Enterprising students have been putting their skills to the test in an ice cream selling competition.

As part of the Oxford Entrepreneurs’ “OxPrentice” series, competitors in the G&D’s Challenge were asked to come up with a flavour of ice cream and pitch it to a panel of experts. At the end of 6th week, the best two flavours were made, and the ice cream that sold the most was declared the winner.

The two teams went head to head with flavours “Jaffaholic”, made of jaffa cake chunks soaked in cointreau, and a festive ice cream which contained chunks of gingerbread and white chocolate.

Thirteen tubs of each ice cream were produced and distributed to the three G&D’s shops around Oxford. The ice cream went on sale at noon on Friday of 6th, and the winner was the flavour which sold out first, or which had sold the most by midnight on Monday. Both teams were given a budget of £200 for ingredients and £100 for marketing.

The winning flavour was Jaffaholic, which triumphed by a margin of just half a tub.

Ushma Soneji, Hertford College, from the Jaffaholic team said, “We came up with the idea because we wanted something that hadn’t been done before, but would work well with the other flavours available at G&D’s so it could realistically become a long term regular flavour.”

Suzanne Winder, a Hertford graduate, and also on the winning team said, “We had the brainstorming on Wednesday when the idea was chosen, the ice cream was made on Thursday while we got our strategy together (fitted around work), it went on sale Friday lunchtime and I spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday entirely focussed on telling everyone about my flavour and letting them taste it. We weren’t really warned about how quick the challenge would be, we just had to get on with it.”

Tom Corcoran, manager of the St. Aldate’s G&D’s, said, “One of the things we were looking for in the competition was that they had to be able to source local ingredients. It was partly because that’s what we prefer to do wherever possible, but also it ensures for us that if the competition was running on Wednesday, as it was, we could guarantee that we could have the ice cream on sale on Friday.

“We could literally go to the same places that they’d sourced the products giving us the prices, everything we needed to know, so it made it very straightforward for us to then go out and make their flavour as they wanted it to appear.”

Hayato Maedo, OxPrentice director, commented, “I’m delighted with the event. We managed to hold a really cool event, the companies were pleased with the outcome, the feedback from the participants was (I think) the best we’ve ever had (averaging in the region of 9 out of 10) and what’s more, one of the winning teams managed to get onto BBC Oxford radio to talk about their flavour.”

Corcoran added, “We were very impressed with the quality of the flavour ideas they came up with and they were quite diverse. Both of the two finalists flavours were fantastic and we promised that we would repeat the winning flavour throughout the course of the year anyway but in actual fact I would be very keen to produce both of the flavours and they will probably be a flavour on and off throughout the year and probably for a few years to come as well.”

Other entrants included Super G, an energy ice cream which was targeted at sports teams and gym enthusiasts, and Banoffee Crunch and Nostalgic Nana, an ice cream based on the banana flavoured sweets from the 1980s.

The panel of experts was made up of managers from G&D’s, the marketing firm Purple Frog, and a marketing representative from Nestle.

Jordan Poulton, President of the Oxford Entrepreneurs, explained the motivation behind

the competition, “We want to help people learn business skills by testing themselves in a risk-free environment. They don’t have to invest any money, only some time, and they get the chance to prove their abilities in real life entrepreneurial scenarios. We have a number of events lined up for the year, and we also have an iPhone App under development at the moment from the previous OxPrentice challenge.”

A lack of advice and service for dementia sufferers and the people who care for them has been condemned by Tony Hope, a Professor of Medical Ethics at Oxford University.

“When a person is diagnosed with cancer, a wide range of services can be accessed. This is not true in the case of dementia”, claimed Hope adding, “Many people with dementia receive little support once the initial diagnosis is made.”

A report on dementia published last month and chaired by Professor Hope, warned against a “‘tick-box’ culture” that “dehumanises the relationships and the care.” Hope also declared that “more information and support from professionals is needed… the Equality and Human Rights Commission should provide practical guidance.”

Dementia sufferers occupy one in four hospital beds, and eighty percent of nurses felt they needed more specialist advice, according to a survey of 1300 carers and 1100 nurses published last week by the Alzheimer’s Society.

Oxford University scientists are using brain scanning technology to investigate how we learn to recognize and comprehend the facial expressions of others.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive technique that measures the magnetic fields generated by brain activity, is being used to examine the face processing abilities of 96 children aged 5-16.

The study, which samples participants with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), will compare the reactions of children in order to examine how the development of such vital brain responses is affected by ASD.

Dr Swettenham who is leading the study commented, “There is a lot of evidence to suggest that people with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty with processing faces.”

St Peter’s College has sold the only double Victoria Cross awarded during World War One for a record fee of almost £1.5 million.

The double VC was bought by Lord Ashcroft. It will be displayed as part of his medal collection in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery, due to open in the Imperial War Museum next year.

The Gallery is funded by a £5m donation from the Tory peer. His collection of 160 Victoria Cross medals is worth £30m.

The first Cross was awarded to Captain Noel Chavasse for his heroism in the Battle of the Somme, whilst the second posthumously for his bravery at Ypres where he died in 1917. It is one of only three double VCs to have been awarded since Queen Victoria created the medal in 1856.

The medals were left to St Peter’s, which was founded by Chavasse’s father in 1929.

A college spokesman praised this opportunity for the medals to “be seen by the public in their proper context” with the proceeds going to unspecified “educational purposes”.

This term Oxford has welcomed the first Afghan woman to study at the University.

21-year-old Shaharzad Akbar is studying for a Master’s in Development Studies after receiving the prestigious Weidenfeld Scholarship.

Akbar’s route to Oxford was far from conventional. She studied Philosophy at Kabul University and then transferred to Smith College, Massachusetts in the United States. However, her education before university was disjointed due to the war. Akbar’s family moved often and she attended school in Pakistan for some time. As a result, she was mainly home-schooled.

Akbar said, “I remember reading about Oxford University when I was a child.” She names Benazir Bhutto as her role model, saying, “She went to Oxford, but I never thought I would end up here. It is truly a dream come true.”
She is one of 29 students who have received the Weidenfeld Scholarship. The programme is mainly open to students from transition and emerging economies in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

A spokesperson for the University said of the programme; “The scholars are encouraged to reflect on the nature of a ‘good society’ and explore how they can work towards this goal in their own field.” Scholars are expected “to return to their country of origin in due course and play a significant leadership role in public life in their own countries or internationally.”

Speaking on education in Afghanistan, Akbar described how it is improving, even since she first attended university in Kabul in 2005. She says things were different then, “very political” and students had “very few options”.

There are now more private institutions appearing in Afghanistan, though many of them also have limited options for study usually restricted to economics and accounting.
While she praised the increasing opportunities to study abroad for Afghan students in countries like India and the arrival of international teachers in Afghanistan, she pointed out there are still many problems with schooling in Afghanistan, chiefly due to issues with security.

Many schools, especially girls’ schools, are burned down or destroyed and there have been incidents of teachers and students being attacked. Akbar’s mother is a primary school teacher and notes that many students are working in insecure areas and are often not able to concentrate in school. Even in safer regions, problems can arise when teachers are under-qualified or there is a lack of resources.

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP for Access and Academic Affairs said, “Shaharzad Akbar has an amazing story, and it’s great that someone from her background is now a student at Oxford. An inability to find funding is one of the major obstacles to graduate study at the university, and a priority for OUSU this year is working with the university and government to improve the scholarships which are available to graduates. Scholarships targeted at talented students from developing countries are particularly important, and the award of this scholarship is a very good example of why such funding is crucial.”

Akbar described her experience at Oxford so far as “great” and said she particularly enjoys having “access to so many resources.” She also appreciates the array of different events on offer at Oxford.

She is interested in working in community-based development, possibly in areas such as reproductive health, education and women’s rights.

Akbar began her studies in October. She has said of coming to Oxford, “My family are very proud, I am the first to go to university, but all of this would not have been possible without the support of so many people.”

Students from Oxford University Amnesty International protested last Saturday afternoon outside the Shell garage in Headington.

The students were demonstrating against Shell’s actions in the Niger Delta, and specifically against gas flaring.

Gas flaring is the practice of burning off the gas when oil is pumped from the ground. James Kilby, a student at Jesus College explained that gas flaring was causing “significant environmental and health issues” for the people of the Niger Delta region.

The Amnesty group claimed, “The local people’s human rights have seriously been abused – leaving them to drink polluted water, eat contaminated fish, farm on spoiled land, and breathing in air that stinks of oil and gas.”

They accused Shell of contravening Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights that calls for “the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.” The students called on Shell “to stop putting profit before people.”
The protesters encouraged various passers-by to sign petitions and letters to Shell in order to put pressure on the company. One protester stated that there is “no stronger action than consumer complaint.”

Björn Bremer, press officer for Oxford University Amnesty International, was enthusiastic about the protest, commenting, “The response from the public was very positive”. He argued that such protests can be a powerful tool, “It’s definitely a good way of increasing the public pressure…they will be forced to think about their actions.”

A spokesperson for Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) explained that Amnesty’s original accusations were made in a report released in June. “In our opinion, the report makes a number of unsupported allegations and draws superficial conclusions with little underlying analysis and fails to offer new insights and solutions to the complex problems in the region. The root causes of the Niger Delta’s humanitarian issues are poverty, corruption, crime, militancy, violence and political instability.”

He added, “Amnesty forget that about 85% of the pollution from our operation comes from attacks and sabotage that also puts our staff’s lives and human rights at risk.”

“SPDC welcomes on-going dialogue with Amnesty International, and other similar organisations, to promote a better understanding of the complex realities of doing business in Nigeria.”

The committee set up to review sports provision in Oxford has this week announced a near doubling of the funding for sports within the University.

It also proposes greater coordination between the University and colleges, which should save colleges money.

The funding increase would be achieved by an increase in the college levy. Colleges currently contribute £150,000 per year to sports facilities, but since 1966 this has fallen behind inflation. The report recommends that £30 million be raised to develop the sports facilities at Iffley road.

The report heavily criticised the current state of sports provision in Oxford. “Facilities for sport at Oxford are seriously inadequate for modern requirements in terms of quality, quantity and r

ange of activities covered.”

Oxford did not compare well with its peer universities in terms of sports provision. There was also concern on the over-provision for team sports at college level. The cost to individual colleges per game of team sport such as rugby can be up to £900.

While welcoming increased funding for sports in principle, OUSU has struck out at a part of the report which appears to suggest that if funding for the Iffley Road development cannot be met through donations and other fundraising, it should be covered by introducing a charge to all students.

The report states that the £30 million needed for the Iffley Road plans could be covered by borrowing the money. This would lead to £3 million per year interest, which could be covered by a charge of £150 per year to each student. A motion passed unanimously at OUSU Council on Wednesday opposed “the possibility of a regressive per capita levy on individual students of £150 per year for the next 30 years.”

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP for AcAff commented, “Broadly speaking the review has come back with excellent conclusions. There’s a definite need to improve sports facilities at Oxford… Sport is an integral part of student life at Oxford and anything which improves the student experience in this way is a good thing.”

His concerns lay with the principle of charging students for improvements to facilities. “Even if this is the worst-case scenario for funding the project, it’s important that we say now that the costs of the project shouldn’t be charged to students in this way.”

A spokesperson from Oxford University stated that, “The mention of tuition fees and a £150 levy within this report was illustrative of the maximum per capita cost of funding a new sports complex. It is there to give a sense of scale and context. It was certainly not a proposal.”

Oxford students are organising a book-burning protest over the contents of this year’s Oxford and Cambridge Careers Handbook.

The handbook, published jointly by the Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU) and the Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), carries adverts for careers in arms manufacture and tobacco companies. It includes a whole chapter on “Technology and Security” where students can discover how to get a job manufacturing missiles for MBDA and SELEX Galileo, as well as advertisements for British American Tobacco, and the Freemasons.

The handbook arrived in the college pigeon-holes of final year students last week.

The protesting students plan to burn a pile of the hefty 420-page books on Port Meadow next week in a dramatic and eye-catching demonstration against the focus on limited and traditional career paths. The organisers claim that “according to the Oxford and Cambridge careers guide your only job options are banking, arms, oil and freemasonry.” The banking section is the longest in the handbook, with 30 companies featured; the chapter on alternative careers features only five. There are no featured companies in the charitable sector.

Lewis Goodall, a student at St John’s College who set up the protest said, “The careers book is utterly skewed towards certain, altogether unpleasant industries. To look at the pages of the guide anyone would think our career options can only possibly involve corporate law, Shell and various arms companies. We want to protest to make the editors think twice about their content next year, and have a more diversified provision.”

Oxford students regularly receive invitations for drinks and dinner from banks, accountancy firms, and Magic Circle Law firms. Ben Lyons, a second year at St. Catherine’s College, commented, “OUSU should be making clear to us that we’ve got a bigger choice than KPMG vs. Freshfields when we graduate. While these careers are not to be disparaged, handbooks and careers fairs should be highlighting more socially useful professions.”

The inclusion of some of the companies in the handbook is even more controversial as it seems to conflict with OUSU’s socially responsible investment policy. OUSU has been lobbying the University to invest exclusively in ethically responsible companies. The handbook does not make it clear that all the companies featured paid to be included.

OUSU Environment and Ethics officer Daniel Lowe explained that the publication was produced by a contractor, with little input from the student body. He promised that next year’s handbook would be more diverse, saying “OUSU did not have the level of control desired in the production process, but we will ensure that members of the executive will have far more control from now on.”

Despite the support for the motivation behind the protester, there is scepticism that burning wads of chemically-loaded glossy paper is a good idea. Lyons said, “It’s not smart to go down such a historically loaded avenue as book-burning and it’s not environmentally responsible to burn thousands of sheets of glossy paper, even if the point they’re making is a good one.”

Lowe claimed the protest was pointless. “I see little point in a protest when those in charge have already recognised the problem and promised to do something about it. Port Meadow is a site of special scientific interest and the fragile ecosystem is likely to be badly damaged.” OUSU hold an annual “Beyond Profit” careers fair in Hilary term.

Under pressure from student-led activism, lecturers in Oxford and other universities across the country will be turning over their usual timetables next week to devote teaching time to climate change.

The plans are a way of raising awareness before the UN’s climate change summit in Copenhagen in December.

Oxford University will be taking part in a national climate change awareness campaign initiated by the Campaign Against Climate Change, backed by the national University and College Union, over 50 top academics, 5 Oxford JCRs and OUSU’s Environment and Ethics Committee.

A series of lectures, talks and debates will be taking place throughout 8th week on the subject, including a debate:  “Is the University Doing Enough in the face of Climate Catastrophe”, a talk by eminent philosopher, John Broome on “The Ethics of Climate Change” and a lecture to be given by the head of Oxford’s Climate Dynamics department, Myles Allen.

Much of the week’s activity, however, will be focused on the 1st December, when lecturers from a number of departments around the University will turn over the content of their ordinary lectures to climate change.

Although negotiations are ongoing between Oxford Education against climate change, a pressure group of mostly undergraduate students, and departments across the University, lecturers in Physics, Earth Sciences, PPE and Philosophy have already committed to give over teaching time to the cause.

The Physics department has pledged to dedicate the last ten minutes of every lecture given in 8th week to discussion of climate change, while the Earth Sciences department has given a similar pledge.

Sophie Rimington-Pounder, a second year Physics student said, “I think it’s a good idea – it promotes a crucial aspect to today’s science, as long as it is more relevant to the scientific aspect of climate change and not completely politically charged.”

However, a Physics student from Magdalen was less supportive: “I think raising awareness is a good thing, but I’d be disappointed if it takes time away from actually teaching my course. I’m not sure whether talking for ten minutes to a group of people who don’t really want to be there is the best way of promoting any cause, even a worthwhile one.”

Political Theory and Utilitarianism lecturers have also agreed to devote time to the subject on the 1st and throughout the week, and various PPE lectures on the 1st are being modified with climate change in mind.

Mike Webb, a second year PPE student from Balliol will be attending the Political Theory lecture and argues that climate change poses many questions for the political theorist about the role of government. “Some of the world’s most eminent political philosophers, such as Michael Sandal, John Broome and Amartya Sen, are thinking and writing about these questions, so I for one am looking forward to hearing what Stuart White, the lecturer, has to say on the subject.”

Other departments involved include the International Development Department, which held a series of evening lectures this week including “Climate change refugees: What’s all the fuss about?” and will also be turning over its timetable on Tuesday 1st.

Jake Colman, a 3rd year Physics student at St. Peter’s involved in pressuring departments to take action explained the initiative, “These actions mark the beginning of a long-term campaign both to activate students in the struggle against climate change and to challenge the current conception of education as something decided upon from above…with Climate Change already thought to be killing about 300,000 people a year and rising fast, we currently face a threat to humanity itself. [The UN Climate Conference in] Copenhagen will not provide the answers we need. The solution doesn’t simply lie with our leaders, who are driven by economic and political interest – it lies with us.”

Another Oxford student involved, Amy Gilligan argued, “So far the responses to the impending catastrophe of climate change that are visible in the UK’s educational institutions are feeble. In subjects like Physics, Economics and Geography isolated courses on climate change are taught, but we lack the integration at every level, with every subject and at every age group that is necessary for the kind of widespread consciousness that we need.”

The week’s national activities will culminate in students around the country joining “The Wave” in London – set to be the largest climate change demonstration hitherto staged in the capital.

Lady Margaret Hall is introducing a variety of new measures to improve welfare facilities available to students.

This follows concerns that current mental health provision, both at the college and across the University, has not been reaching out to the most vulnerable, after the suicides of two students in the last year.

Karen Clarke, JCR Female Welfare Officer, said, “People involved with welfare throughout the college, from the JCR up to the top of the SCR, are concerned about certain members of the college becoming isolated and so we are generally seeking to make college life and all welfare facilities open to all.”

A new mentoring system has been put in place in order to help Freshers tackle t

heir work and a new academic feedback system has been introduced.

Clarke said the mentoring system should help “limit unnecessary stress” and the feedback system should prevent academic problems going unnoticed and “highlight to the college the areas that really need the most improvement.” However, she stresses that these are simply improvements to what is a “well-respected welfare system” already.

LMH is planning a series of anxiety support workshops, primarily targeted at finalists but open to anyone. Yoga classes, which were previously only available to the MCR, are now available for the JCR “as a means of relaxation but also as a form of welfare activity that would be more accessible for students with problems such as negative body image or disordered eating.”

Clarke added that LMH is further keen to encourage students to become involved in extracurricular activities.

The Welfare team are also promoting safer drinking amongst students. The Senior Tutor Dr Fiona Spensley would like to introduce non-alcoholic nights at the college bar and the JCR is organising a quiz on the effects of alcohol.

LMH is placing more emphasis on the college parent system and Clarke notes that many Freshers involved in the swine flu “buddy” system are now generally checking up on each other’s well-being.

Clarke added, “Overall, as a college we’ve been working incredibly hard to ensure that any necessary measures to ensure the welfare of students at LMH are put into place effectively. In high pressure environments like Oxford it’s far too easy for students to ‘get lost in the system’ and find that, for whatever reason, they feel insufficiently supported or don’t know where to turn.”

One LMH student commented, “I think welfare provisions in college are already good, but any changes or improvements are of course welcome.”

Students who feel depressed or anxious can contact their Welfare Officers, Peer Supporters or Nightline on 01865 270270 for support.