Our Housewarming Programme aims to help homeowners prepare their homes to meet net zero targets, phase out fossil fuels and cut down energy use. It brings homeowners together, in a supportive environment, to help navigate the overwhelming amount of information; build greater understanding of the options available; and look to identify the right steps for each home.
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Our Communities for Zero Carbon home energy project, ‘Energy Saving Homes’, is now funded and underway – and we need your help!
Have you made your home more energy efficient in any way and would you like to inspire others to do the same?
We’re looking for people like you, who have installed anything from letterbox brushes, insulation and glazing, to renewables, to take part.
Choose what times and which days to open – and you can even do it virtually if you prefer (eg through zoom). Demonstrating what you’ve done and explaining all the pros and cons to your neighbours can have a really big impact.
Find out more at Communities for Zero Carbon Oxford and contact Lois Muddiman at lois.muddiman@energysavinghomes.co.uk if you’re interested in taking part.
LCON’s Housewarming Programme aims to enable homeowners to feel confident and well informed about their options and choices for eco-renovation.
Our aim is to provide base knowledge and a supportive framework to help local residents navigate through their options and become more educated ‘buyers’, preparing for the likely replacement of most UK gas central heating systems with heat pumps. Find out more about the programme here.
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Oxford Communities for Zero Carbon are planning Eco-Renovation Oxford, a project to encourage residents to improve the insulation of their homes, through both large and small measures. We will hold a Green Open Homes Week at the end of June and an Eco-Renovation Fair at the Town Hall on 26 June. There’ll be a series of talks, films and advice booklets for householders, tenants and landlords.
Subject to funding, we expect to appoint a part-time paid organiser (about two days a week) from April to July 2022 to support these two linked events. We are particularly interested in expressions of interest from younger people, people of colour, and people from other groups that are less represented in climate and environmental work. What’s important to us is that you are talented and organised, have some experience of community work, and would like to work on a project to bring the benefits of warm homes to a wider public. If you’d be interested in being considered, send a paragraph about you and your day rates to Rebecca Nestor, chair@lcon.org.uk. If you’d like to know more first, ask for an informal chat with Rebecca.
As we confront news of soaring energy prices and the phasing out of gas boilers, many of us are turning our attention to how to make our homes warmer and more efficient.
In response we are launching our HouseWarming programme. This aims to prepare our homes to meet net zero targets, phase out fossil fuels and cut down energy use.
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On the same day as the COP26 rally, north Oxford school students sent their own message: climate action can be fun!
Armed with 20 bags of second hand clothes from Oxfam, the 18 students from Cherwell, Oxford High School and St Clare’s designed and upcycled new outfits before heading to Oxford’s Natural History Museum for their fashion photo shoot. They have now produced some amazing posters to spread awareness of sustainable fashion among their peers and beyond – here are some of them:
Thank you to LCON member and sustainability educator Kim Polgreen, Jeni Williams, the teachers and staff at the schools, staff at Oxfam and the Natural History Museum, for making this happen – and most of all, thank you to the students for their passion, positivity and enthusiasm!
Here is what the Oxford Mail had to say about the project.
If you want to find out more about the impact of fast fashion and what we can do about it, have a look at our collection of information and resources here.
This autumn we are delighted to be working with Kim Polgreen, LCON member and sustainable fashion enthusiast, and teachers and students from three north Oxford schools, on a project to highlight the thrills available from creating your own fashion by shopping second hand: a second hand fashion photo shoot to raise awareness of sustainable fashion.
Kim is an Oxford-based freelance sustainability educator, running events for young people to enthuse them about a sustainable future. She is Youth Educator in Residence at Wytham Woods, Oxford University’s research woodland, and runs an annual summer school for teenagers at the University’s Environmental Change Institute.
The schools involved are The Cherwell School, Oxford High School and St Clare’s College and we are really grateful to the teachers who are so generously giving their time and enthusiasm to make this project happen. We are also so grateful to Janet at the Oxfam shop in Summertown who is letting us have access to piles of donated clothes, and to staff at Oxfam head office who are supporting us with resources and encouragement. And we are thrilled that the Oxford University’s Museum of Natural History has agreed to let us do our fashion shoot amongst their dinosaurs – highlighting extinction!
The shoot takes place on 6 November, the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice, also coinciding with COP26. Once the photos are taken the students will reconvene to create posters on sustainable fashion using their photos, and feed back what they have learned to their schools. LCON will help publicise the posters and messages more widely.
We hope the project will be exciting and fun, and engage a wide range of people in a growing movement to bend the trend from fast to sustainable fashion.
During August and early September, LCON undertook a survey of local residents to assess the adequacy of local bus services in our area. The aim was to provide information that we could share with Oxfordshire County Council, who are making an application (a Bus Service Improvement Plan) at the end of October for government funding for additional bus services. We also wanted to find out more generally whether or not current bus services are meeting the needs of residents, and how they affect the use of cars.
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The fashion industry accounts for:
Three out of five items of clothing end up in incinerators or landfills within a year of being produced. Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned.
We can all buy less, repair more and buy second-hand. And we can call for change across the fashion industry.
As part of Great Big Green Week, Low Carbon Oxford North have compiled a directory of Oxford shops that score poorly on sustainability and ethical ratings (based on rating website Good On You), together with contact details and a template email and social media message.
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Come and help us plan the coming year
We look forward to welcoming you to LCON’s public meeting on the evening of 28 September (18.45 – 21.00). As well as holding our formal Annual General Meeting, we want to talk with you about our priorities for the coming twelve months. It’s a chance to express your views on how you think we can be as effective as possible, and to explore how you can get involved. With the climate crisis intensifying, the stakes couldn’t be higher: everyone is needed. Whatever your skills and interests, whether you’ve got a lot of time to offer or hardly any, please come along and take part.
We will be meeting in person at the Woodstock Road Baptist Church (corner of Woodstock and Beechcroft Roads). You can also join via Zoom if you prefer. It will help us to plan the evening if you book via Eventbrite: you will be asked to choose Zoom or in-person. All those who book via Eventbrite will receive the Zoom link.
Doors will open at 18.45 for hot drinks and biscuits, and a prompt 19.00 start for the AGM. We will continue at about 19.30 with a presentation of our plans for the coming year and small-group discussions about how we can make our plans as successful as possible and how you can get involved. The meeting will end at 21.00. We are not providing food this year but there will be unlimited hot water and plenty of biscuits!
Everyone concerned about climate change is welcome to the whole evening, but at the AGM only LCON members can vote.
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.
The AGM agenda and papers can be found above or at this link. The agenda includes links to the documents, including the annual report and accounts (combined in one document). There will be limited copies of the report and accounts at the meeting, and we can send a copy to anyone who would like one (email us to request this).
This year we have a special resolution involving a constitutional change. This is in response to changes in the City Council ward boundaries, which affect the definition of our area.
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. If you wish to do this, please fill in the proxy form and return it to Rebecca Nestor by 7pm on 26 September.
Interested in becoming a trustee?
We still have a few 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 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 for an informal chat, please contact our chair Rebecca Nestor (chair@lcon.org.uk), or feel free to approach any of the trustees on the evening of the AGM.
