One World Fair - thanks to all who helped!

The 21st One World Fair was another success, thanks to everyone who helepd out on the day and in the run-up. As always, it was a long and tiring day for a number of hard-working volunteers (you know who you are!), with a very busy cafe operation selling out of food quite early on. The Nick Gill trio added to the ambience in the cafe, and while stallholders reported slower than usual sales in the main hall, and the number of visitors was a bit down on previous years, there was nevertheless a good buzz of activity throughout the day, and in total, we made almost £1,800 of from running the fair (taking account of the cafe, room hire and income from stalls, but excluding the Oxfam shop presence).

The workgroup met to debrief on Tuesday, and we plan to survey all our stallholders to ask how it went for them, including any ideas they can give us for improving the event. All ideas are welcome - as well as offers to get involved in running the next one! Work on the 22nd One World Fair will start in May 2012.



Jan Tansley from Broad Street shop on the Oxfam stall

OOG's busy autumn!

It's normal for autumn to be OOG's busiest time of year, and our biggest event of the year, the One World Fair, is now less than a week away! It's this Saturday, 19th November, at Oxford Town Hall, and should be, as always, a colourful event, with a host of fairtrade retailers booked in, alongside local campaigning organisations on development and the environment - and of course, our vegetarian cafe. Offers of help (and particularly donations of food for the cafe) are very welcome - please reply to this post. Doors open at 10am, it ends at 4.30pm. 50p admission - bargain!



The One World Fair follows hard on the heels of the autumn Book Fair on 22 October. Our former book fair supremo Helen O'Neill having gone to Madagascar for a year, our new co-ordinator Jon Mazliah and the stalwart team of pricers and helpers on the day did a sterling job, confounding last-minute worries that we might not have enough stock or volunteers. But we pulled it off, raising a very creditable £2, 370. Very many thanks to everyone who did their bit. Dates of the spring book fair are still to be confirmed.


Forthcoming events are the AGM, on 7 December in the Short Room, Friends' Meeting House, from 7.30pm, where we'll be electing the new Committee, and the now-traditional OOG curry night at the Bombay restaurant in Jericho on 14 December.

Book fair

It's less than 3 weeks until our book fair on Saturday 9th April. This is a big fundraiser for us, and we're now appealing for helpers. If you can help on the Friday night (between around 5.30 and 7pm) loading books into the van and then into the Wesley Memorial Hall, it would be really helpful, and also loading everything back into the van and back to the store rooms on Saturday from 5-7pm.

Email racheliliffe@yahoo.co.uk if you can help at any time.

Polar bear antics

Read all about our latest campaigning event for climate change on the Oxfam South East blog, including a picture of me dressed as a polar bear!

Spring Book Fair - 9th April 2011

Our Spring Boookfair will be on April 9th. This sounds like a long time away, but there is a lot to do and so preparations are starting up.

There's a strong existing group of people to do these things, but help would be very much appreciated (to achieve more; to do new things; to give established hands some assistance or a rest). Helen is particularly interested to find additional help with the publicity (you can never do too much publicity). Because there is a strong existing group, newcomers will find plenty of old hands to guide them in what needs to be done.

One vital task is a series of pricing evenings, where OOG members get together in the store rooms to sort and price books. It's a sociable as well as productive time, and a good way in to things if you have recently joined the group, or want to do more this year.


These Book Fairs which raise £4,000 - £5,000 a year in recent years. If you would be interested to help out, please email us (volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk )

Report from the 2010 AGM

We can congratulate ourselves on a good fundraising year. Overall, the amount raised for Oxfam (and for Oxfam's contributions to major disasters, where Oxfam raises money via the DEC) was £11,304.37. That's up on 2009, where we raised £8,900, and a broadly similar result to 2008 and 2007.
Net income for our major fundraisers was as follows:

• Haiti DEC street collection - £3,335 (passed directly to DEC as per DEC rules; does not appear in OOG accounts)
• Book Fairs - £4,882.98
• Walk - £1,690.35 (£947.76 through our books, and £742.59 raised via VirginMoneyGiving, resulting in it going to Oxfam directly)
• One World Fair - £1,676.10 (because the One World Fair is late in the accounting year, the final total for the 2010 Fair may differ slightly from this)

These ventures all did better than in 2009 - Bookfairs were about the same; The One World Fair did 35% better, the Walk 56% better. The bulk of our fundraising now comes from these regular ventures, which year after year turn in excellent - indeed remarkable - results. Consistently netting Oxfam about £10,000 per year is a significant and unusual achievement for a volunteer group, and we need to remember to congratulate ourselves. Naturally, it would always be better to do more, and to add more events and activities. (Suggestions are always welcome).

A full set of accounts is available on request.


We had a quiet year on campaigning in 2010 - but aim to do more in 2011 (hence next Wednesday's campaigns meetup).

The committee elected for 2011 was:
• Chris Baker - Chair
• Christine Tucker - Treasurer
• Anastasia Heath - Membership Secretary
• Naveed Chaudhri - Minutes Secretary
• Jan Treacher - Committee Member.

Rachel Walsh (Rachel Iliffe until she married this year) has stood down from committee duties after many years service, but is remaining an OOG member - thank you for all you have done, Rachel.

This gives us a functional committee (nearly identical to last year's). The committee would be delighted to co-opt further members if anyone would like to help - in particular, we would appreciate help with OOG publicity.

Campaigns meetup

OOG Members are meeting on Wednesday evening 12 January to plan campaigning activities. Please email volunteer@oxfordoxfamgroup.org.uk for details if interested in joining us

What happes to Oxfam Shop Donations?

A recent article in the Guardian newspaper has a fascinating (and approving) look at the process that starts up when a supporter brings a bag of donations into an Oxfam Shop. http://gu.com/p/2m6q6/ip