During a speech in 1957, Prime Minister Harold MacMillan declared “our people have never had it so good”. Now, more than half a century later, are we fundamentally any better off? Through discussion of technological advances, social changes, political reforms, and economic shocks and recessions, this panel will seek to question whether the world we currently live in is indeed a better place than it was in the 1950s.

Chaired by Professor Brian Nolan, Professor of Social Policy, the panel will consist of:

*Dr Max Roser, James Martin Fellow at The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School
*Dr Anders Sandberg, James Martin Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute
*Professor Robert Walker, Professor of Social Policy

A drinks reception will follow, all welcome.

Having seen the election results unfold, the topic of political strategy and communication is as relevant as ever in highlighting the ways in which politicians and organisations seek to influence public opinion and shape political debate. The Oxford Forum welcomes you to the Political Strategy Panel Debate to discuss the challenges faced, and the solutions provided, in devising an effective communication strategy.
This event will be co-hosted with the PPE society and the Journal of Political and Constitutional Studies.
Following the debate, we will be having dinner with the speakers in the private dining room of Christ Church. Tickets are available to purchase at
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/oxford-forums-political-strategy-speaker-dinner-tickets-16819258856
It is an unmissable opportunity to engage more directly with the speakers!

Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 7.30pm @ Film Oxford – FREE
Drones – Aerial Filming & Photography.

Everyone’s talking about Drones, come and find what the fuss is about! Speaker, Matthew Nicholson of HOLLYWOOD DRONES

Hollywood Drones is an aerial filming company based in Oxford. Fully licensed by the Civil Aviation Authority they film up to Ultra 4K using the same equipment as used by major broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV. Since setting up in 2014 they have established work for Sky Sports the National Trust and Oxford University as well as other Oxfordshire companies.

Matthew Nicholson is looking forward to visiting Film Oxford in May. His plan is to bring along all the kit with him so you can get close up and see what it is all about. Matt will explain what is involved in setting up and running the business from a legal perspective, how to operate drones legally and demonstrate some of their more recent short films. (Photos Hollywood Drones)

ALSO we will be having our ADOBE GROUPS raffle draw – one lucky person attending will win a year’s subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud!

We prefer if you can RSVP at our meetup page (but not compulsory)

Digital Film Editors (Oxford) MEET-UP PAGE
also

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/premiereandpostoxford

Film Oxford page (includes all previous meetings) http://www.filmoxford.org/adobeusergroups/

Joint meeting with Adobe Groups: Digital Film Editors (Oxford) and Oxford Digital Creative

Cyclox and the Oxford Pedestrians Association (OxPA) will be welcoming representatives of the bus companies that serve Oxford to a meeting to discuss the relationship between bikes, buses and pedestrians on the city’s busy streets.

Richard Mann, an Oxford-based transport and liveable cities consultant, will open the meeting with a presentation on how to make an excellent bus network and lead a discussion with contributions from Phil Southall of the Oxford Bus Company and Martin Sutton of Stagecoach.

There will be plenty of opportunities for questions and discussion from the floor, which will make for a very interesting event for anyone interested in how we move around our city. This is a public meeting so please come and add your voice to the debate.

As part of this year’s community outreach program, Oxford Brookes University’s 150th anniversary, and as a way showing our appreciation to all participants, clinicians, researchers, members of the public and organisations that have supported our work, we will be holding an open day on Saturday, 30th of May 2015. Over the past decade, the Movement Science Group, which now falls within the Centre for Rehabilitation at Oxford Brookes University, has conducted extensive research on a variety of topics related to rehabilitation and physical activity. Topics include measuring and understanding movement in those with movement difficulties, exercising benefits in people with neurological conditions, and developing novel rehabilitation strategies.

So many of us are desperately busy doing what’s immediately in front of us rather than the things that make a real difference.

Ben will tell the story of the GB men’s rowing 8+ in the build up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where they won the gold medal, and how they challenged everything to make the boat go faster. For Ben it was the culmination of nine years in the national team.

Ben’s story is a call to action, challenging you to examine how you spend your time in a way that ensures you are travelling in the direction that you want to go.

About the Speaker
Ben Hunt-David MBE
BEN HUNT-DAVIS MBE

Former Brookes student, Ben Hunt- Davis is a performance coach, speaker and author. Ben has been involved in five Olympic Games – three as a competitor and two as a member of the headquarters team. He was also Chairman of the Organising Committee for both the 2011 World Rowing Junior Championships and the 2013 Rowing World Cup. He now runs a performance consulting company helping companies to make their ‘boats go faster’. His first book is entitled Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?

This is a panel discussion organised in collaboration with ‘Oxford Refugee Week’ by the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Chairing will be Dr Jeff Crisp, with speakers Prof. Alexander Betts, Prof. Cathryn Costello, Dr Mariagiulia Guiffre and Dr Nando Sigona. Open to all. Registration recommended but not compulsory. To be followed by a drinks reception.

Human-caused global warming has been making headlines for over two decades, but people’s opinions on it often depend on what headlines they’re reading. How is it that a scientific theory has become so politicised? Join us to hear Adam Levy (Nature, University of Oxford; @ClimateAdam), a climate change scientist and YouTuber, discuss the key scientific evidence behind climate change, and explain why perspectives on climate change shouldn’t be a matter of belief.
twitter @oxfordscibar
facebook ‘British Science Association Oxfordshire Branch

Six members of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), including comedian and journalist Mark Thomas are taking legal action against the Metropolitan Police’s monitoring and keeping of their information on a database that deals with extremists. An illustrated talk by four of those in the case discuss how journalists documenting protest are coming under surveillance. The panel includes photojournalist and campaign photographer Jess Hurd, Video Journalist Jason N Parkinson and Photographer David Hoffman, chaired by curator of OVADA’s current Resistance is Fertile exhibition, Adrian Arbib.

Two hour cycle ride with Max as he reveals some surprising facts about the science of cycling. Ride and demonstration.
Please show up 10 minutes before departure at The Story Museum. The ride will finish back at The Story Museum.

Author and cyclist Max Gaskin explores the science of cycling from hydrogen to helmets!
6.30pm – 7.30pm £8/£5 concessions

International table tennis player, broadcaster and writer, Matthew Syed will reflect on the psychology of performance.

The award-winning video journalist and campaign filmmaker, Zoe Broughton, has spent more than 20 years putting herself on the frontline – going undercover at an animal-testing lab, being chased by police while filming on a high-speed motor boat and dodging landmines in Burma! Zoe presents an illustrated talk about her work at OVADA as part of their current Resistance is Fertile exhibition.

A discussion about the ethics of Arts Sponsorship with Jeremy Spafford, Director of Arts at the Old Fire Station, and representatives from arts activists Art Not Oil – a network is dedicated to taking creative disobedience against institutions such as Tate, National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum until they drop their oil company funding. Together the panel will explore the ethics of sponsorship at a time where funding for the arts continues to be drastically cut. Who is it acceptable to take money from and what is the price that we pay? [IMAGE: Liberate Tate]

Join our expert panel for an evening of debate exploring the subject of the United Kingdom’s place within the European Union.

Join Curator Katie Hill for an exhibition tour of WASTELANDS, a group show of contemporary Chinese art at OVADA this summer. Katie will provide background to the project and will introduce work by each of the eight exhibitors, which includes renowned artist, Ai Weiwei. Katie Hill is Director of the Office of Contemporary Chinese Art (OCCA) and course leader of Asian Art and its Markets at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.

This is a FREE event – just turn up!

Venue: OVADA warehouse – 14A Osney Lane – Oxford – OX1 1NJ

For further information visit: www.ovada.org.uk/wastelands-tour

The Oxford Architecture Society lecture series

Lisa Finlay is coming to speak to us from Heatherwick Studio.
Established by Thomas Heatherwick in 1994, Heatherwick Studio is recognised for its work in architecture, urban infrastructure, sculpture, design and strategic thinking. At the heart of the studio’s work is a profound commitment to finding innovative design solutions, with a dedication to artistic thinking and the latent potential of materials and craftsmanship. In the twenty years of its existence, Heatherwick Studio has worked in many countries, with a wide range of commissioners and in a variety of regulatory environments.

The first OxArch workshop of the series ‘Behind Architecture: The Essentials’ is set to bring us back to the analogue process of representation. ‘Architecture in Watercolours’ presents an opportunity to begin the year with a little experimentation.

Anisha Meggi (currently studying her PhD) works with watercolour to capture the essence of a project with the physical and theoretical layering of watercolour paint and model making.

Come join us on the 4th floor of Abercrombie on Thursday at 4pm, if you’re interested in learning a new skill or pushing further what you already know about watercolour.

We will be providing some watercolour trays, watercolour paper and brushes. However, if you have you’re own watercolour sets, please feel free to bring them in.

Prices:
£7 for members
£9 for non members

To avoid dangerous climate change will require not only very steep cuts in emissions, but also the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Most of the models that avoid dangerous climate change do so by assuming that it will be possible to deploy a technique called biomass energy with carbon capture and storage (or BECCS for short) at a very large scale. But is this realistic?

Please join us for a public discussion to explore this issue. To what extent may it be possible to use biomass as a way of both generating electricity and removing carbon dioxide from the air? What are the likely impacts of such an approach – on climate change, on food supply, on biodiversity and on the will to reduce emissions.

The Oxford Martin School has brought together four excellent speakers with expertise in this field. Dr Craig Jamieson has explored the potential of using waste material from rice production for BECCS, Professor Tim Lenton has modelled how much biomass could be used for BECCS given projected population growth and dietary habits, Professor Nick Pidgeon is an expert on the social acceptability of new technologies and Dr Doug Parr is the Chief Scientist and Policy Director at Greenpeace.

My European citizenship rights…and why I don’t want to lose them.

We warmly invite you to a public meeting, followed by a reception to launch New Europeans in Oxford.

For details and speakers, please visit the event page on the New Europeans website.

3D character animation online with Mixamo/Adobe
On June 1st of this year Adobe announced its purchase of the company Mixamo.
This evening John Twycross – Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Production, Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment, Oxford Brookes University – will demonstrate some of the features of the current Mixamo website, look at how this currently integrates into game engines and discuss the implications of this for designers.

The Mixamo online service provides a motion capture library, character generation and automated rigging. It is exciting because it makes character animation accessible to all. It also clearly signals Adobe’s commitment to gain a foothold in the 3D character animation field and expanding Photoshop’s 3D features.

Ordinary people across Europe have reacted with horror to the plight of refugees fleeing the Syrian civil war and other conflicts—and sent solidarity. David Cameron reacted with callous cynicism.

At first he held firm against letting in any. Britain, the world’s ninth richest country, supposedly couldn’t afford to take in more than a tube carriage full of desperate refugees.

After tens of thousands marched and more than 400,000 signed a petition to do more, Cameron was forced to shift gear. But his new plan is an insult.

Britain is to take in 20,000 Syrians over the next five years—fewer than Germany took in last weekend alone. There is no action to alleviate the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees already in Europe who face razor wire fences and detention camps to prevent them moving to find a new home.

The Home Secretary announced plans for more draconian treatment of asylum seekers, and the UK has withdrawn 2 more ships from rescuing refugees drowning in the Mediterranean.

There were even reports that refugee children could be deported on their 18th birthdays. The Tories are also trying to use the refugee crisis to drum up support for more bloody wars.

Three year old Aylan Kurdi was not the first child to drown needlessly on Europe’s doorstep. But after pictures of his dead body sent shudders around the world, his father made the plea, “let him be the last”.

We can stop the carnage. But it will take a mass movement to defy Cameron and the inhumane system he represents.

Come along to our first SWSS meeting this term to find out what we can do to build such a movement.

Hosted by Socialist Worker Student Society

(1) Ancient Africa’s Gift to: Law, Architecture, Mathematics, Judaism, Islam & Christianity.
This will be a 45 minute slide presentation.
(2) Magna Carta, Ancient Africa’s Gift to the English. The ancient roots of Magna Carta and the need to protect it today…with contributions from Political Parties
(3) Books that have shaped the perception of African people: Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, The Bible, & Black Athena

Oxford Fashion Society is delighted to bring you our first speaker of the year, FELICITY HAYWARD! Join us on the 12th November for a very special event with the international model, ASOS stylist and artist. There will be top style tips, insights into her amazing world of fashion, and a chance for any questions, as well as a (FREE!) drinks reception following the event!

Felicity has had an amazing and varied career, from being ASOS’s go-to gal for all things CURVE, to gracing the cover of I-D and Noctis magazines (and countless others), to her nearly 40k followers on Instagram, and she’ll be joining us to tell us all about it! For anyone interested in modelling, styling, fashion, or just a great evening out, this event is an absoloute must!

Tickets are £3 on the door and include FREE DRINKS afterwards!
Join the Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/990444424351368/

See you all there!

OFS love X

Mass Circulation: Writing about Art in a Daily Newspaper

With Richard Dorment, art critic, and Dr Alexander Sturgis, Director, Ashmolean Museum

A special Ashmolean evening In Conversation event

Wednesday 18 November
6‒7pm
Lecture Theatre

As The Daily Telegraph’s chief art critic from 1986‒2015, Richard Dorment CBE covered exhibition subjects ranging from the Ice Age to the Turner Prize. He talks to Ashmolean Director, Dr Alexander Sturgis, about art history, art criticism, and the popular press.

Tickets £12/£10 concessions. Booking is essential.
https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ticketsoxford/#event=20239

Adobe specialists Richard Curtis and Niels Stevens are coming to Film Oxford for a special presentation on the new features of Creative Cloud for photographers, designers and film makers.

Don’t miss this opportunity to see the latest features in the new release of Adobe Creative Cloud 2015, including Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects, Speedgrade and more. Learn about what’s new in this 2015 release that will help you do everything you do more efficiently using the latest innovations and modern standards. Get answers to your questions and get inspired by film makers and photographers who are creating amazing work.

Blasphemy and Apostasy exist in many countries in the world, commonly within the Middle East and North Africa. Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were first codified by India’s British rulers in 1860 and were inherited by Pakistan in 1947. The law (section 295-C of Pakistan Penal Code) states that blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad is to be awarded a fixed death penalty, with no leeway. Mass support of the law through promotion by legal and socio-political institutions of religious authority has led to its use as a tool for oppression and persecution. In 2014 alone, over 90 people were accused of blasphemy.

Join OUPakSoc and South Asia Research Cluster, Wolfson College, for a discussion on Blasphemy Laws where we explore their history, religious basis and impact in Pakistan and beyond.

Date: 2nd December, 2015
Time: 5.30 pm
Venue: Leonard Wolfson Auditorium, Wolfson College, OX2 6UD
Moderator: Matthew McCartney

Debate from the floor: There will be an opportunity for the audience to contribute in the form of short speeches. Please send us an email at secretary@oupaksoc.net if you would like to participate in the event.

Panellists:
Dr Jan-Peter Hartung – the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS
Tehmina Kazi – Director of Media, Outreach and Lobbying, British Muslims for Secular Democracy
Arafat Mazhar – Engage Pakistan, a non-profit research and advocacy organization working to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy law from within the framework of law.
Bob Churchill – Director of Communications, International Humanist and Ethical Union, Head of End Blasphemy Laws campaign
Khalid Zaheer – Vice -President AlMawrid institute Lahore (Foundation for Islamic Research and Education)
Reema Omer- international legal advisor for Pakistan for the International Commission of Jurists, member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
Ali Usma Qasmi – Assistant Professor (History) at LUMS, author of ‘Questioning the Authority of the Past: The Ahl al-Qur’an Movements in the Punjab’ and ‘The Ahmadis and the Politics of Religious Exclusion in Pakistan’ (Karachi Literary Festival Peace Prize).

This panel takes the publication of Ruti Teitel’s new book ‘Globalizing Transitional Justice’ as paperback 15 years after the publication of her seminal book ‘Transitional Justice’ (OUP 2000) as the entry point into a critical discussion of the state of the field of Transitional Justice: What is its future? Has it a future? What is the role of Law vis-à-vis other disciplines in the field? Are the concepts and methods of Transitional Justice which emerged against the backdrop of transitions in Latin America and Eastern Europe still relevant to new contexts such as transitions in the Middle East? How are national and international security agendas with their renewed focus on terrorism affecting Transitional Justice Mechanisms? How can we push the research agenda in the field in new directions?

Panel Members:

Prof. Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the Institute for Global Law, Justice and Policy at New York Law School

Prof. Leigh Payne, Professor of Sociology, University of Oxford

Prof. Chandra Sriram, Professor of International Law and International Relations, University of East London

Dr. Iavor Rangelov, Global Security Research Fellow, London School of Economics

As a cornerstone initiative of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities, we are proposing a new format for presenting and elaborating thinking on what urban governance does, when it succeed and fails, and how it can be re-organized to meet the challenges of the 21st century. We put academics on the cutting edge of global urban scholarship face-to-face with established innovative practitioners—architects, activists, policy makers, and artists.

Through a series of rigorous yet accessible public dialogues they will grapple with the intellectual and everyday implications of their theories and practices on cities to produce visionary but grounded research and intervention strategies for the future of city life.
Each debate will be preceded by a small panel of academics and practitioners presenting papers that speak to the same key issues. Building on the long-standing Oxford tradition of public debate, we hope to encourage productive engagement between intellectuals and practitioners that is too often missing from discussions of the city.