We’ll be meeting up on June 10th, in Oxford Town Hall as usual. This will be a chance to plan our activities for the rest of the summer. Our new Chair will also be looking for ideas to make meetings more interesting, welcoming and productive! As ever, non-members are very welcome.
Chair’s report 2013-2014
Outgoing Oxford WDM chair Sam Partington gave the following Chair’s Report at our AGM last week.
Over the past year, we’ve had stalls at events including Cowley Road Carnival, Elder Stubbs, the Green Fair and the One World Fair. We even got to Banbury again! And we’ve protested on Cornmarket about the role of Barclays in Food Speculation.
Apart from stalls and stunts, what else have we been up to? Well…
Our year began with a fascinating talk by Peter Dwyer, professor of “radical economics” at Ruskin College. Covering the failures of the free-market model, alternatives to the goal of economic growth, the role of China and the ideologies of economics degrees, this was a wide-ranging discussion with a very interesting guest.
We were fortunate enough to have another speaker in July last year – a guest speaker in two senses, as she was visiting Martin & Ruth and also a guest at our meeting. Helen Magombo spoke about aid and development from a Malawian perspective.
The Carbon Capital campaign was launched, with a very popular “web of power” infographic and accompanying booklet.Deborah Doane stepped down as chair of national WDM, and her successor Nick Dearden came to speak to us. We discussed the idea of “The Commons” and the future of WDM in an inspiring evening at the Friends meetings House in November.
We continued campaigning about Food Speculation, and won a victory in the form of new EU legislation and another in Barclays’ withdrawal from speculative trading on food. Continuing the food theme, we held a well-attended film-showing on the theme of Food Sovereignty in January.
And the new Agribusiness campaign was launched! We marked this campaign with a stall at the Oxford Folk Festival – this was a first for us as we’d never attended before. It was also novel in that we moved beyond simply getting people to sign postcards, having a game for passers-by and lots of cake!
I’d like to say thank you to everyone who’s been involved in any of the many things we’ve been up to this year. Thank you for your ideas, your enthusiasm, your time and your sheer hard work! On the horizon is WDM’s new campaign protesting the role of British banks in financing dirty coal projects, so I look forward to working with you on that!
And finally, you’re probably wondering how I have such a good memory for what we’ve done this last year. By way of revealing my secret, I’d like to say an extra thank you to Andrew for Oxspur and to Kate for her excellent blogging on our website. Thank you!
Carving up Africa at Oxford Folk Festival
Africa was up for grabs in Oxford WDM’s latest stunt. Our activists arrived at Oxford Folk Festival with an elaborate cake in the shape of the continent and invited passers-by to compete for a slice.
It was part of the usual Folk Festival fun and games, but with a serious message: Africa is being carved up by large corporations with the connivance of the UK government. Initiatives such as the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition sound good on the surface, but the real aim behind them is to make Africa’s resources more accessible for corporate profit. The claim is that the New Alliance will reduce hunger in Africa, but corporations such as Diageo, Monsanto and Unilever are using it to make a grab for Africa’s land, labour and natural resources.
We don’t think it’s acceptable that our own government supports this corporate takeover of African food. So we were asking passers-by to sign postcards to the Secretary of State for International Development, calling on her to withdraw UK support from the New Alliance. If you missed us on Saturday, you can write to her via our website.
High-resolution photos of the day are available on request.
Attac European summer university – are you interested?
The global activist network Attac organises a European “summer university” every two years where activists from different groups can meet for learning, debate and sharing knowledge. This year’s event is in Paris from Tuesday 19th August to Saturday 23rd August.
The Attac summer university is mainly aimed at volunteer activists rather than professional campaigners, and WDM is prepared to cover some of the costs of regular members attending. Head office are currently trying to gauge levels of interest in this. If you are interested in going, please email james@wdm.org.uk or phone 020 7820 4900.
WDM director Nick Dearden has been invited as a speaker for the event and there may be workshops from WDM staff.
Launch of WDM food campaign
The official launch of the WDM food campaign will take place on Wednesday 30th April at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1r 4RL. The guest speaker will be Janet Maro of Sustainable Agriculture Tanzania, who will speak about sustainable farming methods and resistance to the corporate takeover of agriculture.
Climate change and poverty
The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) have brought out a video report about the links between extreme poverty and climate change. It draws a bleak conclusion: there can be no end to extreme poverty unless we act on climate change.
