Transition Town Tooting

Author: Transition Town Tooting

  • Opening night of Stay With Love exhibition – we celebrated with poetry, music and good company!

    On October 3rd the opening night of the Stay With Love exhibition at The Sound Lounge in Tooting saw a very diverse group of 75 join in to celebrate the exhibition. There were teenagers, families and young children from the asylum-seeking and refugee community who are served by CARAS. There were many of the CARAS team of staff and volunteers, and lots of TTT volunteers. All have been contributing to the creative and expressive work that makes up the exhibiton.
    Plus there were friends old and new from the wider community – it was a great welcoming mix from many countries!

    Carrie was our MC for the night. She welcomed everyone and reminded us that the offer to ‘Stay With Love’ had been written in July on one of the pallet-benches made in the Youth Club. That’s a poignant invitation for a young refugee to make.
      
    We saw the delightful CARAS Youth Club short film: two minutes capturing the experience of sharing and value that many of us have enjoyed as volunteers over the past two and a half years. We’ll add a weblink asap.

    Hannah White, co-founder of the Sound Lounge, celebrated the work and good humour of the young people from CARAS who are doing certificated training as coffee baristas and as sound engineers at the café.

    We shared poems and prose linked to the experiences of living in and valuing a new place, of changing perceptions and of new languages and relationships. Here is a poem read and written  by Resina Chowdhury:

    Prayer

    To move away from a land

    We must break ourselves off it completely. 

    The split leaves a wound

    a loss of memory, huge and gaping

    which nothing material can fill. 


    O Mother of a false birth, 

    you were not ready for me. 

    Where was the milk to offer your baby, all drained of blood? 

    Dying, I was taken to where

    the milk was plentiful

    where there was blood to give, rich and warm

    and we survived, 

    more or less, weaned by another. 

    But cannot forget those who held us before. 


    What is the treatment for the loss of a culture? 

    To see oneself continue in history? 

    What can be said when the spirit is forgotten? 

    When a life is not nurtured

    because it is not understood? 

    Still we seek out a tongue that will define. 


    Mother

    Teach me who I am. 

    Give me knowledge to recover myself. 

    Give me understanding to fill the loss. 

    Give me strength to withstand hostility. 

    Give me love to endure.  


    We had live music of many kinds –

    Dermot and Gerri led half an hour where the children 
    used all the percussion instruments we could find. 
    They were the backing band for extempore songs with words taken from some of the CARAS participants’ statements about their heroes or ambitions.
    David sang about Cristiano Ronaldo, Carrie sang
    ‘I Want to Be a Dentist’, Emiliano drummed…all fantastic!
    Shonar Spiral from London played two gutsy songs.

    Fadhil Alfadly and Kaspar King from Iraq rapped in Arabic over iPhone tracks and live drumming. One of the children stayed on to accompany their songs: she was very composed.

    Dermot played a solo set as conversation continued until it was time to tidy up and head home after a lovely evening together.

    Please visit The Sound Lounge and enjoy the exhibition any time the café is open. There are two interactive pieces alongside the wide range of creative work done by the Youth Club, the Family Groups and the ESOL classes.
    There’s a comments book set up, you can take a CARAS or TTT leaflet and please get in touch with CARAS or TTT if you want to know more, or if you want to find out how to volunteer. 
    Please take a #StayWithLove sticker or two and ask your friends to visit!

  • Restart and Sewstart in Tooting Saturday 21st Oct

    • Have you got electrical or electronic items that you don’t want to throw away?
    • Got a sewing machine that is broken or you’re not sure how to use?
    • Have a favourite piece of clothing that needs mending or altering and you’d like to learn how?
    • Simply good at fixing and mending stuff?
    Fancy a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chance to find out more about 
    Transition Tooting and what we get up to?

    Whatever the reason – come along on
    Sat 21st October – 2.00 – 5.00pm
    Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW
    (next to Nando’s)

    (Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please don’t forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!   More info about Restart including details of regular skillshares at www,therestartproject.org)

  • Time to celebrate!


    October is our six-month anniversary as your Pips!

    As well as marking our half birthday, it’s a chance to catch a breath after the huge successes of the Tooting Twirl pop-up village green, our 10th annual Foodival sustainable food festival and countless other brilliant events this year.

    October’s meeting is about celebrating, checking in and changing things up

    We have a working list of items to discuss and make decisions on but there will also be the chance to relax after the formal stuff, with some making activities, drinks and chat.

    TTT is an exciting group with limitless potential and we want you to play a part in our future plans, so come along to our open meeting and find out how you can get involved.

    Tuesday 10th October
    7:30pm
    The Wine Room
    The Trafalgar Arms
    148-156 Tooting High Street, SW17 0RT

    We really hope to see you on the 10th!

    Jeni (co-chair), Sharon (co-chair) and Eleanor (secretary)

  • The Stay With Love exhibition is open and ready to visit. You can add your own views to the show.

    We’re thrilled that the Stay With Love exhibition has moved from concept to reality alongside our partners CARAS and The Sound Lounge. We experienced so much energy, creativity and patience from all the volunteers and staff involved in this experiment: Thank You!

    We hung the show on the 2nd October, and then the exhibition opening was brilliant last evening. Now the show is available to enjoy whenever The Sound Lounge is open, until October 29th.

    Drilling holes for hanging
    Suspending the figure drawings

    Two of the exhibition pieces ask for your views and ideas. 
    We hope you get there and add to When I Dream and Thread Your Story devised by CARAS and the adult group. Of course, you can enjoy the whole show with coffee or a sandwich served by young people from CARAS who are engaged in certificated work training at The Sound Lounge.

    ‘Thread Your Story’
    ‘When I Dream’

    The exhibition opening festivities yesterday included an afternoon family crafts workshop and then the main evening celebration – we’ll report on the celebration in the next blog post.

    Afternoon Family Crafts
    Straight from school, two dozen children & adults launched into an hour and a half’s making, all crowded around two long tables. It was a great scene and we admired their energy after a whole day in school. We offered two of our favourite and valuable projects. Both are related to the purpose and content of the creative work we have carried out alongside the refugees and aslyum-seekers from CARAS over the past two years in the Rooting in Tooting and Gardens of Refuge projects

    “Tooting’s insects need your love!”
    We looked at photos of some local garden insects (predators and prey; garden crop-friendly and also less desirable) and then made plastic bottle insect shelters for beneficial ladybirds and lacewings in the garden.
    With some clever planning, decorations onto the rolled-up corrugated cardboard could be protected from rain by being placed inside the bottle rather than stuck on the outside of the plastic (= design and technology for real).
    Families took their bottle-houses home to hang in the trees in their own gardens or neighbourhoods.

    She’s added a #StayWithLove sticker

    “Feel safe and breathe!”
    Secondly, we painted garden row markers with messages of welcome on them. That’s in the same spirit the CARAS Youth Club showed when they wrote inviting comments in many languages on the on four inscribed pallet-benches for the Tooting Twirl – one is in the show and two more are being used in the cafe.

    Children and adults devised messages – another design and planning challenge – which they painted on narrow wooden slats we’ve rescued from discarded bed frames – very neat recycling as the slats are strong and a perfect size. The artists donated all the painted markers to the Tooting Community Garden, which we really appreciate.

    All the new markers, laid out on one of the benches

    More soon on the evening opening celebrations….

  • ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition opens today in Tooting

    It’s the day of the opening of our CARAS partnership ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition at The Sound Lounge in Tooting – 210 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EJ

    All very welcome, and here are the timings:

    4:00-5:30pm Pop-up session making and crafts for all the family
    7:00pm Doors open, come and enjoy the exhibition
    7:30pm Formal welcome to ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition plus celebrating the young people who have gained work experience certificates. Followed by sharing any poems or spoken word pieces, and time for mingling and exploring the exhibition. Soft drinks only until 8:00.
    8:15pm Live music begins – some special treats in store

    It’s going to be a really enjoyable evening & we look forward to seeing you!
    Background info here. The exhibition continues thoughout October.

  • ‘Stay With Love’ Exhibition opening 3rd October in Tooting, plus a snapshot of the summer with families in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project.

    Two updates about our partnership project with the local charity CARAS and the refugees and asylum-seekers they support.

    1 ‘Stay With Love’ Exhibition during October ’17 at The Sound Lounge in Tooting.  
    The Sound Lounge, 210-212 Upper Tooting Road, TootingSW17 7EW

    We’re all thrilled that The Sound Lounge is hosting ‘Stay With Love’ – an exhibition of diverse work of all kinds that’s been produced together over the past year at CARAS and in our ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project workshops. So much creativity and enjoyment supported by a multi-skilled and diverse group of volunteers!

    The exhibition is opening on Tuesday 3rd October and will run throughout the month. Visit whenever the Sound Lounge is open.

    All welcome to the opening at The Sound Lounge, Tuesday 3rd Oct. We’ll be offering:

    • 4:00-5:30 pm A free after-school drop-in crafts workshop for all the family and all ages, with all materials supplied. And maybe we can add to the exhibition with what we make…
    • 7:00-8:00 pm: View the exhibits, join tours by their creators
    • 8:00 pm: Performances and celebration
    • 10:00 pm: Close

    We look forward to chatting about any of the work and the project, and thanks again to The Sound Lounge!

    2 Sharing our summer with families in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project.

    To whet your appetite, here’s an account of two summertime days in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ Project. Resina is one of the volunteers with the project and she’s written this account. Thank you, Resina!

    “We’ve had a great summer. On 15 and 22 August two family activity days were held in the Tooting Community Garden. This gave families the opportunity to be introduced to the garden, which we’d been talking about in other activity sessions since Spring.

    On 15th August the families examined different vegetables and grains that had been grown in the garden and guessed what they were. One challenge was identifying what turned out to be our weird-looking patty pan squash!
    We used maps of the garden to actively explore it – and created a game of colouring in all the parts they visited – a fun way to become familiar with the different spaces of the garden. It was even better once we explained the game more clearly – one boy promptly collected in all the coloured felt pens we’d carefully placed at each point! 
     

    We arranged the previously-painted materials for the big garden mural.

    Some of the women enjoyed identifying the vegetables they recognised:  it was great to have our teff from the Horn of Africa appreciated by experts!
     
    One woman acknowleged that her own children didn’t play outside the way that she used to in her own country, a phenomenon that is occurring everywhere as children are becoming more sedentary in their lifestyle. 
    However in the community garden everyone had the opportunity to explore the ‘hidden’ areas, pick blackberries, plums, kale and coriander and run around in the sun. 
    Turnip-top seeds were planted to crop later in the year. Marshmallows were toasted and tea was brewed. It was a fun and relaxing day! 
    On 22nd August, families were able to spend another day in the community garden. 

    In groups we created a ‘palette of colours’ by picking petals or leaves from the garden and sticking them down, maybe in a rainbow sequence. This children particularly enjoyed this, and created some beautiful palettes. This activity was all about noticing the small things. 

    The sea urchin fossil

    We handled a flint tool from 6000 years ago, and a fossil sea-urchin from 66 million years ago – both found in the Garden. We imagined Tooting when nomadic groups hunted here, and millions of years before when it was under the sea…with many of the children chipping in ideas and what they had learned at school.

    Creating mural panels in Spring ’17

    We held a Grand Opening of the ceiling mural made for the water catchment roof (more photos to come…)

    Family groups had created all the different components since Easter in other activity days.

     

    Everyone was encouraged to lie in a hammock directly under the mural so they could enjoy looking at the patterns in the mural above them.
    This was a very enjoyable experience for all, and everyone wanted a turn.

    We cooked on charcoal – BBQ chicken and sweetcorn & made herb butter ‘straight from the garden’.
    Some engaged in all the activities with enthusiasm, others were content to sit, enjoy the peacefulness of the garden and chat to their friends in a beautiful setting.

    Another wonderful day of togetherness, some surprises, peace and feeling safe and welcome.”
    – Resina

  • Foodival 2017: “Thank You” to Tooting’s community of volunteers

    The 10th Tooting Foodival was only possible because of 
    many volunteers’ help and donations.
    Thank you all!

    Click here to see the details. Well over forty people helped on the day, plus many in preparation and in the long tail of follow up.
    Each of these people and organisations made the Foodival happen, and while there’s no priority order we want to highlight Naseem Aboobaker who has demonstrated such community spirit by offering us the hall at Mushkil Aasaan for free at so many Foodivals past.
    It’s always a risk to make a list and get it 100% correct – please let us know if we’ve left you out.

    Here she is at the 2010 Foodival

    The Foodival is nothing without an audience! We lost count at around 500 people – first-timers and some very loyal regulars.
    Here is one young girl we know and want to celebrate – same road, maybe the same chair.
    2010 to 2017! 

    And at the 2017 Foodival

    Get in touch with us if you fancy being part of TTT’s 2018 Tooting Foodival co-ordination group.
    We promise you fun, space to try out creative ideas, experience of live project management and lots of community support!

  • Top Tooting Cook 2017: the winners!

    Top Tooting Cook, the Foodival’s fun competition was ably co-ordinated by ‘firm but fair’ Belinda. We had a record-breaking number of entries.
    Here are the dishes – photographed during the judging, so some dishes have begun to be sampled. These are dishes crying out to be tasted (some people had to be held back…):

    There’s a wonderful variation of international cultures, colours, local ingredients, skills and why-not-have-a-go represented. How would you choose the different class winners and the overall Top Tooting Cook?

    Our three judges worked up and down the long tables in Mushkil Aasaan with their clipboards. They recorded their own views with 25% of marks awarded to each of four criteria:

    • How well does the dish fit the category it was entered for?
    • Taste?
    • Look?
    • How local to Tooting are the dish ingredients?

    The judges conferred, debated and added up their marks.

    Tension mounted in the hall as we looked from dish to dish and back at the judges’ impassive faces. Who would win? When could we eat all the dishes?

    The overall award of Top Tooting Cook went to…Imira for her Squash Compote!

    CONGRATULATIONS IMIRA!

    Here’s the full list of other winners per competition category:

    Savoury dish: 
    Muna Mohammed,Ethiopian Mixed Vegetarian Dish & Injera
    Savoury dish Runner Up: 
    Lila Benderdouch, Tortilla de Patatas
    Preserves: 
    Debbie Morey, Raspberry Jam
    Under 16: 
    Maryam Uddin, Flower Fruit Cake Crumble
    Pudding / Apples and Pears: 
    Debbie Morey, Apple Cake 
    Organizers’ Prize: 
    Charles Whitehead, Salty Pickled Tooting Plums 

    Click here to see the full TTC report.                                                                
    Thank you, judges: Saira, Brian and Rick!
    Thank you, local enterprises and organisations who donated prizes!
    Thank you, entrants, local vegetable and fruit donors and other contributors!
    We’ll share the recipes as soon as we can, to add to our community low food-mile localicious cookbook.

    The results are announced…

    More Tooting Foodival blog posts to come very soon: the famous ‘I Grew This’ poster, the list of produce donors, all the Thank Yous and a slide show of photos and videos of the day.

  • A great Tenth Tooting Foodival!

    Well that was fun! 
    What a great event the 10th Foodival proved to be.  Using Hereward Road beside Mushkil Aasaan gave the event a really good flow.  Outside, Volker manfully orchestrated the Big Feast, feeding the masses with sustainable locally grown fruit and vegetables, serenaded by the different artists on the Sound Lounge stage.  Bees drew the crowds to Richard’s camper van, while local resident Corinne painted faces, punters supped Kombucha from Thirsty House, sampled Debbie’s jams or discovered Wandsworth Oasis, Sutton Community Farm & Wandsworth Food Partnership.

    The Soap Box was a popular new addtion, providing an instant stage for environmental thinking while inside on the Green Stage we heard about propagating, insects and compost!  Jeni’s Crafts and the YUM-JAM kept kids young and old busy in the Mushkil Aasaan hall and in Hereward Rd.

    Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to making this a great event, especially our fabulous growers without whom there would be no Big Feast or Top Tooting Cook Competition.  More thank yous, reports and pictures to follow, but first I need a lie down!

     

  • Guide to Foodival 2017

    So what’s happening at this year’s Foodival?  Hopefully you’ve been keeping up with our recent blog posts and will have an idea, but for a handy print out or download version here’s our plan of the events.  It’s not set in stone, some of the timings may move a little, don’t worry just come along and see what takes your fancy.

    To make Foodival happen we really need your fruit and vegetable donations tomorrow night!  It’s this lovely produce that we use to cook up the communal Big Feast and that anyone can take to enter the Top Tooting Cook Competition.

    We are delighted to have the Sound Lounge curating the music stage this year, have loads of activities for the kids, talks on the Green Stage and the Soap Box as well as some great stalls and Arts & Crafts.

    We are hoping that the 10th Foodival will be great fun.  Come and particpate in any way you like!  It all starts Friday evening from 5pm.