I know, I know, it’s February already, but what’s one month of lateness compared to a whole year of activity? And what an exciting year it was here in Oxford! For me personally it was an important Greenpeace year – after years of more passive support, this year I joined Greenpeace Oxford as an active member! But enough about me, this post is about what we all did together…
One of the most delightful activities this past year was the Barbie treasure hunt. This was part of an international Greenpeace campaign to get Mattel, amongst other companies, to start behaving responsibly. And as Barbie was directly responsible for destroying rainforests (through her packaging), it seemed only right to introduce the world to ‘Chainsaw Barbie’! People all over the UK - Oxford included – searched for these Barbies to stop them before they cause any damage. The dolls are long gone by now, but you can still see here where they’ve been hiding – maybe you’ll recognise the location. But the best thing about this campaign is that it worked! Less than 4 months after the big treasure hunt Mattel announced a new policy which tackles deforestation across its whole supply chain. What a wonderful result for such a fun campaign!
Throughout the year we also joined Greenpeace groups from all over the world to fundraise for the new Rainbow Warrior, culminating with a big and *awesome* fundraiser at the Back Room @ The Bullingdon, where we raised exactly £1,000! (and 48p…). So when the new flagship stopped in London on its maiden voyage, it was only natural that a bunch of us went to welcome it. Sadly for me I couldn’t make it myself, but I heard it was thrilling!
And then there’s Volkswagen, and its insistence on clinging to the dark side. In the past few months this has been our main campaign – telling the public about VW’s shameful lobbying and enlisting support for the rebellion. We got hundreds of petition cards signed by the good people of Oxford, and heard their concerns – from long time Greenpeace supporters, to VW customers who were dismayed to hear about what this company, who likes to paint itself green, is really up to. We even had a Stormtrooper roaming around Oxford, being photographed with wandering Santa Clauses and – unintentionally! – alarming some dogs. But check out the video below to see some very unusual behaviour for a Stromtrooper...
Possibly not as exciting, but just as important for getting our message out there, this year we also increased our online presence. We now have a brand new Facebook page and our own YouTube channel, and we also reconnected with our Twitter account (which has nearly 800 followers!).
And this is just (some of) the stuff we did in Oxford. People from Oxford also participated in actions far and wide. From shutting the doors of the Department for Transport in London to protest the Minister’s connections to the Canadian tar sands lobbyists; to joining activists from all over Europe and blocking the entrances to the European Business Summit in Brussels back in May in order to shame the climate laggards who opposed deeper CO2 cuts.
From local activity to international campaigns, 2011 was exciting and we all took part in Greenpeace’s wonderful successes. Stay tuned to see what we’ll be up to in 2012! (and even better – join us! )
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