It should only take 10 minutes, and will make a huge difference in the network’s ability to meet community needs and understand the impacts of our work.
To say thank you, they’ll enter you to win a £50 voucher to socialsupermarket.org! They’re giving three away.
More about the survey
We’re part of WISH – a county-wide partnership run for and by local communities, supported by The National Lottery Community Fund. We’re one of a few core partners helping create change through connecting communities to nature and to each other.
To respond to what people in the community want, the WISH team would like to hear more about who you are, and what you think and do around the environment, shopping and waste. Your responses will help them paint a picture of our local community and know how to best focus our partnership efforts. They are repeating this survey over time to help us assess the impact we are all having through WISH. If you have filled this survey in before, we would appreciate you doing it again.
Ben joined more than 100 repair groups from across the UK last week for the 3rd Parliamentary Repair Café, organised by the Restart Project and BackMarket.
The day aimed to raise awareness of the Repair and Reuse Declaration, policy objectives to help us all keep our stuff working and in use longer. We were thrilled to see more than 91 MPs and 11 staffers on the day, with more than 140 MPs now signed up to the declaration.
Growing Political Support
It was a great opportunity to catch up with the teams from Bicester Green and Hook Norton repair cafés and put faces to names from many further afield! Ben was also pleased to check in with local MP Anneliese Dodds, who offered some great tips and new connections. And it’s good to see MP Layla Moran on the list of signatories as well.
Photos from Mark A Phillips under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
What comes next?
The Restart Project have put together a blog with more detail on the day and ongoing work happening at national level, linking up community action with the government’s imminent refresh of the Circular Economy Strategy. They pose some great challenges and suggestions for this work, including:
reducing cost of repair
catching up with repair legislation in Europe
stopping working equipment being destroyed and recycled
boosting repair skills
We’ve felt the growing energy for repair in our community here in Oxford, with more and more repair cafés and projects opening locally. It’s great to see so much happening nationally too. Let’s keep moving!
Have you heard of the Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre? Find out more about their free lending library dedicated to biological recording, and their upcoming “Noticing Nature” events, a great opportunity to connect with our local nature.
Explore this spring with free equipment and reference guides
TVERC’s lending library collection includes survey equipment, field guides, books, and maps. Whether you’re a seasoned recorder or just starting out, their resources are here to help you explore and document local biodiversity, including:
Guidebooks and keys on numerous British species groups
Books
Field equipment such as beating trays and nets
Bat detectors
Moth trap
Click through to explore the full listing and see how to reserve equimpent:
If you’re keen to borrow some equipment, at this time of year, the TVERC Biodiversity Officer suggests you might like to check out Fritillaries at Iffley Meadows (or join their noticing nature event here on 27th April), Bluebells and other spring flowers in woodland. Orange-tip Butterflies and other spring emerging insects (e.g. bumblebees, bee-flies). Spring migrant birds – Swallow, singing Blackcap, Chiffchaff and the building dawn chorus. Watch out for Swifts towards the end of April/beginning of May.
Join a “noticing nature” event to learn together
After a successful first year, TVERC are planning another series of Noticing Nature events through the summer. Click through to find out when they’re near you!
We’re pleased to share our latest annual report, covering the year to June 2025.
We’re delighted with the growth in our Library of Things and work expanding reuse and skills. This year, the team have also put together some wonderful case studies which bring everything to life. Massive thank you to everyone who’s contributed to another exciting year for SHARE Oxford.
We are excited to be partnering with a new community platform that is being built and piloted here in Oxfordshire this year!
Redirect is a hyper-local platform and a community- and sustainability-first alternative to traditional social media. It is designed to help people redirect time, attention, and money away from the digital distractions of social media and online shopping and towards meaningful, local sustainability initiatives. Instead of impulse purchases and endless scrolling, the platform helps users discover community projects, events, and organisations active near them – and rewards engagement with real-world impact.
Users can follow local organisations, attend events, support projects they care about, and connect with like-minded people in their area. Future features will allow users to track their individual impact and earn local experiences & rewards. For organisations like us, Redirect makes it easier to reach new and existing supporters, increase engagement, and build more resilient networks.
The vision is simple but powerful: stronger, climate-resilient communities, reduced consumption, and more funding and participation flowing into local sustainability efforts.
The platform is free to use. It already has 500+ Oxford-based events posted and is onboarding new users every day!
Redirect’s Founder, Hannah Sassi, received her Master’s in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment from the University of Oxford and is based here as a researcher. The idea for Redirect came from her belief in the importance of locally-led climate action and a desire to discover and highlight the amazing sustainability initiatives of community groups in places like Oxford.
Hannah is currently looking for new users, gathering feedback, and building partnerships while she runs the Oxford pilot. If you’re interested in supporting, partnering, or simply following the journey, Hannah would love to hear from you.
Happy New Year! We hope you saw out 2025 in style.
This week, in between rubbing my eyes and double-taking at the news on my phone, I was inspired by this newsletter from environmental action charity Hubbub. They captured well how much great stuff is going on in the world of climate and nature, even if it can get lost in confusing times. They describe well how we care about this, we are getting on with change, and we’re finding new ways to have a great time. It’s worth a read.
From our viewpoint as a community organisation here in Oxfordshire, this feels so true. We’re a small team and learning loads as we go. We’re always motivated to help people connect with projects in this space that excite and inspire them. With this in mind, here are a few bits and bobs we’ve been either involved in or inspired by in the last few months, and can’t wait to see go further in 2026.
From big beasts…
The University’s recently-opened Schwartzman Centre for the Humanities is potentially the largest building in the country to achieve Passivehaus. It’s been designed with a strong push for community connection as well as academic excellence and aims to be an open space for us all. I’m starting by trying out their café with our Chair of Trustees this week!
There’s exciting progress on community connection at the Engineering Department; Nikita Hari, who among her many roles, leads their work on “Engineering in Practice”, has run their first break-down sessions with students. In the coming months, we hope to team up with repair café volunteers. This could build community and help students take this thinking into careers designing and building the products of the future.
It was great to get to London in December to meet many inspiring people at the Green Alliance’s launch of this video series of circular economy success stories. A reminder of how much is going on around the country and beyond, and how we can get involved.
…to local heroes…
The huge new Humanities building reminded me, on a different scale, what a fantastic job Cherwell Collective have done with their WISH store refurb in Kidlington. It was a really welcoming, smart place for our recent WISH network meeting. It’s worth popping in and asking to check out the solar panels, heat pumps, re-homed furnishings and more that make a sustainable home for this group’s future.
Thinking of setting up for the future, it’s exciting to see the Getting Oxfordshire Online teams at SOFEA and Aspire moving to more self-funded model, selling a portion of donated devices to fund their work. This increases the service’s resilience to shifting funder priorities and offers a great new way to support them. If you are in the market for a computer or two, John and the team will help you get a great device and support your community in the process.
A new area for us to learn, our volunteer Molly helped us understand better how reuse fits into our mission and who we could collaborate with. As a first step, we’ve been delighted to connect up a local business with reuse charity KFR. Their team in Swindon have collected the first van-load of unwanted white goods from sites in Oxford to be refurbished, safety-certified and distributed.
…this is an amazing community
There was amazing energy in the room as we shared a meal at Makespace’s end of year party, reflecting all the progress they’ve made in building such a vibrant community. They’ve re-opened 31 buildings which host 276 organisations so far. It’s all underpinned by their powerful (re)founding work to stay focused on their mission to improve spatial justice.
The informal network of UK Libraries of Things has taken a great step forward this year. The re-organised WhatsApp community now includes many more groups and helps people like us discuss all the important things in life like insurance and Mailchimp subscriber limits. It’s also a great place to celebrate progress like Leamington Spa’s new LoT opening, and SHARE Skipton winning a North Yorkshire Community Impact Award.
Our Library of Things customers always inspire with the ideas they are trying out too. We meet people new to the city who are pleased that they don’t need to buy stuff. Others hire thermal cameras to find “quick fixes” to save energy. Some hire kit like beds for family visits, tackle those DIY fixes they’ve been meaning to for ages or create beautiful crafts. Your good nature and honesty also really helps us learn where we need to keep improving for our bit to work well (including apologies to those guests who wound up sleeping on a slowly deflating air bed this Christmas…)
With so many more great things going on than we’ve mentioned here, we hope you start 2026 energised to take next steps on the things you care about. If we can help in any way, please feel free to get in touch. Maybe we could link you up with Community Action Groups in your area, or you could pop in to chat through an idea with our staff and volunteers, feed back where you want to challenge us, share what’s inspiring you, or anything else.
And, of course, we’d love to help you start your year with some repairing, sharing or reusing at these upcoming sessions:
Monday 12th January – Tech Rescue to keep your IT working well, or help pass on your old gear if Santa brought a new laptop.
Sunday 18th January – Repair Café to fix electrical and mechanical things, bikes, clothes and this month even leather books.
Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays – the Library of Things is open as usual for early spring cleans, January birthdays, DIY projects and all your other brilliant ideas.
Since 2021, Great Big Green Week has given communities across the UK the opportunity to celebrate and join in with activities that help reduce waste, protect nature, and tackle climate change. This year, the focus is on swapping – swapping stuff like clothes and books, but also plants and seeds, and even skills, helping people save money, extending the life of the things we use, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, and bringing communities together.
“Let’s swap together for good”
Swapping is at the heart of what we do at SHARE Oxford: not only with our library of things to give people the opportunity to borrow items rather than buy them, but also repair cafes, where our lovely volunteers bring broken things back to life. For this year’s Great Big Green Week we want to focus on sharing skills – helping people develop new skills and the confidence to use them to fix their own stuff, and maybe even find a new hobby!
Learn sustainable skills this Great Big Green Week
If you’re keen to learn something new, here are some of the skills-focused events taking place in and around Oxford during the week:
Tech Rescue – Monday 9th June, 11am-3pm – our volunteers can help you keep your old IT working smoothly, help you manage the move on from Windows 10 or prepare to pass on your unwanted devices to the community.
Broken spoke bike repair workshops – there are all sorts of options for learning bike repair with Broken spoke including slots during the week, or it’s a good option if you can’t make our session this week!
Electrical repair basics at our repair café – Sunday 15th June, 2-5pm – alongside our usual “bring your stuff to fix” offering, our electrical repair team will be demonstrating some of the key steps for successful electrical repairs – eg opening things up carefully so they can go back together, checking for electrical continuity and the key basics of electrical safety. Check for the “electrical repair demo” slots at 2pm in our booking form.!
And the SHARE Oxford team is out and about
Our team will also be pleased to see you and talk about all things sharing and repairing at these events:
You’ll find lots going on across Oxfordshire on the Great Big Green Week website and CAG Oxfordshire’s pages. Maybe it’ll inspire you to host something yourself. If you’d like us to help you put something on or spread the word, do get in touch.
We’re pleased to share the annual report for our most recent financial year to June 2024.
Opening three days a week helped drive a 30% increase in activity at our Library of Things, the repair team fixed more than 1 tonne of stuff, and we continued to develop partnerships and new activities, including all things Circular Economy with the WISH network and saving IT from the bin with Tech Rescue.
Whether you’re a volunteer, customer, partner or funder, thank you for the part you played in making it happen!
Read the full report here, and as ever, do feel free to get in touch with any questions or feedback.
Windows 10 users will doubtless have seen warnings that Microsoft are ending support in October. If your computer isn’t modern enough for Windows 11, there are some great options to keep it useful for longer. These solutions often work well if you have an older Mac too. Our tech rescue volunteers would be happy to help you work out what’s best for you and make the move.
The challenge
“End of support” for a Windows system means that Microsoft stop providing updates. Your computer will continue to work, but there are two issues which both become more of a problem over time:
Security updates stop – Microsoft won’t fix any new security holes that are discovered, leaving you increasingly exposed to malware and viruses
Newer software and websites won’t work – as software and websites are updated, they’ll gradually stop designing to be compatible with this version of Windows. At some point, the internet security certificates may also expire so you’ll lose access to websites.
Options to consider
It may be the right time for you to replace your computer for something speedier and the latest Microsoft tools, but if you can’t afford to right now or don’t feel you need the latest and fastest, there are some great options which are free or much cheaper than a new computer. You’ll just need to make sure you can run all the key apps you need and take care with your data if you’re switching.
Update October 2025 – we now understand that for many users, this year-long extension can be free! Find out more here.
Windows 11 clean install – with their latest release, Microsoft have enabled Windows 11 to work on older computers. In our testing, this only seems to work on older PCs if you back up your data, wipe and reset your computer, and there’s a risk certain features like webcams may not be 100% compatible, but it’s great to see more computers should keep working. There’s a fairly simple installer from Microsoft to help you set up the USB stick you’ll need to do this.
Google Chrome OS Flex – this free system from Google is our favourite; we run everything on it at SHARE. It works particularly well if you already do almost everything via the browser. You’ll find your computer a lot faster as well as keeping those security updates going. With a free web-based version of Microsoft Office available as well as cloud storage and the Google Play store, you might be surprised how much you can do. It’s free to download and set up a USB installer.
Linux – another free option, Linux is more flexible than Chrome OS and has come a long way from being just for hardened techies. There are many distributions to suit different users. I’m a fan of Ubuntu, which is easy to install, feels familiar to anyone who’s used Windows or a Mac and has features like an App Store to make downloading software easy. If you want to keep a really old PC going, distributions such as Linux Mint Debian Edition are even still supported on 32-bit computers. For more advanced users than me, there are even tools like Wine which let you run Windows software.
A quick internet search will show there are other “unsupported” approaches to get older computers onto Windows 11 or patch Macs to run the latest macOS. These might work for you but we’re not recommending them as they will be unpredictable and possibly break terms of the software licenses you’re signing up to.
All good for Apple Macs
The good news is that most of this article’s advice applies to Apple Mac users as well; Chrome OS and Ubuntu installers will work on almost all Macs with intel chips.
Need help deciding?
Here are a few key points comparing these options:
Option
Pros
Cons
Windows 10 Extended Support
Keeps your Windows 10 computer secure if you’re not ready to change. No need to move your data.
Costs $30/yr, possibly just a 1-year option
Windows 11 clean install
Keep going with Windows and the apps you need (so long as you can reinstall them)
Windows 11 is slow on older PCs. You’ll likely need to wipe your computer and move your data.
Google Chrome OS Flex
Faster than Windows, Synchronises Chrome Browser passwords and links, easy to use with a google login
You’ll need to migrate your data to the cloud and it may not run the apps you use today. DVD drives not supported.
Linux
Flexible with plenty of tools and still works with DVDs etc. Can work on very old computers.
A little more complex than Chrome OS.
Making your plan
If you’re interested to try any of the options other than paying the $30/yr to keep Windows 10 going, you’ll be wiping your computer. Let’s make sure you’re ready to go:
What applications do I use? – there are online versions or equivalents for almost everything these days such as Microsoft Office, Google’s many tools for Office work, photos and more, to Canva for graphics etc. Go through the Start menu on your computer and note the software you are using. You can try out the online versions straight away before changing anything on your computer to make sure you’re happy with them.
What files do I have? – as well as the documents, photos and music folders, you will find documents on your desktop, downloads folder, maybe elsewhere on your C: drive. Make sure you’ve found everything you want to keep.
Plan for your files – as well as deciding which files to keep and where to store them, this is a good moment to check if any of them need special software on this computer to open. What will you do with those old study notes from years ago on your new computer?
Backup, including cloud storage – cloud storage like OneDrive, Google Drive, DropBox can be a great option to get all your files safely uploaded before wiping your PC. Log into the webpage for your cloud storage (say dropbox.com or office.com) and make sure you can see everything there so you know you’re ready to go. If you have so many large files that cloud would be expensive, you’ll want to buy a hard disk or USB stick to copy everything onto.
Which system will suit you? – looking at your applications and files should help you decide which system you’d like to migrate to – fresh Windows 11, Chrome OS or Linux?
Choose your browser, sync your passwords and links – if you’re moving to Chrome OS, get set up with Google’s Chrome browser and make sure you’re signed in and you’ll be ready to go with your new setup. FireFox is a great choice for Linux as it’s generally built in from the word go, although Google Chrome is also available for many distributions. You can migrate your browser data from Microsoft Edge to either of these ones, ready to sync to the cloud.
What passwords do you need? – make sure you’re set for your email, any Google or Microsoft accounts and key software subscriptions you use, such as DropBox.
If you do need to upgrade, secondhand is a great option
If, looking at your needs, you decide to upgrade your computer to something Windows 11 capable, there are some great-value refurbished resellers out there. I’ve used Stone Refurb and Blackmore IT before and they’re offering Windows 11 laptops from £170.
We would also be happy to help you pass on your old PC. We accept old laptops, tablets or phones for our partners Getting Oxfordshire Online where they are securely wiped and passed on to groups supporting people in need. If you have a desktop you need to shift, for £20 we can take it off your hands, securely wipe it and we’ll either sell it or Freecycle it to keep it in use even if it’s not got any value.
Before you make the leap
We’re conscious it’s a big step to wipe your computer, and we’re keen to help where we can. Here are some ideas:
Work in your web browser – both the Chrome OS and Linux options often work well doing as much work as possible in the browser. You can give it a try for a few weeks in Chrome or Firefox browser on your existing Windows 10 PC to make sure everything’s working well.
Try out a SHARE computer – we have both Chrome OS and Linux computers here at SHARE so do feel free to book yourself in for Tech Rescue to have a go with our computers and ask any questions. If you’re planning to use Chrome, you can even log in with your google account and make sure everything’s ready as you’ll want it on your new computer.
Is it worth buying secondhand then selling yours? – if you’re worried about getting something wrong and losing everything, a secondhand PC could offer a good security step. You can get it all set up and check you like the new system you’ve chosen before wiping your data from your old PC, then give away or sell on one of the two. Secondhand non-Windows-11 computers are great value and we can offer Chrome OS or Linux desktops from £30-80. We’re also considering hiring laptops for this purpose so please get in touch if interested.
The time has come
Your data’s ready in the cloud or on your external hard disk, you’ve decided on a plan for each app you use, you’ve trialled working in your browser or on a second computer… it’s time to get your PC wiped and reset.
DIY: you’ll just need a USB stick at least 8GB in size, that you’ll wipe to make the installer. Here are download links and instructions for the installers we’ve mentioned:
Or Tech Rescue can help: we have the relevant installers with us at SHARE, so book yourself in for a Tech Rescue session if you’d like us to do this step with you. We have screens and keyboards if you’d like to bring your desktop computer in.
Read more
It’s great to spot more campaigns out there as national and international groups are sharing knowledge and helping people find local experts. You can read more at:
endof10.org is an international page to help you find local support wherever you are in the world
Questions?
If you’ve got any questions or suggestions, please do get in touch with Ben at hello@shareoxford.org. He would be happy to discuss our options for help via Tech Rescue or otherwise.
WISH (Waste Innovation Station) has received £1.5m from the National Lottery Community Climate Action Fund over five years to build climate resilience and infrastructure across Oxfordshire.
Growing together
We’re hugely grateful for the £7-9k/yr which we receive to contribute to management, outreach and impact analysis here at SHARE Oxford, and in particular the support of the network partners, from whom we collaborate on circular economy initiatives and learn about the context in which we operate, from food and nature to carbon and community.
The network’s first impact report gives a great snapshot of what we’ve all been up to!
We look forward to sharing more in our next SHARE annual report, due very soon, and if you have any questions or thoughts in the mean time, do get in touch with Ben at hello@shareoxford.org.
