You’re invited to Marmalade 2022!

Come and explore big social change questions with us.

How do we create public services that focus on people and take into account the complexity of their lives and communities? How can we make space for people with lived experience to reclaim decision-making about their local area? How do we find ways of understanding what real change is taking place, and how?

Marmalade is back — come and explore these questions with us!

Organised by the Old Fire Station and Oxford Hub, Marmalade is an annual event that brings people together to collaborate, have conversations and work for social change. Whether you’re a local resident who’s passionate about making Oxford a better place, a professional in the voluntary or public sector, or just curious, you’re welcome at Marmalade. Expect to learn, to share, to be challenged and entertained. Bring your questions, your creativity and your curiosity!

Marmalade turns the usual conference experience upside down, making it free for people to attend any session, and asking hosts to make a financial contribution to participate. This approach helps make the event accessible to attendees and ensures hosts are thoughtful about how they will use their time and platform. We encourage sessions to focus on participation (i.e. the opposite of PowerPoint). We are interested in a two-way dialogue, enabling attendees to co-create, challenge and learn new things.

Last year’s Marmalade event was even more unconventional than usual, pairing people from across the city for conversations over Zoom or during a walk, exploring questions that had emerged during the pandemic. We drew the outcomes from these discussions into a Marmalade recipe book.

This year, we’re bringing people together to help us shape a better Oxford all year round. In 2022, we’re launching 3 different ‘inquiries’ — themes we are exploring more deeply to make a difference in the city:

• Services for humans
• Meaningful measurement
• Sharing power

Marmalade 2022 is taking place 5–9th April.

Join us for these experiments, by participating in a session, or running a session of your own. Interested in hosting a session? Read our information pack, and fill out this short form to let us know what you would like to do.