Our birthday and Jamie Oliver's food revolution

M to the C to the ers!

Ok, admittedly that may be taking the whole nickname thing a bit too far. But anyway, guess what…

The opening of the Oxford School
of Art (www.brookes.ac.uk)

It’s our birthday today! If you remember back to our very first blog post we mentioned that 2015 is both the 800^th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta and the 150^th anniversary of the opening of what is now Oxford Brookes University, and it’s exactly 150 years today since we began as the Oxford School of Art. How exciting is that?! We haven’t received your present yet though, it must still be in the post.

Also, in completely unrelated but even more important news, have you seen that celebrity chef and all round good guy Jamie Oliver is currently calling for a food revolution?

Jamie’s petitioning the G20, a forum for the world’s most powerful countries, to make food education compulsory in schools across the globe. He sees this as crucial to helping children to lead healthier, happier lives and he’s called food education ‘every child’s human right’. He’s determined to get the G20 governments to take action.

And we believe he can do it, because we know all about the Magna Carta. 800 years ago a group of barons secured some rights for some of the people of Britain by getting King John to sign the Magna Carta, and we’re confident that Jamie Oliver can now achieve something similar. He needs your help though, which you can provide in the following ways:

Ed Sheeran and Jamie Oliver
(www.change.org)

Sign the petition here:

www.change.org/p/jamie-oliver-needs-your-help-fighting-for-food-education-foodrevolutionday

Visit the Food Revolution Day* website here:
www.foodrevolutionday.com

Watch the video for the Food Revolution Day song, featuring the likes of Jamie Oliver, Ed Sheeran and Hugh Jackman here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPbKm34FX9s

We hope you get involved and that you have a great weekend,

The Oxford Brookes Magna Carta Team

*Food Revolution Day was on 15 May so we’re a bit late to the party on that front, but Jamie’s campaign is very much ongoing.

Sign up for e-mail updates and watch this video!

MC-ers!

Does that work better as a collective name for our gang? Or do you prefer the full ‘Magna Carta-ers’? It’s up to you guys; this is a very fair gang. We’re not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do or call you anything you don’t want to be called. We’re not King John!*

Anyway, it’s Friday and as well as that bit of comedy gold we have two gifts for you…

First of all, and we should really have done this weeks ago, if you would like to sign up for e-mail updates whenever we do a new blog post then just drop us an e-mail at magnacarta2015@brookes.ac.uk. We’ll be running this blog for the whole of this MC 800^th anniversary year and we know how difficult it can be already keeping up-to-date with your Facebook account, the news, your fantasy football team, etc, so we’re more than happy to make sure you don’t miss a post on here.

Watch the video
(www.lovehasnolabels.com)

Secondly, and even more importantly, we massively recommend taking a few minutes to watch this video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDgZuGIhHs

It’s really beautiful - we won’t lie, a few tears have been shed over it at MC HQ since our friend Hannah showed it to us earlier this week. As well as watching it (and maybe having a little cry yourself) also take a moment to think: What’s it got to do with the Magna Carta? Are there any links between the two?

Have a great weekend and remember to contact us about e-mail updates,

The Oxford Brookes Magna Carta Team

*King John was the specific king whose powers the Magna Carta was brought in to limit, but we bet you knew that already. And as a result we bet you proper LOL’d at that joke - it was pretty hilarious.

The general election and the Magna Carta

Magna Carta-ers, long time no MC!

Apologies for the lack of a blog post for a while, we’ve been super busy sorting out next month’s symposium and exhibition. You know, those Magna Carta themed events that there’s still time for you to get involved in? Check out this previous post for more information: www.oxfordbrookesmagnacarta.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/activities-you-can-get-involved-in.html

Anyway, while you’ve not had these blog posts to read you might have noticed that there’s a general election going on. That’s right, today in the UK we’re voting to decide on who’s going to govern us for the next five years.

We know that a lot of you won’t be old enough to vote yet (unless we’ve completely misjudged the average age of our readers and you’re actually all pensioners) but before long you will be able to. And that’s good, because voting is a BIG DEAL.

Ed Miliband and David Cameron
(www.ibtimes.co.uk)

Sometimes we can take it for granted in the UK, especially as British politics isn’t always that exciting. I mean, Ed Miliband and David Cameron are hardly the kind of guys you’d want to go on holiday with, are they? But all over the world there are people who can’t vote. And what’s more, people in Britain have fought very hard to have the vote today. For example, did you know that women in Britain only got the vote in 1918? And that was still only women over 30 and only came about after years and years of campaigning.

Now, what’s this got to do with the Magna Carta we hear you asking?* Well, if you’ve been reading this blog since the beginning you’ll know by now that in 1215 the Magna Carta took some power from the king and set out for the first time the rights of some of the people in Britain. And as a result this process of transferring power from the elites to the people has been continuing ever since, with the right to vote being a very important part of this.

So ask yourselves - would your parents and grandparents be able to vote without the Magna Carta? Would you able to in the future?

A general election polling station
(www.theguardian.com)

If you’d like some more information on today’s election and its relationship with the Magna Carta and peoples’ rights in general then you should totally check out the following:

A really impassioned and empowering video about the election and our rights by The Guardian journalist Owen Jones:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/video/2015/may/05/no-normal-election-dont-let-your-voice-be-taken-away-owen-jones

The UK Parliament’s web pages for schools and young people, which feature information on both the general election and the 800^th anniversary of the Magna Carta:
www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/2015-parliament-in-the-making/2015-resources-for-schools-and-young-people

Enjoy!

The Oxford Brookes Magna Carta Team

*We can't actually hear you, that would be weird.