On 21st October 2024 around a hundred people of all ages and backgrounds came together in the Samaj Hall to dream into Tooting’s possible futures. They travelled to 2040, imagined themselves, imagined our town and explored possibilities in a fair, flourishing and resilient place that cares for the earth and all future generations.
Together we created homes, shared stories with neighbours, worked together to create streets and neighbourhoods, then co-designed and continued to create a fair resilient flourishing town that cares for the earth & all future generations. We feasted, celebrated then travelled back to 2024.
Watch Lily Lowe-Myers’ fantastic film of the event, download our full Report and see some great images from the day below.
Check out our full Report and download a copy at the link below.
Funding for the project was received from The National Lottery Community Fund, distributed by Transition. Thanks to National Lottery players for making this possible. Look for more information about Transition Together at https://transitiontogether.org.uk/
Town Anywhere Tooting is a large-scale, participatory, community visioning experience – bringing together people from across Tooting to ‘rehearse the future’ of our vibrant community.
Monday 21st October, Patidar Samaj Hall, 26B Tooting High Street
9.30 for 10.00 am prompt start – finishing 4.00pm.
“Town Anywhere is an extraordinary exercise. It invites us to step into the future, to reimagine and rebuild the world, and then inhabit it. One of the most magical things I’ve ever been a part of. ” Rob Hopkins, Transition Network.
Who is it for?
Anyone who lives, works or has an interest in Tooting’s wellbeing and future.
What will happen?
Town Anywhere Tooting will take you on a journey to imagine and build a thriving ‘Town Anywhere’. The Town Anywhere experience will be a day of reflecting, thinking, creativity, visioning, and sharing. It will be a space to explore what we want the future to be. It will enable us to connect together to help us envisage pathways through to the future we want.
You will explore a Town called Anywhere in 2040 at individual, neighbour and street levels. Then we will work in small groups to develop actions and ventures for the whole town across a range of areas, including ; goods and services, food, economy and finance, livelihoods and exchange, climate and ecology, governance, infrastructure, civic and cultural networks and communications, learning, celebrating, art and design, biodiversity, public space, health and wellbeing,
Using immersive future scenarios, large-scale model-making and timed challenges, the Town Anywhere process helps participants to play and practice community visioning, ideation and storytelling in a virtual, but tangible, environment.
By the end of the workshop, as residents of the new Town Anywhere, you will have created a physical representation of the thriving town we are all longing to live in. Collectively shaping and inhabiting this potential fair and sustainable future can strengthen our enthusiasm and resolve to go on and make it real.
The Process: The Town Anywhere process safely, constructively and playfully opens up inspirational and holistic thinking in communities and participants about possible fair, resilient and sustainable futures following these key phases:
Time Travel to the future
Creating home, meeting your neighbour, sharing stories
Exploring what we can do together at street and neighbourhood levels
Going to Town and leaving requests for community developers
Identifying our role in Town Anywhere, and who we can work with
Designing and making initiatives in 3D with cardboard, string, sticks, tape and imagination
Filling in the Town Anywhere Charter
Official Town opening celebration
Walkabout – Exchanging, connecting, pledging
Reflection, harvest and grounding
Town Anywhere is a process in which everyone is welcome and where everyone can learn and have fun.
Why we are doing this?
If we can’t imagine the future we want, then we can’t set a course to achieve it
It is often hard to imagine beyond what we are dealing with now, the systems we have, the barriers we face. A crisis of civic imagination is blocking many of us from envisioning the future we want to strive for. At a community level we need to build the capacity of our collective imagination, so that we can imagine a better future and design it together. By the end of the workshop, we, the new residents of Town Anywhere 2040 will have created a physical representation of the sort of thriving inclusive town that we long to live in. Collectively shaping and inhabiting this potential future, strengthens our enthusiasm and resolve to go on and make it happen.
What will happen afterwards?
We are exploring how we can imagine the future we want and then start working towards it together. This will link into your work, projects, passions and how you may have imagined it working differently. We want to maintain the connection we build in the Town Anywhere so this is not a one off event. What we co-create together will become the focus of action for change. So we want to keep in touch with you (if you choose) to harness the creativity and energy that we know will be inspired on the day. We want to build on connectedness across the city to support how we bring the ideas you develop to a reality and doing this in collaboration.
This inspiring hands on process (coming to Tooting for the first time) has enabled previous participants to
Gain greater capacity and confidence to imagine and explore low-carbon futures and initiate more transformative projects locally
Learn how to work more collectively, gaining new practical, analytical and collaborative skills
feel better resourced to voice fears, hopes and visions for the future, understanding individual and collaborative creative expression is inherent to a flourishing life
Feel a greater sense of belonging to their neighbourhoods; more connected to their past and present and able to play a role in their futures
Be more able to co-design creative projects where people live or work to better prepare for social and environmental challenges.
Town Anywhere will be led by artists Ruth Ben-Tovim, and Lucy Neal who created the Town Anywhere process that was initially commissioned by Transition Town Network. They specialise in designing and delivering participatory arts projects, interventions and processes in civic, community, ecological , education and placemaking contexts. These participatory interventions inspire people to unearth their own imaginative and instinctive power to shift how they see the world and their place within it.
Following a successful Town Anywhere in Hull in November 2023 attended by over 200 people, Town Anywhere Tooting is part of a wider network of ‘Town Anywheres’ taking place around the UK including in Bristol, Derbyshire and Merseyside. Town Anywhere Tooting leads the way in Greater London.
For more information – and to attend the event – contact us on transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
“Can we learn anything from visiting the future? How we see the world is often rigid and complicated by our present day circumstances. Clearly there’s an urgent need to rethink how we might co-exist if we’re going to occupy the planet and, certainly in Hull Minster, there was a real interest in what a positive future might look like. … There’s no reason why, with the right people in the room, we can’t put ourselves on a corrective course.” Dave Windass (Hull 2023 participant)
Funding for the project was received from The National Lottery Community Fund, distributed by Transition. Thanks to National Lottery players for making this possible. Look for more information about Transition Together at https://transitiontogether.org.uk/
We have now reached our second anniversary and the sewing group is going from strength to strength with around 20 regular members. Last year we featured in two short Oxfam films marking Refugee Week and Secondhand September. Also marking the latter, we ran a sashiko denim patch workshop for 30 Oxfam shop managers and staff, in Mushkil Aasaan and secondly, we ran a repair and upcycling workshop, on the Oxfam shop floor.
During the year we had two takeovers of the shop window, when we exhibited our handiwork to the shoppers of Tooting. The second of these was the culmination of a project ‘Different Ways to feel London is your Home’. This fantastic project was suggested and managed by our wonderful facilitator Patricia who brought her flair, skills and colourful creativity all the way from Columbia. Acknowledging that many of us were originally from different countries or other parts of the UK, we celebrated this by making items for the home collaboratively, using recycled materials and including colours, symbols, fabrics or techniques from our various homes and cultures.
The finished furnishings included a hammock made using crocheted strips of waste tee-shirts, a plaited rug made from sari falls recalling rangoli designs, a bed set using techniques from Afghanistan and labelled ‘dreaming of a better life in London’ and a fabric tea service recalling conversations over tea in Paris. As we made these items, various members of the group stood up and shared their memories of childhood, home and families and this was very moving.
We completed our beautiful ‘Sewing and Sanctuary’ banner with each letter created by a different member of the group using a variety of techniques and all from repurposed materials of course! You may have seen it on display at Tooting Can or one of our other events.
We took it along to a meeting organised by Wandsworth Welcomes Refugees involving a number of local community sewing groups where we met a team from Liberty. This led to two visits (including some of our group members) to the Design Studio at Liberty. We have also made connections with a local fashion entrepreneur, Sakina O’Neill of Re-Runn and with the Royal College of Art who included us in their stakeholder engagement focus groups as part of their research into creating a regenerative fashion hub in Wandsworth.
Over the past year we have continued to produce work for other charities, some of our knitters producing chicks for Trinity Hospice’s annual fundraiser and we made textile picture postcards for Sprout Art’s postcard sale. As I write this, Oxfam Tooting is temporarily closed for refurbishment but we continue to meet and in the future we have plans to sell some of our work in the Oxfam shop. Watch this space!
Thank you for taking a look at our Fundraising page.
TTT always welcomes donations to help support our free-to-attend community activities.
We are currently inviting donations in the memory of Rose deFalbe who died on 13 December 2024. Rose’s family have generously suggested that donations be made in her memory to support the Tooting Community Garden to which Rose contributed so much.
Rose was an inspiring and constant volunteer in the Tooting Community Garden since it was created in 2011. Her forte was quiet and focused gardening in the herb garden which became known as ‘Rose’s Bed’. She would garden there solo or more often with another volunteer, passing on her skills and knowledge to someone new to gardening.
Rose would demonstrate hands-on the small-scale foundations of good gardening with these colleagues, working a small patch at a time on weeding, soil condition, pruning, sowing and planting. Many people have shared that this close attention to the space and to individuals was inspiring and therapeutic. That wellbeing impact is exactly what the Tooting Community Garden was created to offer, and for Rose it was not a ‘project role’, it was part of her nature.
Follow this link to watch as Rose explains the herb patch in the Community Garden to Ryan.
If you would like to donate in memory of Rose, that would be greatly appreciated. Funds received here by TTT will be used in her memory in the Tooting Community Garden. We will plan what to do, whether it’s developing a space or acquiring plants or another appropriate and relevant memorial. You may have suggestions in due course and we’d welcome those.
Please use the TTT account details below to make your donation from your smartphone or computer. If you are asked for a transfer reference. please enter ‘Rose’.
Many thanks!
Our bank details are as follows:
Account Name: Transition Town Tooting
Sort Code: 16-58-10
Account Number: 20202776
Any amount you can offer is gratefully received, thank you!
Cooking, growing, sewing, singing, dancing, making or mending and more: the community of Tooting has an abundance of skills and talents which also make us stronger together. On 16th March 2024 we hosted our first Tooting Can… Celebratory Extravaganza.
Dive into our blog below telling the story of the day (with ‘how to’ links and delicious recipes!)
Check out our slide show of the day!
OurSewing and Sanctuary project team showed us what we can do with textiles! We had a go at mending, embellishing and making beautiful garments, bags and cushions out of repurposed textiles – and learnt Japanese sashiko and boro stitching!
Susan showed us to make your own washing powder – it’s easier than you would think, much kinder to the environment ( it uses only natural ingredients) and much kinder on your clothes.
Click here to find out make your own washing powder and other sustainable cleaning products.
We were joined by ace football coach Brad from AFC Wimbledon in a special outdoor session to learn footie skills. AFC Wimbledon coach the local Women’s Walking Football team at Fishponds Fields (Susie from the team is taking a kick in the pic!). After sharing his skills Brad went on to try his hand at some of the other skills on offer!
Mita bought a selection of saris and showed us how to wrap them – we topped off our gorgeous outfits with bindis. Doesn’t everyone look fabulous!
The team atSajna Hair & Beauty sent a fantastic henna artist to show us how to create wonderful designs – it was amazing to watch them deepen in colour over the week – we got lots of compliments!
Dermot from our regular Restart fixing and mending sessions invited us to Get Up Close with a Remote – showing us how to test, open up and fix common remote control problems from spilt drinks to leaky batteries. All ages were welcome to have a go!
We had a lot of fun at the beguni workshop making aubergine fritters. Participants were able to be as involved as they wanted to be. Some wanted to watch the cooking process, others prepared the beguni from start to finish until they were on the plate!
Conversations were shared about cooking in different cultures, which enabled people to connect with each other. And at the end – a delicious snack to share with all the other participants!
To complement the wonderful beguni, Naomi rustled up gorgeous nettle soup with foraged nettles and wild garlic – head to her blog Grow Forage Cook for the recipe and much more!
To round of our menu Lucy showed us how to make a plant based chocolate mousse – with only three simple ingredients and a fridge to prepare it – find the recipe here.
The team from Tooting Community Garden shared seeds and gardening tips – participants of all ages planted up beans and herbs in home-made newspaper seed pots (instructions here!)
All are welcome to join regular sessions at the community garden – find out more here.
Jeni and Gemma from Living Communitiesled a fantastic collaging workship – the beginnings of a vast community collage to help explore What Makes Tooting, Tooting?
You can see some of the results on their Instagram at the link here.
Last ….. by no means least! ….. Ranjit bought a selection of musical instruments to try out.
Not only that, he bought a big dhol and led a parade of performers to announce our delicious shared feast – followed by a parade of our gorgeous sari wearers!
Finally we gathered together in a sharing feast…
As well us giving the day a little ‘deadline’ magic, transforming the space quickly into a communal dining area, the Feast, created a celebratory moment at which everyone present could feel a part of how much CAN be achieved in just a handful of Tooting hours with a generous mix of shared skills and open-hearted fun. Special thanks to Tooting URC for being such a welcoming venue for the afternon!
Now we know the ‘recipe’ maybe we could do it again!!!
We are thrilled to bring Town Anywhere – a large-scale community visioning experience to Tooting.
On Monday 21st October (9.30 – 4) this free event will bring people together to explore the future of our vibrant Tooting community.
Town Anywhere is an extraordinary exercise. It invites us to step into the future, to reimagine and rebuild the world, and then to inhabit it. One of the most magical things I’ve ever been part of. Give your imagination a treat.
‘Town Anywhere’ brings a wide cross section of up to 200 people together in person for one day to imagine, build and then inhabit a positive vision of how the place they share could develop in the future. First seeded and developed by artists Ruth Ben-Tovim and Lucy Neal at Transition Town Conferences over 10 years ago, the ‘Town Anywhere’ process has now been staged in towns and cities in the UK, worldwide online; in Europe and most recently in Hull Minster with 240 people.
Get a taster by watching this fantastic short film of Town Anywhere in Hull.
Town Anywhere – Hull 2023
‘Town Anywhere’ brings the future to life through time travel, visioning, actual making and co-creating then coming back ‘home’ to harvest the learning. Outcomes include a tenant’s charter, a town centre ‘opening’ and a celebratory shared meal. The process safely, constructively and playfully opens up inspirational thinking in communities about positive futures.
This free, accessible and enjoyable visioning process has been proven to generate ideas and principles for developing not only a Town’s Governance and Community Decision Making Processes but also practical ideas for Community Finance; Health and Wellbeing; Food; Communications; Celebrations and Culture; Streets; Open Spaces; Goods and Services.
A short ‘day after’ event is held to gather key attendees; local policy makers and community players to capture the energy of what has been collectively imagined, to build on real possibilities for partnerships and shared initiatives.
Can we learn anything from visiting the future? How we see the world is often rigid and complicated by our present day circumstances. Clearly there’s an urgent need to rethink how we might co-exist if we’re going to occupy the planet and, certainly in Hull Minster, there was a real interest in what a positive future might look like. … There’s no reason why, with the right people in the room, we can’t put ourselves on a corrective course.
Dave Windass (Hull 2023 participant)
Interested in getting more involved in our Tooting Town Anywhere? Know of other people who should be there? We’d love to hear from you!
Funding for the project was received from The National Lottery Community Fund, distributed by Transition. Thanks to National Lottery players for making this possible. Look for more information about Transition Together at https://transitiontogether.org.uk/
Cooking, growing, sewing, singing, dancing, making or mending and more: the community of Tooting has an abundance of skills and talents which also make us stronger together.
Tooting Can is a free community event for all ages to celebrate and share the skills in Tooting’s diverse community.
JOIN US on 15th March 2025 – 12 – 4pm at Tooting URC, Rookstone Road, Tooting
WHAT WILL HAPPEN? Full details including skill shares HERE
WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT? Read all about our last Tooting Can HERE.
WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
Do you have a skill or talent to share?
Are you already running sessions or workshops or would like to develop something? We can help and support!
Are you part of a group that has skills to share?
What skills do you see in Tooting that you would like to learn?
Sharing skills People of any age are welcome to share skills. You choose the duration – say from 10 minutes to an hour. You can share solo or with friends. It’s an informal day, no need to be an expert. Can you share something from your own culture?
On Saturday 25th November we held a fantastic skill-filled session – a Taster Day for our Tooting CAN celebration in 2024. Lots of lovely Tooting folk joined us to try their hands at cooking, sewing, mending and add to the growing ‘Compendium of Tooting’s Skills’.
Inspired into action by the cold spell of weather the Sewing and Sanctuary group used beautiful recycled materials from the Scrap Store to make draught excluders. Simple to make and really effective at helping to keep our homes warm, these other old fashioned items have defiantly come back into fashion. Especially when they are embellished with buttons and ribbons to create fun designs. Check out the How To below…
Some learned how to make onion bhajis (recipe below!), made sizzling seasonal soup from allotment veg or rustled up homemade Jam Dodgers. Others chatted to Dermot Jones about our regular fixing and mending sessions.
We discovered that Tooting CAN prepare a sit down 3 course meal in under the hour: a sizzling seasonal roast pumpkin soup with garnish of coriander and yogurt, followed by platefuls high with scrumptious hot onion bhajis, rounded off with cheeky pomegranate Jammy Dodgers dusted lightly with icing sugar.
Oh, the magic of a large white tablecloth, turning workshop tables into a convivial banqueting table with candles and decorations in just one transformative minute. ‘To the table’ we cried and relished the celebratory feast that followed and the stories of what we had made.
Can we? We sure can.
Join us for more skills sharing on Saturday March 16th 2024 at Tooting CAN – a Spring celebration of amazing skills in the Tooting community – more information on how to get involved at https://tinyurl.com/bde66v5b
Bring friends and family to find out what you (and they) CAN do.
Draught Excluders – how to…
Basically you need a tube of strong material for the external cover cut to the size of your door . Cut it 30 to 40 cm wide to form a nice fat tube. This tube can then be stuffed with material , old sheets or t-shirts , cut into strips. Pack it nice and hard . Sew ends. For fun you can then decorate your tube , snake ? , dog, flowers, using old buttons , felt , scraps of material. Thank you to Suzanne for providing pre made tubes to speed us on our way.
Onion Bhajis – how to…
Ingredients
2 medium – large onions, roughly chopped
150g gram flour
1 tablespoon of freshly chopped coriander
2 green chilies
1 heaped teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 teaspoon of turmeric
2 teaspoons of fennel seeds
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 level teaspoon salt or more / less according to taste
enough water to make a batter (around 300ml)
1 beaten egg (optional)
Method
Heat a large frying pan with 2 cm of oil
Mix all the dry ingredients
Add onions, fresh coriander and egg if using
Add water and stir until you get a batter
Fry spoonfuls of the mixture, turning frequently.
Move the bhajis around to make sure they don’t stick on the pan
Remove from pan with a slotted spoon when nicely browned, about 5 – 7 minutes, and place on a plate lined with kitchen towels
Serve with tomato ketchup, chilli sauce or minted yoghurt sauce
Meet your neighbours, learn something new and celebrate our amazing community here in Tooting!
Whether it’s cooking, growing, sewing, singing, dancing, making or mending and more: the community of Tooting has an abundance of skills and talents which also make us stronger together.
TootingCAN2026: A Day of Skill-Sharing, Connection, and Hope
What a day! On 9 May 2026, the United Reformed Church in Rookstone Road buzzed with energy, creativity, and a shared passion for making Tooting a better place. TootingCAN, organized by Transition Town Tooting (TTT) and funded by the Wandsworth Grant Fund, brought together 108 participants from all walks of life to celebrate the skills, resilience, and kindness that make our community thrive.
From the moment you walked in, you could feel that this was more than just an event. It was a testament to what happens when we come together to learn, share, and care for one another. Whether you were trying your hand at British Sign Language (BSL), crafting a comic book, or whipping up date balls in the kitchen, there was something for everyone, and everyone had something to give.
A fabulous time was had by all at the Sew It, Show Picnic and Parade.
The event was a celebration of slow fashion featuring sewing, stitching, crafting, fixing, mending and swapping – a picnic and a parade!
The event bought together indivduals and community groups from across Tooting with workshops from Work & Play Scrapstore, Fabric Nation brooch making with Gillian, Junkaroo Face Painting, Ubuntu The Lion, Creative Ladies knitting and handicraft group from Tooting Market, a Clothes Swap led by BYO (donations can be left at their stall in the market) and TTT’s Sewing and Sanctuary group which offered a Boro Stitch Workshop plus stalls from My Old Girl & Me upcycled Bohemian, Indian and Irish influenced block prints and Caroline’s Couture designer inspired clothes and accessories.
The highlight of the event was our Slow Fashion Parade – here are the prize winners (details below)
1st Prize: Annie wearing a dress made from her 2nd husband’s first wife’s bedsheet, twinned with a crocheted white top she had made and a handbag in the style of Dolce & Gabbana, including snakeskin, though no snakes were harmed!
2nd Prize: Aniyah wearing a dress made from old ties by her grandmother Winnie who accompanied her with a hat with a tie headband.
3rd Prize: Jeni Walker-Lawes in a dress made from recycled saris from My Old Girl & Me, upcycled brooch and feathers from Wandsworth Oasis.
4th Prize: Hilary Jennings in a mint condition 35 year old T-shirt, dungarees from Tooting Age UK, charity shop Birkenstocks and bead necklace.
5th Prize: Suzanne O’Donnell for her medical waste corset worn by 3 year old Mila and her own handmade dress in 50s chic style.
And our Highly Commended paraders (details below)
Tenley and Lucy who had stumbled on the event and got an outfit in the Clothes Swap!
Phoenix made her own dragon inspired Halloween skirt paired with a Fabric Nation brooch.
Malsara wore a “skort”, a cross between shorts and a skirt made from a man’s suit jacket and trousers.
Charlie Zeus wore charity shop trousers made into shorts and an upcycled friend’s T-shirt while daughter Cleo wore a tie-dye hat and bag she had made, charity shop shorts and her mother’s reused trainers.
Sue from Transition Town Brixton wore a stylish jacket made at the Woodfield Pavilion from leftover ends of upholstery material.
Lucille wore a dress made from repurposed Film & TV stock trimmed with recycled African vintage textiles with Frida Kahlo and Venezuelan influences.
Alexandra wore a floral Zara dress and Skechers shoes from a charity shop
Judge Lucy from Eden Project Outreach was dressed banner cloak made by Woodfield Craftivists while compere David wore his pimped up suit jacket with tiger motif, repaired shorts and charity find shirt.
Great Prizes included 3 sessions with Taking Care of Fitness Personal Trainer, £50 behind the bar at Graveney Gin, a Frida Kahlo cushion, Sue Ure ceramics and Eden Project goodies.
The event was part of our Share & Repair project, supported by Transition Together with thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund and The Eden Project Big Lunch. It was organised by Meet & Make Spaces, Tooting., who run creative workshops and meet-ups in different spaces for the community of Tooting and beyond.
