The Treacle Well

The Oxford Oxfam Group Walk (12 June 2010) is a sponsored walk in the countryside around Oxford. There are so many unexpected an beautiful places on the route that we have given it the tagline "Discover a hidden world and change this one."

The places of interest along the route are brilliantly described in the walk booklet, written by local academic, author and OOG member Cyril Edwards. One passage explains how the "Treacle Well" got its name:

"...The main point of the detour, though, is St Margaret's, Binsey. Walk to the south end of the village, and then take the road to the right. (Ignore the awful noise from the Ring Road.) Follow the road for about a mile. A few houses and conifers, the trees of ancient Thornbury, mark your destination. Goats graze in an adjacent field. It's a simple little church, essentially 12thC, with some fine medieval glass in the east window. Legend has it that St Frideswide (c. 680-735), the patron saint of Oxford, built an oratory here in Saxon times. Here she also cured the Mercian prince Algar, her would-be seducer, of blindness, using water from St Margaret's Well, which she created by praying to St Margaret of Antioch, an obscure 5thC martyr. The well is still there in the churchyard, a place of pilgrimage. Both the church and the well were restored by T.J. Prout in the 19thC. Prout was a friend of Lewis Carroll – hence the 'treacle well' in Alice in Wonderland. In Middle English tryacle or triacle meant a medicinal compound or healing fluid, but the Dormouse appears to be ignorant of this:

'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well –'
'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.
'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked. 'They'd have been ill.'
'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'very ill.' "

So there you go! Register for the Oxford Oxfam Group Walk, and have a great day in the country while raising money for Oxfam. Register at www.oogwalk.info - registration is free, and it really helps us to know how many walkers to expect.

Only 56 days until the OOG Walk!

Only 56 days until the OOG Walk! Happily, preparations are well under way!

Details of the day
12 June 2010
Discover a hidden world and change this one. A great family day out with a 5 mile or 12 mile option. Plenty of on the day entertainment including a quiz for the children. It is a lovely route taking in the best of Oxford starting and finishing from Lake Street. History, Scenery, Natural History, a range of good pubs: this walk has it all!

The start and finish point of the walk is the South Oxford Community Centre
Lake Street,
Oxford
OX1 4RP
Directions and other information about the South Oxford Community Centre

You can come and start the walk any time between 10am – 1pm. The office will close at 5pm (so don't start too late, or visit ALL the pubs!)

The route

Lake Street – New Hinksey – Osney – Binsey – Godstow – Wolvercote – Burgess Field Nature Park – Oxford Canal Walk – Mill Stream Walk – Grandpont – Lake Street

There is a shorter (5 mile) option
Lake Street – New Hinksey – Osney – Binsey –Oxford Canal Walk – Mill Stream Walk – Grandpont – Lake Street


You can register here : www.oogwalk.info (registration is free, and it helps us a lot to know how many walkers to expect)

Walkers can set up a web page to which you can direct friends, family, colleagues etc. They can sponsor you on the web page by credit card. This takes a lot of the hassle out of asking for sponsorship and collecting the cash (other Oxfam walks tell us that walkers who collect sponsorship this way raise three times more on average, compared with folks using paper forms). Sign up in a few simple steps from this page. Within a few minutes you can have your own sponsorship page! My own humble effort (just a few minutes work mind!) is here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/ChrisBaker1

You can also keep up with walk news on twitter: @OOGWalk or http://twitter.com/oogwalk

Ask the Climate Question in East Oxford

And another chance to tackle our election candidates on development issues! Organised by Greenpeace, the East Oxford climate hustings are on Wednesday 21 April at 7.30 in Oxford town hall.

Details of the event are on the Ask the Climate Question website. And a handy election campaigning toolkit has been produced by Oxfam. It covers our two current campaigns at the moment - climate change, and also the proposed Robin Hood Tax to pay for international development and other public goods.

And if you can't come to the hustings or hassle your candidates on your doorstep, then you can email them, again, via the Oxfam website.

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.