News and Events

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AGM and talk from Possible’s Director of Campaigns

We look forward to welcoming you to LCON’s meeting on the evening of Wednesday 5 July 2023 (19.00 – 20.45). As well as holding our formal Annual General Meeting, we will be introducing our proposed new project, the Oxford Car-Free Challenge. Come and hear from national climate charity Possible’s Director of Campaigns Hirra Khan Adeogun about how previous versions of this project worked. Taking a three-week break from their cars helped participants to see how they could move towards more active travel. We’d like to bring this successful approach to Oxford, and we need your support! Please come to the Jericho Community Centre and find out more about this exciting new initiative.

18.45 Doors open; registration

19.15 Annual General Meeting – the formal AGM business. Everyone is welcome; members can vote. Please see information and links to documents below.

19.45 The Oxford Car-Free Challenge: Carey Newson, LCON trustee, and Hirra Khan Adeogun, Director of Campaigns, Possible

20.15 Refreshments and informal discussions

20.45 Close

Annual General Meeting

Jericho Community Centre, Canal Street, Oxford OX2 6BQ

This is the formal notice of LCON’s Annual General Meeting. All LCON supporters are very welcome to attend the whole evening, but voting at the AGM is limited to LCON members. You can check whether you are a member by following the ‘Update my preferences’ link at the bottom of any of our mailings. If you don’t get mailings from us, sign up here!

The AGM agenda and papers can be found below. We can send a paper copy of the annual report and accounts to anyone who would like one (email us to request this).

Agenda for LCON AGM 2023

Draft minutes of the 2022 AGM

LCON trustees report and annual accounts 2022

Proxy form for members who cannot attend

If any members cannot attend the AGM, they can appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf. The proxy can be any member, including the chair. It helps us a lot if you do this, so if you can’t attend, please download and fill in the proxy form, and return it to Rebecca Nestor by 4 July. 

We will be delighted to welcome our new trustee Alun Evans to the AGM. He will be standing formally for election at the meeting. We still have vacancies for new trustees, so if you are interested, please get in touch to find out more or visit the post on our website. The AGM is not the only opportunity to join the board, as we can co-opt trustees at any time during the year. You don’t need specialist knowledge, though this is always welcome: we want people who live in our community and care about climate change. To find out what is involved and have an informal chat, please contact our chair Rebecca Nestor, or feel free to raise this in the informal discussion on the evening of the AGM. 

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NEW! Housewarming Guide 7 on Electricity, Appliances and Home Renewables

We are excited to launch our seventh Housewarming Guide: Electricity, Appliances and Home Renewables.

Our first six Housewarming Guides focused on how to reduce heat loss and how best to heat your home to achieve the lowest carbon emissions and costs. This guide focuses on saving money and reducing carbon emissions from electricity use. Find out how you can:

  • use electricity more efficiently in your electrical appliances; and
  • generate electricity at home through renewable sources.
Continue reading →
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Support the Oxford Car-Free Challenge: taking a break from our cars

***UPDATE OCTOBER 2023: We are pleased to announce that we have reached our original fundraising target.  A big thank you to everyone who has contributed. We welcome further donations; any additional funds raised will allow us to extend the scope of project. ***

We are seeking to raise £20,000 to enable a new project, the Oxford Car-Free Challenge, to be developed in partnership with the national climate action group Possible and the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformation (CAST) at Cardiff University. The Oxford Car-Free Challenge will support individuals to try taking a break from their cars for a few weeks – and to use this experience to consider a longer-term move towards more active travel (by which we mean walking, cycling and using public transport).

What’s involved and how the project will benefit active travel in Oxford

The project will involve recruiting twelve volunteer regular car users and supporting them in taking a break from using their cars for three weeks. These individuals will  then act as exemplars or mentors to encourage others to take similar steps.

It can feel quite a challenge to reduce our car use, and we want to help people enjoy the experience. We think this project is useful because it will make a practical contribution to helping people make changes in their own lives. We’d like to help create a city where people can enjoy being out and about, and get to where they need to be, without always having to bother with the car. The volume of cars in our streets right now not only creates pollution and poor air quality and makes it difficult and unsafe to move around, but also puts us all at risk from the CO2 emissions created by so many private vehicles.  Measures to encourage active travel in the city have won majority support from residents, but have also generated fractious debate and misunderstandings. Residents with high car use are naturally concerned about the impact of changes on their everyday lives, even if they agree on the need for them. This project will help people identify realistic alternatives in a way that is sympathetic, supportive and positive.
 
The project builds on a successful initiative run by Possible in other UK cities in 2022. Most participants in that initiative found going car-free reduced their weekly travel costs, as well as their carbon emissions. There were other unexpected benefits for participants, such as being able to engage in more relaxed and enjoyable travel with family members. Our project in Oxford will support sustainable travel and reduce car dependency in Oxford – increasingly an issue for many residents in and outside Oxford as we prepare for the introduction of ambitious traffic reduction measures.  Further details on the LCON project can be found here, and you can also read the presentation at our AGM in July 2023 by Hirra Khan Adeogun of Possible.

How you can support the project

Possible has already raised part of the funding for the project, and we are now asking our members and supporters to help to fund the remainder.  LCON needs to raise £20,000. Donations from trustees and a commitment from our own reserves have raised £5,500, and generous supporters to date have increased this total to £8,260. Can you help us get to the target? Visit our Donate page for details of how to make a contribution.

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Low Carbon Oxford North is looking for new trustees

Are you worried about the climate crisis and looking for ways to contribute locally and make a difference? Oxford charity Low Carbon Oxford North are seeking new trustees.

Being a trustee is an opportunity to get involved in LCON’s projects in whatever ways suit your interests and other commitments. LCON is keen for people of all ages and backgrounds to get involved: you don’t need masses of experience or knowledge about climate change. Trustees meet once a month and they also – depending on availability and interests – step forward to lead or take part in projects. We have an experienced bookkeeper to deal with our modest financial transactions, and a brilliant co-ordinator who provides project management and keeps everything moving.  If you think you might be interested or would like to find out more, please contact our chair Rebecca by email to arrange an informal chat (chair@lcon.org.uk), or read this document.

Freelance role: Housewarming co-ordinator
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Freelance role: Housewarming co-ordinator

An opportunity to help an active low-carbon group take a successful project to the next stage

Low Carbon Oxford North are looking for a talented freelance community/events organiser to help us take Housewarming to the next level.  Housewarming aims to help homeowners prepare their homes to cut down energy use and phase out fossil fuels. It works through six informative Guides, written especially for Housewarming by an expert in low-energy homes. We also enable people to share experiences through a WhatsApp group and monthly support meetings, which we call Housewarmings.

The opportunity is available from the end of January to 30 September 2023 in the first instance. Working as an independent contractor for up to a day a week, the organiser will focus on supporting the Housewarming programme and expanding its reach significantly.

Please read the further details and information on how to apply. The closing date for applications is 30 December 2022 and we expect to hold interviews in the w/c 16 January 2023.

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Energy Saving Homes bite-size films launched!

We were delighted to see the launch of Energy Saving Homes bite-size films last Tuesday, as part of Great Big Green Week. Many thanks to all those who came.


The bite-size films are a series of 2-4 minute films made by Energy Saving Homes, a project of Communities for a Zero Carbon Oxford. Funded by the Low Carbon Hub and Oxford City Council, the films are all about how to save energy in your home – with examples from real people.

Continue reading →
Public meeting and AGM, 19 July 2022
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Public meeting and AGM, 19 July 2022

We look forward to welcoming you to LCON’s public meeting on the evening of 19 July (19.30 – 21.00). As well as holding our formal Annual General Meeting, we will be launching the full suite of Housewarming guides and setting out our plans for Housewarming from September onwards. The meeting is also a chance to express your views and concerns, to tell us how you think we can be as effective as possible, and to explore how you can get involved. Whatever your skills and interests, please come along and take part.

We are holding the meeting via Zoom: click here to register for the link.

Programme for the evening

19.30 Start and registration

19.40 Annual General Meeting – the formal AGM business. Everyone is welcome; members can vote. Please see information and links to documents below.

20.10 Housewarming: Short presentation and discussion

20.30 How to get involved in LCON’s work: small-group activity with trustees

21.00 Close

Annual General Meeting

This is the formal notice of LCON’s Annual General Meeting. Everyone is very welcome to attend the whole evening, but voting at the AGM is limited to LCON members. You can check this by following the ‘Update my preferences’ link at the bottom of any of our mailings. If you don’t get mailings from us, sign up here!

The AGM agenda and papers can be found below. The agenda includes links to the documents, including the annual report and accounts (combined in one document), and a proxy form for anyone who cannot attend. We can send a paper copy of the annual report and accounts to anyone who would like one (email us to request this).

Agenda for LCON AGM 2022

LCON trustees report and annual accounts 2021

Proxy form for members who cannot attend

If any members cannot attend the AGM, they can appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf. This could be any member, including the chair. It helps us a lot if you do this, so if you can’t attend, please download and fill in the proxy form, and return it to Rebecca Nestor by 18 July. 

We still have vacancies for new trustees, so if you are interested, please get in touch to find out more. The AGM is not the only opportunity to join the board, as we can co-opt trustees at any time during the year. We are particularly hoping to broaden the diversity of the board and we especially encourage people of colour, younger people and men to consider the role. You don’t need specialist knowledge, though this is always welcome: we want people who live in our community and care about climate change. To find out what is involved and have an informal chat, please contact our chair Rebecca Nestor, or feel free to raise this in the small-group activity on the evening of the AGM.