OCLT Spring(board) event: notes from the night

We loved seeing many members and others at our recent Spring(board) event at the Old Fire Station. Photos are at the bottom of this article.

Thanks to those of you who came along and exchanged your old button from Fran's collection for a free drink, bringing your energy and ideas with you. It's clear there's real enthusiasm among the wider Oxfordshire community for the work OCLT is doing.

We're keen to build on this enthusiasm in a programme of future events – more on which below. But first some highlights from the evening, for those of you who couldn't make it:

1. Our tenants' stories

We were very happy that some of our tenants were able to share their stories of how securing community owned, permanently affordable homes has made a difference to their lives. You can watch the short videos we made here.

2. Property donation initiative

We launched a new property donation initiative: this recognises that, on the one hand, it's incredibly difficult to secure land or property for community ownership on the open market but, on the other, that members of our wider community may have more land or property than they feel they need.

Acquiring existing homes is the quickest way for OCLT to build up its stock of permanently affordable homes. Our property donation initiative asks you to consider donating property or selling it to us at a discount. See our dedicated webpage for more details.

3. An introduction to OCLT

Up around the room we had some new information boards giving a comprehensive introduction to OCLT, how we work and how you can get involved in our projects. We've put these together in a PDF guide that you can read here.

Plans for future events...

One of the ideas behind this event was to try out some components of a series of four community capacity-building workshops that we're planning to hold over the next year. The purpose of these is to build capacity among a diverse range of Oxford residents to advocate for and participate in community-led affordable housing projects.

We've received a grant of £300 from Oxford City Council to hold these workshops, but we'll have to raise ten times this amount if they're to go ahead as planned. You can find out more about what we're planning to do here.