The inaugural meeting of the Banbury Area Amnesty International Group takes place Mon 13 June, 8pm at The Friends Meeting House, Horse Fair, Banbury OX16 0AH. The Bloxham Group is to become part of the Banbury Area Group and will no longer exist as a separate entity. This is a very exciting development which we hope will see Amnesty build a bigger presence in Banbury and the surrounding villages and attract a wider range of supporters from the area. There are encouraging signs currently of growing awareness of, and involvement with Amnesty locally, not least with at least two local schools taking steps to set up Amnesty youth groups, which we have assisted.

There will be a short talk by Kerry Moscogiuri, a Director of AIUK; a discussion of what priorities the new Group should have and how we should organise ourselves; and an opportunity to meet others interested in getting involved. We will also have some of Amnesty's virtual reality headsets that give a sense of the scale of destruction in Syria for you to experience - these have been a very effective aid to awareness-raising over the last year.