OMA APril Updates 2025

Dear OMA community

I hope you're all enjoying the lovely, sunny weather we've had over the past month - I certainly have! Believe it or not, the hall is now habitatable without a coat, so hope to see as many of you down there as possible soon! 

Now more than ever, it's crucial we stand together in solidarity and support, as the government continues to betray and abandon minoritised groups, it's key that we commit more than ever to our principles of solidarity, with the knowledge that an attack on one of us (be it the rollback of trans rights or stripping of disability support) is an attack on all of us.

Lots of important updates regarding OMA's work and (exciting) future included in this months update - and looking forward to making a brighter, better future for Oxford together with you all this summer.

CIO Application is IN!!!
Exciting news to start off! The CIO application has finally been submitted, after lots and lots of hard graft by Chris, Dan and the rest of the team. We've asked for it to be fast-tracked, so watch this space and hopefully next month we'll be writing to you with positive news!! 

The grant writing team have of course been toiling away preparing applications to be sent in the second our application is approved - so we're very excited for all the new funding opportunities this can bring (gift-aid, etc). If you're eager to help with this transition (have knowledge of gift aid, etc), please get in touch.

Goodbye to Chris :(

On a sadder note - Chris L has sadly left OMA this month. After an amazing 2+ years working as a coordinator for the OMA team, he's made the decision to move on from working at OMA (although he'll still be helping out here and there!).

Chris has been an absolutely incredible asset to OMA and will be sorely missed - please make sure to send him your goodbyes and thank you's if you haven't already!!!

Lex (who i'm sure many of you know already) will be stepping up to fill Chris's role, so expect to see even more of him around in the following months.

Ending KC Only parcels & Adding More Regs!
This month, we made the decision to stop offering our KC only parcels - these were parcels of strictly ready meals, part of our (long ago finished) Kitchen Collective scheme. We've chatted with the 10 or so households we once supported through this scheme will now be supported by our partners at Waste 2 Taste (who we used to receive most of these meals from anyhow), and a few have been moved to receiving 'full' parcels and further support from us.

For those interested - Kitchen Collective was a scheme we used to run during the pandemic era (2020-2021), which had it's own local kitchen, where furloughed chefs + community members would cook ready meals with the huge amount of surplus we used to have. Of course, the supplies we have available (and amount of time people have free) have reduced substantially over the years, so Kitchen Collective came to an end several years ago, but KC only parcels remained, supplemented by ready meals we received from other organisations.

This has enabled us to offer weekly parcels to 12 more households on our 'waiting list'. We'll also be checking in with all our regular households this May, in an effort to best understand their needs and have a proper check-in, which we'll start doing every 6 months - hopefully this may enable more circulation on our regulars list, opening up more spots for people currently receiving EPs to start getting more help from us. 

All in all, we're trying to really boost the hollistic/wrap-around support OMA offers! We recently received training from Citizens Advice, and are now signed up refer to the Children In Need household support fund (which can provide furniture and white goods to those in need). We've also switched over to a new caller system, where our caller team of 6+ callers (largely new people trained by Frayer!) will be checking in with the same households each week - hopefully making both parties feel more comfortable, get to know eachother and improve the ability for us to help.

OMA PAUSE WEEK

This year's OMA Pause Week will be from the 20th-26th of May. This will enable the staff team to catch up on important tasks + take some of their annual leave! The hall will be largely closed during this week, but we may have some big pickups / re-arranging to do, so keep an eye on the usual channels for callouts!

Volunteer Spotlight

A massive thank you to everyone has stepped up and gone above and beyond this month - it's been amazing seeing so many new (and old) faces in the hall and delivering parcels! Particularly delighted by how many people have stopped up to become drivers/bikers, and we're always welcome of more - if you're interested in helping out more- be this through pickup/delivery, or other special skills, we want to hear from you - get in touch at volunteering@oxfordmutualaid.org

Our superstar volunteer of the month this April is Maria + Julian!! Maria + Julian are part of our newly re-organised and recruited phones team, and have got truly stuck in with contacting recipients every week. Julian also really stepped up and went above and beyond, starting to train new phones volunteers despite only being in the role for a few weeks - a true team player!

Maria has also been doing some incredible data analysis for us, which will be very, very useful for grant applications and expanding our service - discovering, for instance that 48% of our deliveries are to the 10% most deprived areas of Oxfordshire. I've attached some of her data analysis below, for those interested.

This is particularly important as Oxford is in a unique situation - with some of the highest levels of cost of living, inequality and food poverty in the UK - yet on national metrics, it can appear somewhat 'rich'/well-off, disguising the depth of food poverty that really exists here. A massive thank you to Maria - these stats were a vital part of our CIO application and will be incredibly useful going forward!!

NEws

Trans Solidarity Statement - See OMA’s Statement HERE.

Eid Donations from Tyndale Community School!

A huge thank you to Tynedale Community School for inviting us to their Eid Celebrations this year, and a big thank you to Kevin for representing us at the event!!!

Also a big thank you to teacher Sara, who organised these fabulous donations of hygiene items and canned food baskets from the school community.

We were delighted to give out a bunch of special items for Eid in all our halal parcels this month - a big thank you to all who donated for this, particularly (as ever) the wonderful Emily S!

Plush  + Happy Cakes Supporting OMA! 

A big thank you to the local businesses supporting our work this month!

For the upcoming Trinity term, we'll be partnering with Plush nightclub -  a small donation from all Fixr sales to their Tuesgays/Skittles student night will go to OMA! So, if you (or a friend) is a plush regular, please tell them to get their tickets via Fixr! We also met up with the Plush Director of Operations (see below, left), organising a £500 wholesale purchase of stock for OMA - a massive thank you to them! 

We were also deliciously delighted to receive some lovely donations from Happy Cakes UK (below, right) which will be going straight into parcels for those in need. 

If you have a business or local organisation in mind who you think might want to help us out, let us know! 

Boston Marathon Fundraising!

A big thank you to the amazing Tom Berry, who'll be running the Boston Marathon (linconshire, not the US like I also originally assumed) to raise money for OMA!!

Tom has already fundraised well over £800 for us - which we're super grateful for. If you'd like to support his efforts + help OMA out at the same time, his fundraising page is here.

HELP NEEDED

PRINTER(S) NEEDED!

Many people believe that printers can sense when you need them most, so they can break down at the most inconvenient times. Of course, OMA is no exception to this - with our last remaining printer finally giving up on us and dying this month.

Hence, if anyone has a spare/leftover printer they are able to donate to us, please get in touch!!

On a longer-term note, if anyone knows any local businesses with professional printing facilities we may be able to use for oue leaflets/posters, please also get in touch - this would be a massive help and signficantly reduce our costs!
 

Backpacks + Panniers Still NEEDED
Finally, reiterating this call from last month:

Every month, our amazing bikes team delivers 100+ parcels to households across Oxford, giving us amazing flexibility in our deliveries with the ability to easily pass through traffic filters and cycle down paths/roads cars are too big to fit down!

Some of our bikers have panniers + large backpacks, enabling a comfier ride for them, and crucially, the ability to deliver much more - 1 or 2 extra parcels in a trip, or a parcel for a much bigger household.

However, not all our bikers have these - limiting their capacity. Hence, we're asking for donations of anyones old/spare panniers/large backpacks so we can keep at the hall for use of various bikers! Please send an emal to coordinators@oxfordmutualaid.org if you think you can help out :)
 

That's all for this month! Hoping to bring lots of good news to you next month (fingers crossed) - it's needed more than ever right now.

Continue to look out for one another, in solidarity, support and community, and otherwise I/we will see you around the hall and beyond

Love and Solidarity - Alfie + The OMA Team.