DID you hear the one about the man who tried to buy 20 goats with 58,000 stamps?

A team of dedicated Banbury volunteers have spent about a year collecting stamps to be sold by Oxfam.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Bankside gathered, cut out and sorted enough stamps to raise cash to buy about 20 goats, six cows, or provide 500 people with safe drinking water.

The haul was donated to Banbury’s Oxfam Bookshop last month and since then stamps have been flying off the shelves.

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Project coordinator for the church Des Waddington, 60, first launched the initiative in Daventry five years ago. To date, the original scheme has donated more than half a million stamps to Oxfam.

Mr Waddington said: “In Banbury we are still quite embryonic. We haven’t really got stuck in yet.”

The Banbury collection had a variety of sources, from avid collectors handing over their albums to individuals passing on old Christmas card envelopes.

Church members then process the stamps, cropping excess paper from around used stamps to a width of a quarter of an inch. They are marked as UK or overseas, then packed into bags of 500 and given to Oxfam.

Mr Waddington added: “It’s arduous and labour-intensive but a lot of people do it as a family, or in front of the TV.”

Lis Griffin, stamps coordinator at the Oxfam Bookshop in Market Place, said: “What a terrific amount of stamps. We are very grateful.”

Bishop Joseph Gedge, the leader of the Mormon Church in Banbury, said: “We are grateful for the continued opportunity to work with Oxfam to give help to the poor and needy.

“This type of voluntary work helps us to feel closer to the community in which we live.”