loo". For anyone thinking of getting involved (we will be starting work on the October fair over the summer), coming across crazy titles is one of the joys of pricing.

Lastly, I particularly want to thank the Oxford Phab Club, whose membership of disabled and able-bodied people have been cheerfully serving drinks and lunches at the book fair for 16 years now, and who did a fantastic job as always.

Oxford Oxfam Group Walk - 12 June 2010

There will be a sponsored walk on 12 June 2010
It is a lovely route from Lake Street – New Hinksey – Osney – Binsey – Godstow – Wolvercote – Burgess Field Nature Park – Oxford Canal Walk – Mill Stream Walk – Grandpont – Lake Street

That comes to 10 miles in total, but there is a 5 mile option for those preferring a shorter route.
We have set up a web page on which you can register to take part - please do so, and encourage friends and colleagues to do so too. Word of mouth from OOG members is a way we can get a lot of people to turn out and walk. It is likely to be as effective or more than any amount of advertising. So please, do spread the word to your network. We will shortly have set up a "virginmoney giving" page (it's pretty much the same as "justgiving" - a system that allows you to request sponsorship by email rather than needing to trudge round with a paper form).
Publicity work is getting under way - as a starter we have a twitter account (@OOGWalk) if you use twitter, please follow us and help us spread the word.
If you have contacts with local groups that might want to do the walk, please do let them know. Or if shy, let me know (volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk ). We have a great route, & just need to get walkers out there in order to turn this into a really good fundraiser.

Chile Earthquake

The second big quake of 2010 hit Chile on 27 February. An Oxfam team went in on March 1st, and you can read about Oxfam's response to the Chile Earthquake here.

At present it does not look likely that there will be a DEC appeal. There is not at present an Oxfam appeal specifically for Chile - supporting Oxfam's fundraising for emergencies around the world is currently the way in which we are helping - for example by making our Bookfair on 27 March (at the Wesley Memorial Church, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford) as successful as possible.