Sticky: Oxfam International Updates

The latest from campaigns around the world

EAST AFRICA FOOD CRISIS – http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/east_africa.html

HAITI EARTHQUAKE APPEAL- http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/haiti-earthquake.html

CLIMATE CHANGE – http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/campaign/climate_change/

Second literary quiz, crime month.

We are gearing up for our second quiz. Provisionally it looks like March 9th at The 78 Bar, Kelvinhaugh St. The format will be similar to the first, lots of questions of literary fiction, scottish fiction, crime etc. I think we pitched the last one pretty well, so if you fancy you know your Hemingway from your Hardy, get a team together. I’ll post final details when we confirm the date. Proceeds from the night will go toward ongoing work in Haiti.

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It’s also crime month, with the emphasis this year on women crime writers/sub-genres. As always we’ve given over extra modules to display our offer and we’re hoping for the spike in donations that usually comes with this promotion.

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Finally, the style shop is in the middle if a substantial refit. It will reopen as an Oxfam DIY shop, still dealing in clothing, but with a quirkier, fresher branding. It will reopen later in the month. Must visit!

Haiti update, literary quiz.

The DEC appeal for the dire situation in Haiti has naturally overshadowed the ongoing Oxfam fundraising campaign. No doubt it will still be vital to help Haiti prepare for a future with a more unstable climate, so unless the campaigns are changed or conflated, our Haiti/literary quiz will go ahead as planned at the end of February(exact date to be confirmed). Money from that, combined with donations collected instore, will go to this climate change fund, and not disaster relief.
It’s a brutal irony that it has taken a major catastrophe to root the plight of Haiti in the public consciousness. We hope that a co-ordinated relief effort can soon work to full capacity to help these people rebuild their lives.

Check out Oxfam’s official book blog

I felt this was worth a reference as the new editor, Alex Barker, was impressed enough with our own shop blog to link us on their blogroll (our first decent offer of a link!). They are also in the process of building up a readership so please go and bookmark or subscribe to the feed. I’ll post their link at the end of this post.

Our own site is up to mid-page3 of google search “oxfam books”. If we could get it onto page 1 by end of year that would do nicely. It’s tricky being a start-up blog with enough content to be off and running but not yet enough to get linked by better known blogs. I’ve approached a few excellent DIY book-sites recently and as yet, no joy. Early days but..

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/default.html

Haiti: an emergency appeal

No doubt most of you will have seen the news that a major earthquake has struck Haiti, just 10 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince. Oxfam has an appeal currently running for the country (raising funds so that we can help manage the devastating effects of Climate Change there) but there is now an emergency fund open so that we can provide water and sanitation. Haiti is the poorest country in the western world and an event like this is going to be an enormous strain on infrastructure, not to mention the social and psychological trauma that will result from loss of life and home. Any money, anything at all that you can donate will help and you can donate through the Oxfam website or in any Oxfam shop from today.

We are back.

Hello to 2010. Remember all those Christmasses where you looked out the window at clear roads and green lawns and thought ‘wish it would snow, this is not very Christmassy’. Yes? Well…

Plenty to blog about in the upcoming months. Cliffnotes:

Annual crime month - annual postcard sale – retro kids sale (including large collection of ladybird books) - second literary quiz: raising funds for Haiti –  Oxfam Bookfest 2010

We also hope to improve our online presence, driving more traffic to this blog, making more use or twitter and facebook to inform and promote and increasing awareness of our ebay and amazon selling points (any veteran bloggers/e-sellers out there feel free to share tips!).

There’ll be more as it happens but that’s the bones of it for now.  Stay posted now..

Copenhagen: Oxfam’s verdict

A singular and crucially significant political event has been and gone. My worry is that a lot of us have more or less missed it. The general consensus seems to be that the Copenhagen Climate Summit has been a dissappointment. For certain it hasn’t delivered the unilaterally sanctioned agreement that Oxfam and others had hoped for. But there were some small signs of progress, and the issue must not be allowed to wither. I would urge everyone to read Oxfam’s intial report here and to try to stay abrest of developments next year.

The Art Of Stella Watson

I didn’t intend to post again before Christmas but as I sandwich-break I notice that our sometime photographer, James, has been in and photographed some of the wonderful posters that Stella Watson has made for us over the last few years. Stella is on a mini-break from her volunteering at the moment and she is sorely missed. We intended to post these images on here as an overdue testament to her talents, so here they are….

Best wishes to you for the holidays!

Last post until after Christmas. I’m stealing two minutes..

*bells jingling in background, James is sitting in a large red chair, pipe in hand, fire burning to his right, chestnuts roasting*

Well, here we are. And it wouldn’t be Christmas for me without three things: having a cold, festive card stocks diminshing and Johns snack-trip to the shops on Christmas Eve (volunteers – if you’re in Glasgow on the day, call in for some pop and a plate of food otherwise we take it home and I have a calorie-mountain to contend with as is). In fact, I don’t think I had a cold last year, so just the two things then.

*back door rings. donation. reality-check. Roll-wrap to put out. Fiction to fill.*

Best wishes over the holidays everyone!

The bookshop team.

Copenhagen, Borders, Christmas

The Copenhagen climate summit is here and controversy is already at hand. Following the leaked (and suspiciously well-timed) emails there is now a leaked document suggesting that big countries have already made tacit aggreements that, if pushed through, would benefit them most. Considering what is at stake, it’s no surprise to see tensions escalating and power plays being made by all the interested parties. The next couple of weeks will no doubt be fascinating and we should hope that sensible resolutions are found. In Oxfam’s words:

“It’s no exaggeration to say that the outcome of The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, 7 – 18 December 2009, will affect everyone on the planet.”

More on that here.

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Many Glaswegians are sad to see Borders go into administration. The Glasgow store occupies a significant building in the centre of the shopping district and has become a one-stop shop for international magazine and newspaper browsing as well as having (in this bloggers opinion) a superior selection of non-fiction to Waterstones.  If there is no successful bid, let’s hope something imaginative pops up in it’s place. Not that I’m sympathising with the competition struggling (!), but it does seem like a significant vacuum will exist in it’s absence.  You’ll all just have to spend more time in the incomparable Oxfam Books on Byres Road…

Finally, the Christmas machine is well and truly in motion. It’s momentum and gathering pace all the way now. Our card and food ranges seem to be going well this year so fingers crossed it continues.

Quiz. Q.1: Work = *blank* Q.2: 5th December = *blank*.

My apologies for the long break between posts. We’re entering our busiest period of the year. Anyone who has volunteered with us or worked before in retail or charity may have experienced Christmas trading. It’s a beast! Our biggest weeks occur in December, the big one being the last full week of the calendar year. Christmas cards cannot be topped-up fast enough, queues snake around sections, everyone gets run ragged, but it pays off. Work=profit, and in our case profit=help for people in poverty, so work=….you got it. It’s a rewarding bottom line.

As ever, we are swimming in excellent quality donation. Yesterday a man rolled up in a station wagon sagging with neatly stacked, dead-weight boxes. He said to me: “this is the cream of the crop here”. Seriously, it was. This is one way the system works really well. I suspect, like a lot of donors, he knew the kind of stuff we sold, knew we had the skills and diligence to establish a deserving price, and he packed up what amounted to a large amount of revenue for us, drove it over and gifted it. My only tiny gripe was that there wasn’t a huge amount of fiction in there (greed, greed). So just as well the steady stream of one-and-two bag dontions of fiction and crime keep our bread-and-butter sections going too.

In Oxfam at large, the East Africa Food Crisis is still a crucial campaign, as is the Climate Change drive to Copenhagen. Go here to find out details about  the Glasgow Wave on the 5th December. Get involved if you can. Also,  Helena Chistensen recently travelled to her mother’s native country of Peru to document the consequences of climate change there. You can view her photographs here.

I’ll post again before Santa graces your chimneys.