Forty-eight business and community leaders slept out in University Parks to raise money for homelessness as part of the annual Oxfordshire CEO sleepout on 8th October. 

The charity event has raised over £43,000, with 655 donations at the time of publication. The event attracted figures from local politics and the University of Oxford alike, including Labour MP for Oxford East Anneliese Dodds, City Councillor Mike Rowley, University Church Vicar William Lamb and Director of Accommodation at Jesus College Angela Unsworth. Unsworth has participated every year since it began, and Jesus covered logistics on the night, with its catering team helping prepare for the event. 

Unsworth told Cherwell: “Even when the weather has been atrocious, it does us all good to remember that we can go home, have a shower, and breakfast. We don’t have the problem of drying out all our kit, finding dry bedding, and having to do it all again the next night.” Before trying to catch some sleep, participants heard from Jack and Tony, who talked about their journey out of homelessness and experience with it. Unsworth also highlighted talking to Steve every morning, a 70-year-old man sleeping rough in the city centre who cannot afford accommodation. Unsworth told Cherwell: “These are good people who just need a chance.” 

CEO Sleepout, an organisation dedicated to uniting the business community against homelessness, held the event. They hold similar sleepouts in cities across the UK, and have raised £4.5 million for various charities to date. The Oxford CEO Sleepout chose to donate to the Oxford Homelessness Movement (OHM), a partnership of various charities tackling homelessness in Oxford. Over the past five years, the sleepout has raised just over £250,000 for OHM and its partner organisations.

Yvonne Pinner, Project Chair of OHM, told Cherwell: “Oxfordshire Homeless Movement (OHM) is lucky enough to have our core costs paid for by a donor, and so all the funds raised will go towards delivery of our project work and partners. This means that all money raised will help someone locally.” Pinner also added that students can get involved in the initiative by “talking about the event to lecturers, college staff, and management and getting them to sign up”.

More than 1,700 people died on the streets of the UK in 2025, including 51 children, both figures being the highest ever recorded. Although the national number of households assessed as threatened with homelessness dropped by 4.5% from January to March 2025 compared with the same figure in 2024, in Oxford the number doubled. Oxford’s average monthly rent reached £1,875 in 2025, an 11.5% annual increase, being the highest average monthly rent outside London. As many as 41 individuals were reported as sleeping rough in November 2024, but this figure likely underreports the population of homeless women in Oxford. This is because women are much more likely to experience ‘hidden homelessness’, staying in hidden or unsafe places to avoid danger on the street. 

Homeless Oxfordshire’s CEO Simon Hewett-Avison has called for a greater investment in social housing in the city. He also highlights that addressing rent hikes isn’t the only way to go about the problem, saying that: “The average age of death in the homeless population is early 40s and the incidence of poor physical and mental health within the homeless population far outweighs that of society as a whole”. He has called to “work more closely across sectors”. 

Students can join a number of organisations tackling homelessness, including Oxford Student Social Action Coalition, Food Rescuers, and Oxford Mutual Aid. 

A record 15,000 runners took to the streets of Oxford to complete the annual half marathon on Sunday 11th October. Thousands of supporters lined the course to cheer the runners. Alex Miell-Ingram won the race in 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 21 seconds. 

Many ran the half marathon for charity. Helen and Douglas House, the world’s first children’s hospice, was the headline charity partner, with 300 people running in support. The charity supports terminally ill children and their families in Oxfordshire. This year, it aims to raise £200,000, the cost of funding a hospice bed for one year. 

Twenty people ran for Asylum Welcome, a charity which provides advice and support for refugees and asylum seekers living in Oxfordshire. Among them was the charity’s Joint CEO Dr Hari Reed. The group hope to raise £10,000. 

The Lord Mayor of Oxford, Chewe Munkonge, was among the 15,000 runners on Sunday. He ran the half marathon to raise funds for Sobell House Hospice, one of this year’s charities, which provides specialist palliative care. Munkonge said he would not wear his mayoral regalia on the course, saying: “This Sunday, I’ll be swapping the mayoral chains for running shoes”. “This will be my first half marathon, so there are definitely some nerves,” he added. 

Simon Lewthwaite, who has epilepsy, ran his first half marathon in an official NHS patient hospital gown to raise money for Oxford Hospitals Charity. He said that completing it with epilepsy would be “an even greater test of resilience and determination”.

The Oxford Half Marathon began in 1988 and was won by athlete Bill Domoney in 1 hour 11 minutes and 14 seconds. The 51 Rotary clubs in the area organised the race to raise money for the PolioPlus campaign, a programme aiming to eliminate six killer diseases. People came from overseas to run past Oxford’s historic hotspots, and the oldest entrant, veteran Arthur Stone, was aged 70 at the time. Oxford’s Rotary clubs continued to organise the event until 1993. 

The half marathon returned in 2011, with 1,800 runners. Just two years later, in 2013, it had 5,500 runners, and the number of runners and spectators has grown steadily year on year. In 2025, more than 13,000 runners signed up and places sold out in January. That year, the event raised over £1.5 million for more than 180 charities. 

Cherwell spoke to students who ran the race. Ioanna Bezirtzoglou, a third-year DPhil student at Pembroke, ran as part of Oxford Girls’ Running Club and volunteered at the race last year. She ran dressed as a princess. “I love the fact I have a community as encouraging as Oxford Girls Running,” Ioanna told Cherwell. “Having volunteered last year at the Oxford half, it’s so exciting to be able to run it this year!”

Dina Graham from Pembroke told Cherwell that “the energy from the crowd really carried me through and was a highlight throughout”. “People stood outside their homes with bowls of sweets that you could grab,” she added. Dina ran for Maggie’s, a charity for people with cancer. “It was motivating to raise money to support them. It gave a purpose and a reason why I’m running.”

This year, the race sold out general entries in less than three weeks – three months faster than in 2025. This puts it ahead of wider industry averages, even as the half marathon industry is expanding overall. The latest Mass Participation Pulse report shows events are selling out ten days earlier than in 2024, and almost a month earlier than 2023. The Hackney Half Marathon, for instance, has also sold out its tickets faster year on year, having sold out in two days for the 2026 race. 

With record popularity and turnout in 2026, the Oxford Half has now cemented its place in Oxford’s sporting calendar. What was once an event with little more than 1,000 runners has now become an unmissable fixture involving 15,000. 

Image credits: Maryam Nawaz, with permission

Approximately 300 demonstrators joined the ‘Oxford Unites Against the Far Right’ unity march Saturday afternoon, amid matriculation ceremonies. More than 23 local organisations took part in the peaceful march from Cowley Road to the Sheldonian Theatre, challenging the far right’s rise across the UK. 

Oxford Stand Up To Racism organised the march, which included representatives from political parties and matriculating students at the University of Oxford. 

A representative from Stand Up to Racism, Monique, opened the rally: “We are going to show the love of Oxford today. We’ve got to find our humanity – it feels like this country has forgotten that.” Speaking to Cherwell, she added: “The message is simple: everyone should be welcome. That is the way England has always been, giving refuge to those who need it.”

In her speech, Labour Councillor for Blackbird Leys Lubna Arshad referenced the City Council’s commitment to make Oxford an anti-racist city. “We must turn those commitments into action,” she told the crowd. “The far right does not speak for Oxford. The far right will not divide us.”

A small group within the crowd booed the councillor’s speech, shouting “F*ck the Labour Party” and “Labour is a racist Party”. The crowd hushed them, and Stand Up To Racism said: “Today is for unity. The far right wants to divide us. We are all speaking the same message.” At the end of the event, Ian McKendrich, a representative for Oxfordshire Stand Up To Racism, said: “We need unity irrespective of our differences on other issues.”

Crowds of newly matriculated students in sub fusc cheered as the march approached the Sheldonian Theatre, some joining in to sing ‘Bella ciao’ down the High Street. One matriculant told Cherwell: “I wanted to show there’s no place in Oxford for the far right, as much as Ghislaine Maxwell and Boris Johnson have come from here.” 

Emma Jones, speaking on behalf of the Coalition to Keep Campsfield Closed, called the detention centre “one of the biggest symbols of division in Oxford”. Since its reopening in December 2025, the centre has drawn regular protests. “Immigration detention is racist,” she told the crowd, “for more than 30 years, people in Oxfordshire have refused to accept Campsfield. The biggest danger of a thing like Campsfield is that we become accustomed to it.” Plans from the government to more than double Campsfield’s capacity are currently undergoing a public inquiry. 

The demonstrators held placards including “Make Nazis afraid again”, and banners which called for the protection of Oxford as a city of sanctuary. Seth, the former Co-Chair of Oxford Labour Club, told Cherwell: “These marches show the people to whom the far right poses a genuine, tangible threat that they are not the only ones who have a voice, that there are people everywhere in the community that care and that will stand up with them.”

“It achieves genuine things,” he added. “Look at Shabana Mahmood – she has changed her policy on immigration rules that she imposed last November because of these constant protests.”

This is the second consecutive year that Stand Up To Racism has led the march in Oxford. Reflecting on last year’s demonstration, a drummer from Extinction Rebellion told Cherwell: “I think it was appreciated by people who can feel under attack at the moment. People come out of their houses clapping and thanking [us] – it is in solidarity with those people too.” 

Oxford is one of eight cities to hold unity marches this Saturday. Speaking with Cherwell, Ines Wilhelm, the newly elected Chair for the Oxfordshire Green Party, said that “this is a happy protest. Lots of people are coming out, having a good time, and showing that they care about each other.” 

Additional reporting by Mair Andrews, Stanley Arlidge, and Freya Robson.