Written by Victoria Wallis, social media intern for Oxfam Trading This Christmas season, we asked Oxfam shops all over the country to send pictures of their festive windows. We've been overwhelmed by the spectacular displays that they've sent in and to hear how much effort all the volunteers have made.  Here are some of the best windows from Oxfam shops. Above is a display created by Oxfam Gillingham....

It's a slow news week on the Oxfam blog. So here are five books that may or may not have something to do with bonfire night, to keep the explosive fun going now that the big day has passed. Remember, once these books are gone, they're gone - so snap them up quick! Tom Wolfe: The Bonfire of the Vanities The classic drama about ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in 1980s New York. Fireworks:...

Here's Hot Chip's Alexis proudly displaying his new Dolly Parton record. Alexis bought it from our Oxfam Dalston shop and played it as part of Hot Chip's set to launch Oxjam 2012. Their set was made up entirely of music they'd found in the shop that afternoon. Amazing. More: Oxjam 2012 Photo: Dan Medhurst ...

From 11-17 October, shwop your old shoes and handbags in M&S and get £5 off women's new shoes, boots and bags*. Shwopping is a great way of giving your old handbags and shoes a second life. Around 10,000 clothing items go to landfill every five minutes, but you can do something to help reduce this by joining the shwopping revolution at Marks & Spencer. How shwopping works… It's so easy to do -...

Oxfam loves the movies. We've got more than 500 videos on our channel and together people like you have watched them nearly 4 million times! For this week's chart, prepare to make it 4 million and ten - turn up the volume, ready your finger over that "share" button, and check out some of our favourite Oxfam videos. 1. Breakdancing pregnant women With more than 1.3m...

As the summer festival season draws to a close and we start packing our bags for Bestival we wanted to give you a taste of what a day in the life of the Oxfam Festival shop is like. A team of dedicated volunteers from Oxfam shops around the country work on site at several festivals over the summer. At Leeds Festival the Oxfam shop and café is open for around 18 hours a day, selling festival must-haves such as jumpers, waterproofs and...

So the Olympics is all over (at least until the Paralympics!). Did you know that London 2012 is responsible for the biggest peacetime mobilisation of people since World War II - the 70,000 volunteers who helped keep the Olympic Games running smoothly? Oxfam relies on volunteers too - more than 22,000 of them across the UK. The time you give to support our life-changing work makes all the difference in the world. Fancy getting involved?...

Oxfam staff are as excited by the Olympics as the rest of the UK. You might be surprised by how much we and the sporting competition have in common. Here are our top 10 Olympic Oxfam facts! All of the countries where Oxfam works are represented at London 2012. 10 of them have already won at least one gold medal! Oxfam works in 3 of London 2012's top 10 (so far) medal winning countries: China,...

A vast labyrinth of 250,000 books, entitled aMAZEme, has been installed on The Clore Ballroom in the Royal Festival Hall, London between 31 July - 25 August, as part of Southbank Centre's Festival of the World with Mastercard. The project has been created by Brazilian artists Marcos Saboya and Gualter Pupo, in collaboration with production company HungryMan. Inspired by the writer and educator JL Borges, the maze forms...

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas recently joined Oxfam staff and volunteers in Brighton to champion charity shopping and donating to Oxfam. In the run-up of Rio+20, the UN conference on sustainable development, she emphasised the importance of working together for a better future for everyone. She said: "The money that you are raising by passing over your clothes to a charity shop makes a massive difference in terms of enabling...