[The OARC group]
[Getting Involved]
[How to use the space]
[Groups based here]
[PGA Hallmarks]
The OARC Group
This project complements the community centre as a whole by providing space for groups that are too small to raise the hire fee for the main halls. It is open for everyone to use within normal behaviour guidelines.
The space is organised by a weekly meeting at which people volunteer for the jobs that need to be done. All people are welcome to come to the meetings. Most work is done by working groups, which just include all the people volunteering for the job. The meeting sets boundaries for the working groups to work by and they have autonomy within that.
Decisions are made by agreement among the people involved in the working groups. All other people are invited to give opinions and help to make better decisions.
There are regular OARC meetings. We welcome anybody who wants to come along and get involved
Getting involved
Here are 5 top ways to get involved in OARC:
- Come along to our organizing meetings.
- Join the email list, or wiki.
- Donate your time, money or skills
- Book the centre for your grassroots events.
- Share our resources.
How to Use the Space
When the room is shown as "open", you can come in to use the available resources. The person staffing the room has first choice of resources and you may have to fit in around their use of the room. At unbooked times, there is also often someone in here so call or drop by to see, if you want to use the space.
At other times, the meeting space might be booked but the office space still available (or the other way round). You are free to use the unbooked parts of the room if your use doesn't interfere with the booked users. If users want the room to themselves, they will book the whole space.
Events in the space include meetings, training in various skills, office use times, social gatherings and possibly other things I haven't thought of. You can come to any of the open events or book the space for your own event.
We prefer to see the room used for events that are free to attend. We don't charge if you don't charge. We do ask users to donate for the costs of things such as tea and coffee, stationery or printing that you use. The donation is only intended to cover the cost of what you use. Further donations to help with the rent are appreciated.
Of course, you need to leave the room clean and tidy. A lot of the furniture is movable and we ask you to return it to its original arrangement when you finish.
Groups and Users Based Here
| Oxford Indymedia | Maintaining an "open-publishing" local news website and organising informative film screenings. |
| Meditation | Open Meditation - all types of silent meditation practiced together |
| Book Club | People choose a book from the library, read it and then discuss it. |
| Oxford-Brazil Solidarity | Raising awareness in Oxford about the situation in Brazil and campaigning here in solidarity with the Brazilian people. |
| Animal Rights | Raising awareness of the scientific arguments against vivisection and campaigning against animal experimentation at Oxford University. |
| Activist Trauma Healing | A group set up to help minimise the trauma activists face due to their political activities, to promote awareness of the trauma people suffer and to help people affected find appropriate ways to treat it. |
| Clown Army | Using silliness and comedy to help defuse tense situations involving crowds and the police. |
| Trapeze | A trapeze artist comes each week to take advantage of our high ceiling. |
| Dissent Oxford | A group campaigning for the dissolution of the G8 and publicising the arguments about it. |
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PGA Hallmarks
We use these statements as a starting point for explaining our ideas of justice, although all users of the space are not expected to explicitly subscribe to all of them.
The People's Global Action network was founded in 1998 by hundreds of people from social movements as diverse as the Brazilian landless peasants movement (MST), Reclaim the Streets in the UK, the Zapatistas in Mexico, radical ecologists from the Ukraine, Maori from New Zealand and squatters from across Europe, all of whom had gathered in Geneva for the founding conference.
The PGA Network was created as a tool for co-ordination and communication to organise global anti-capitalist resistance, particularly to international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and to draw attention to the possibility of alternative forms of social organisation.
Hallmarks indicating that a group is committed to forward-moving social change were developed in long and difficult meetings. They are:
- A very clear rejection of capitalism, imperialism and feudalism; all trade agreements, institutions and governments that promote destructive globalisation.
- We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination including, but not limited to, patriarchy, racism and religious fundamentalism of all creeds. We embrace the full dignity of all human beings.
- A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.
- A call to direct action and civil disobedience, support for social movements' struggles, advocating forms of resistance which maximise respect for life and oppressed peoples' rights, as well as the construction of local alternatives to global capitalism
- An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy.