OCS AND OUR MISSION
We create and bring together networks current students and alumni with academic, corporate and policy professionals. Through our portfolio of events, projects, and media, we inspire, educate and empower the student body to use their intellectual resources with us to drive progress towards zero-carbon futures within and beyond the university.
While protesting is beneficial for raising awareness of the appetite for change, understanding how to actually deliver the demands of a just transition is a huge challenge, requiring leadership and significant intellectual application.
This is where you come in.
Join us to lead and grow a network of climate action emanating from Oxford University. Design and deliver educational and artistic projects, work alongside high-profile stakeholders to de-carbonise the university and upgrade the curricula, build networks of alum to coordinate achieving net-zero in their work sectors, build engagement with and communicate perspectives on the risk and opportunities of climate change by coordinating our media teams, collaborate on inter-sectional projects, and much more. OCS can provide the platform and resources for you to implement your ideas and motivation for climate action, and we can’t wait to work with you over the coming years.
For more information about what we do please click here.
While protesting is beneficial for raising awareness of the appetite for change, understanding how to actually deliver the demands of a just transition is a huge challenge, requiring leadership and significant intellectual application.
This is where you come in.
Join us to lead and grow a network of climate action emanating from Oxford University. Design and deliver educational and artistic projects, work alongside high-profile stakeholders to de-carbonise the university and upgrade the curricula, build networks of alum to coordinate achieving net-zero in their work sectors, build engagement with and communicate perspectives on the risk and opportunities of climate change by coordinating our media teams, collaborate on inter-sectional projects, and much more. OCS can provide the platform and resources for you to implement your ideas and motivation for climate action, and we can’t wait to work with you over the coming years.
For more information about what we do please click here.
ABOUT THE ELECTIONS
For more information on any of our teams and roles, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any of our current committee members! If you want to get involved but aren’t sure what would be the best fit for you, then please feel free to meet us after an event or for coffee - we’d love to chat about the best way for you to get the most out of OCS.
Please note that:
Format for application:
Please note that:
- all these roles run from the end of Hilary 2020 to the end of Hilary 2021, with handovers and actionable steps starting from Hilary 2020 Week 7.
- all members of Oxford University are welcome to run, vote and attend the elections!
- we actively encourage applications from all backgrounds and experience levels. While OCS has expanded significantly over the last year, please don't let this put you off if you haven't been involved before, or have little/no prior experience! For many of us on the core committee, this was our first major engagement with environmental action (in the widest sense) or an Oxford society, and we have grown alongside the society. What we're really looking for is enthusiastic, motivated, passionate, friendly people who are willing to learn from and work with others, and are looking for a way to take best advantage of the great opportunities that OCS can give you! Experience beyond that is just a useful bonus, and with the right mindset can be gained /augmented along the way.
- If you apply for a role on OCS’ core committee but are unsuccessful, there may be availability for you to join one OCS at a sub-committee level on one of our teams.
Format for application:
- Please make sure you have read the role positions clearly, and familiarise yourself with the scope of OCS’ teams and work.
- Fill out the application form below before the deadline (at the end of Tuesday, 6th Week Hilary 2020).
- Election hustings will happen at our AGM meeting, Wednesday 6th week HT 2020. Event format:
- We will open the AGM with a short presentation about OCS' progress over the last year.
- We will then have hustings for each role, one at a time, in the order President, Vice-President, (etc through other roles).
- For each role the candidates will sequentially give a short speech of around 3 minutes.
- After the speeches there will be an open round of questions from the event attendees. Questions should be directed to all candidates equally.
- Following the questions there will be a vote for the role, and the winner will be immediately announced before proceeding to the next position.
- If you are unsuccessful in applying for a role, you are allowed and encouraged to apply for another role later in the evening. Don't feel bad if this happens to you - this happens every year, and is very normal. Some of our best members joined OCS on their second choice application.
Please note: you will be elected based on the hustings, and the form is just to give us an overview of who is applying for each role.
Available Roles:
President & secretary
It is important that you have passion and vision for innovating and growing meaningful engagement with climate change. There is no “business as usual scenario” with climate change, and transitioning to post-carbon futures will require radical transformations. Oxford University and its students are one of the world’s most influential resources of talented individuals and networks, with the potential for solving the most important problems - it is your role to develop new ways to direct this potential towards making meaningful progress.
We would like to emphasise that we are not using climate change in order to make a student society; we are using a student society as a method for climate solutions. This emphasis on using OCS to create impact, rather than simply adding to the conversation, is central to our initiatives.
The President's role is to lead the society. This involves ensuring its cohesion across all workstreams, long-term strategic planning, creating and nurturing new opportunities, maintaining relationships with members and stakeholders, and more. Specifically, the President's work, in which they are supported by the Vice-President, involves:
If you are interested in applying for the role of President, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the current President at tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk , or current Vice-President at arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk .
We would like to emphasise that we are not using climate change in order to make a student society; we are using a student society as a method for climate solutions. This emphasis on using OCS to create impact, rather than simply adding to the conversation, is central to our initiatives.
The President's role is to lead the society. This involves ensuring its cohesion across all workstreams, long-term strategic planning, creating and nurturing new opportunities, maintaining relationships with members and stakeholders, and more. Specifically, the President's work, in which they are supported by the Vice-President, involves:
- Strategic planning to identify how OCS can further support climate understanding and action at the University and beyond, with a strong emphasis on generating meaningful output
- Actively create opportunities and start new projects where effective and viable, and act as a point of contact for other people who wish to do so.
- Creating opportunities through your/our network. Ideally, you would already have a good understanding of, and relations with, a variety of organisations key stakeholders at the university, though this isn’t necessary as you will soon build one.
- Representing OCS by communicating with OCS members and managing its positive relationships with other societies, the university's departments, and throughout the wider university and city. Communicate with Oxford’s eco societies and networks to avoid counterproductive or ineffective overlaps or redundancy.
- Coordinating OCS’ workstreams by organising meetings of the elected core committee
- Supporting OCS’ teams by attending and advising working meetings, contributing towards those projects, and helping to ensure (at an appropriate level of management) that projects and events get successfully delivered
- Outreach - there is significant demand for the presidents of OCS to speak, for example at university/other society events, podcasts, and the radio, so some comfort and experience of presenting (or willingness to delegate) would be useful.
- Coordinating with other societies and OCS’ Advisory Board
- Being a Student Fellow on the Oxford Foundry Student Advisory Board
- Ensure that the Society is registered with the University at the start of the academic year
If you are interested in applying for the role of President, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the current President at tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk , or current Vice-President at arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk .
vice-president & treasurer
The Vice-President works alongside and supports the President in leading the society, supporting or potentially taking over any of the President's tasks as outlined above.
Furthermore, the Vice-President takes on the role of Treasurer, which involves overseeing the society's finances and engagement with present and potential future sponsors.
Together, the roles of the President and Vice-President call for someone who can:
If you're interested in applying for this role, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the current Vice-President at arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk or the current President at tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk .
Furthermore, the Vice-President takes on the role of Treasurer, which involves overseeing the society's finances and engagement with present and potential future sponsors.
Together, the roles of the President and Vice-President call for someone who can:
- Manage their time well given the vast number of tasks and projects that need to be overlooked or spearheaded
- Adequately coordinate with large groups of people
- Take charge of all necessary managerial and administrative tasks: finances, registrations and coordinating meetings, projects etc.
If you're interested in applying for this role, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the current Vice-President at arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk or the current President at tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk .
events director
The Events Director leads the work of the Events Team which organizes and runs the weekly OCS events. This involves researching topics and speakers, writing and sending invitations to speakers, and conducting the logistical planning for the events themselves.
OCS regularly hosts some of the leading professionals in the climate change ecosystem, so this is a great role if you enjoy engaging with thinkers and doers at the forefront of climate action! We are also always looking to further develop and diversify our range of event themes and formats, so this role also gives you many opportunities to realize your own ideas.
While this is largely a managerial role within the Events Team, it requires a lot of time and dedication to run smoothly including responsibilities of:
Should you have any questions or require any clarification, please contact asisa.singh@queens.ox.ac.uk .
OCS regularly hosts some of the leading professionals in the climate change ecosystem, so this is a great role if you enjoy engaging with thinkers and doers at the forefront of climate action! We are also always looking to further develop and diversify our range of event themes and formats, so this role also gives you many opportunities to realize your own ideas.
While this is largely a managerial role within the Events Team, it requires a lot of time and dedication to run smoothly including responsibilities of:
- Ensuring all speaker invites are sent and confirmed on time
- Ensuring all rooms are booked in good time for the event
- Considering diverse ranges of types of events: seminars, debates, workshops, panel discussions
- Coordinating collaborations with other societies and other OCS sub-teams
Should you have any questions or require any clarification, please contact asisa.singh@queens.ox.ac.uk .
action director
The role of Action Director is to mobilize the University in the direction of urgent climate action. In the past, this has meant working closely with both students and staff to work toward achieving the Oxford Climate Action Plan – a three-part plan for how Oxford must take action on the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis. This largely involves:
Together, the responsibilities of this role call for someone who is able to:
While this is a large responsibility, it is hugely rewarding and allows you to meet committed individuals from diverse places in the university. If you would like to discuss this role further, please email Ellie at eleanor.holton@new.ox.ac.uk .
- Overseeing the running of College workshops: These are a series of workshops for bursars, students, and other staff which provide information and resources to implement concrete sustainable changes in colleges. Examples include:
- Carbon auditing
- Writing carbon targets
- Sustainable food
- Sustainable travel practices
Together, the responsibilities of this role call for someone who is able to:
- Think creatively about campaign strategy
- Manage contacting and networking with staff and students across the University about campaign issues
- Take over administrative work of running meetings both within the team, and participant members of the workshops
- Manage their time along with the various smaller workshop-based teams to ensure smooth running
While this is a large responsibility, it is hugely rewarding and allows you to meet committed individuals from diverse places in the university. If you would like to discuss this role further, please email Ellie at eleanor.holton@new.ox.ac.uk .
education director
The role of the Education Director is to manage two large projects, both of which are currently growing in size quite quickly. They manage the team of the School of Climate Change as well as the Climate on the Curriculum team.
The School is a weekly discussion-heavy seminar series on the various aspects of climate change. The team organises publicity and advertising, the application procedure, speaker and room bookings, creation of a handbook for the participants, weekly communication with the participants, chairing each seminar with a focus on participant interaction and break-out sessions, dinner, pizza and falafel socials. The Education Director additionally takes on a supervising role within the team. As the School is largely oversubscribed every term, the team works towards upscaling of the School, which ties in with the Climate on the Curriculum team. A project for the near future is to continue discussions with key education-decision-makers at Oxford to establish the School of Climate Change as a course supported and organised by the University.
The Climate on the Curriculum project being relatively new, focuses on demanding greater representation of the climate emergency within the University curriculum. Due to this, it is necessary to ensure that this project does not lose momentum and continues to expand successfully.
This role requires:
If you have any questions, please contact milan.kloewer@physics.ox.ac.uk for further information.
The School is a weekly discussion-heavy seminar series on the various aspects of climate change. The team organises publicity and advertising, the application procedure, speaker and room bookings, creation of a handbook for the participants, weekly communication with the participants, chairing each seminar with a focus on participant interaction and break-out sessions, dinner, pizza and falafel socials. The Education Director additionally takes on a supervising role within the team. As the School is largely oversubscribed every term, the team works towards upscaling of the School, which ties in with the Climate on the Curriculum team. A project for the near future is to continue discussions with key education-decision-makers at Oxford to establish the School of Climate Change as a course supported and organised by the University.
The Climate on the Curriculum project being relatively new, focuses on demanding greater representation of the climate emergency within the University curriculum. Due to this, it is necessary to ensure that this project does not lose momentum and continues to expand successfully.
This role requires:
- A lot of time dedication in order to organise and facilitate meetings for both the projects
- Ability to coordinate between both the sub-teams as well as networks outside the OCS team to discuss further expansion
- Ensuring the smooth running of both the teams and their projects
If you have any questions, please contact milan.kloewer@physics.ox.ac.uk for further information.
outreach director
Being a new team, we’re looking for a dedicated and focused member who will be able to successfully lead the Outreach team. The aim of the Outreach Team is to connect alumni with other alumni in various sectors, with Oxford departments and current students to build a network to mobilise for climate action. This will involve:
To this end, we are looking for someone who can:
If you have any questions, please contact tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk or arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk.
- Developing and managing an Oxford Climate Alumni Network (OxCAN)
- Collaborating with environmental groups and departments in Oxford
- Engaging with current students to help benefit their future careers by providing networking and mentoring opportunities with alumni
- Developing a campaign to redirect university donations towards pro-climate goals and use this as a leverage for change
- Communicating relevant work of OCS to platforms to promote the profile of OCS’ and its members’ work on climate solutions
To this end, we are looking for someone who can:
- Coordinate and organise relevant meetings with the various departments and alumni
- Mobilise their own networks within Oxford
- Ensure further outreach ideas and projects reach their potential
- Coordinate with the Education Director and Team when needed
If you have any questions, please contact tristram.walsh@new.ox.ac.uk or arunima.sircar@chch.ox.ac.uk.
media director
ThsWe’re pretty much all agreed on the facts of climate change. Now more than ever, what counts is how we communicate those facts--that’s why the role of Media Director is and will increasingly become such an important one for OCS!
This role will be largely managerial and involve running the various teams that work on different arts and media-related projects including:
- The OCS blog
- Zine
- Fine-art collaboration with the Flute and Bowl
- The ‘Climate Breakdown’ podcast
- Links with ‘Anthroposphere’, our climate magazine
This is a really exciting time to run for this role as there is huge scope for expanding OCS's media content. Previously the media officer would be in charge of publicity for OCS events- this will now fall into the remit of the events team, leaving you free to explore publicity of the climate movement more broadly. You could explore other social media platforms such as Instagram or Twitter to reach out to people at Oxford and beyond!
A passion for climate action and communication is the most important qualification but strong organisational and teamwork skills are invaluable. You must be confident and enjoy writing in English as this is your tool for creating change!
Should you be interested, please contact celine.barclay@exeter.ox.ac.uk.
ARTS COORDINATOR (Within Media Team)
We have one other position at OCS available in these elections that, while not on core committee, is an important role offering lots of opportunities for the more artistically engaged student.
What the role involves:
What kind of skills are needed:
If interested, please contact thea.stevens@jesus.ox.ac.uk for more information or clarity.
What the role involves:
- Co-editor of RISE: a climate change themed zine
- Helping to run ‘the Flute and the Bowl’ fine art workshops and organise the exhibitions
- An interdisciplinary workshop series between scientists and artists
What kind of skills are needed:
- Some sort of artistic eye – whether that’s poetry, art or just the urge to be more like this. This will be helpful when choosing who to accept for the flute and the bowl and what to accept for RISE
- The ability to work with other people – both of the projects are collaborations with other societies or no-profits. This means that it is incredibly important that you can work with people you don’t know and who aren’t students
- Good publicity skills – a large part of this role involves publicity of both of the projects so that word gets around and people apply and submit things. Knowing how to do this efficiently and clearly is therefore very important.
If interested, please contact thea.stevens@jesus.ox.ac.uk for more information or clarity.
Please see this (hopefully) helpful diagram to see where these roles fit into OCS!
