Transition Town Tooting

Author: Transition Town Tooting

  • Number 4 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number four:
    No.4 in @tttooting‘s 12 day to xmas: Make decorations from recycled or found materials like these pretty snowflakes goo.gl/XHTJYc

    And…a tweet number four bonus for followers on the blog:

    Make your house look festive this Christmas with unique and simple homemade creations from recycled materials or natural materials.

    Get out in the crisp wintery weather and collect some pinecones. They look great as a table centre round a candle or hung from ribbons. When Christmas is over they can go back in the garden. 

    Plastic bottles are so versatile and come in a variety of sizes to make things from.  Try these bottle-bottom snow flakes or bottle penguins (click on the names to link to the websites).

    Use paper and wrapping paper off cuts to make these hanging decorations: click here or here.

  • Number 3 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number three:
    No.3 in @tttooting‘s 12 days to xmas: Don’t buy ‘stuff’, choose an activity (theatre, ice-skating). Share experiences, create fab memories.

  • Number 2 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number two:
    No.2 in @tttooting‘s 12 days to xmas: re-make, re-use & re-create to reclaim waste in new ways rebuildingcenter.org pic.twitter.com/uNsj5LroEg

  • TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’: here is tweet no. 1

    TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    We’re going to tweet every day from now until Christmas Eve on practical, creative, seasonal & interesting sustainability themes. 

    Here is the welcoming tweet:
    Today we begin @tttooting‘s 12 tweets to Christmas, built on our email newsletter last month ow.ly/FMPV5 Join in!

    And here is tweet number one:
    No.1 in @tttooting‘s 12 day to xmas: Source your dinner locally. Use a tool like @findlocalfood‘s ow.ly/FMQcO or @MadeInTooting

    Follow us on twitter (@tttooting) and retweet the messages, and we’ll follow you. The more the merrier….and please join in and tweet us your sustainability tips too.
    If you are not on twitter, you can read the posts here on the TTT blog, one a day. Do email us more ideas here.

    Yes it’s a challenge to be concise and fit a message into 140 characters – it must be good practice! Actually it is quite addictive…
    And we haven’t written these as a committee – the tweets are simply what diverse individuals have volunteered to share.
    If it catches on….we could do a run of New Year’s Resolutions in Jan?

    Our twitter address again: @tttooting 

  • Restart Party 2

    Tooting’s second Restart Party was held on Dec 3rd at Mushkil Aasaan with more electronic items being fixed by volunteers for free courtesy of the Restart Project.  We had quite a few laptops and tablets this time round. Sidd (pictured) had come all the way from Ilford with his laptop screen recycled as an external monitor – pretty impressive!
    UPDATE: see Sidd’s blog on how he did it

    Sid with his home made machine

    The Restart Project is a London-based social enterprise that encourages and empowers people to use their electronics longer, by sharing repair and maintenance skills.  We are very grateful to Janet, Ugo and their amazing team of volunteer fixers for running another event with us, and I personally am delighted to have had my old camera fixed after 5 years in a drawer – thank you!

    We hope to make Restart Parties a regular feature in Tooting and are on the lookout for skilled local fixers.  Would you like to share your skills (and probably learn new ones) while helping keep electronic stuff out of landfill? Contact us at the usual address if you’d like to get involved in future Tooting Restart events (transitiontowntooting@gmail.com).  David

    Fixing the shutter on my camera

    Laptop consultancy
    What’s in here?

  • Insect Hotel – trash to treasure (of sorts…)

    Have you ever thought about how much material gets used once and thrown away? Or is not financially worth re-using? Or how most people won’t be satisfied buying something second hand, it has to be new?

    Somewhat in tune with Transition Network’s December theme of “Less is More”  I thought it would be of interest to look at the materials we are using in the Insect Hotel build.

    The structure is supported on waste flag stones donated to the garden. The four uprights used to be fence that ran across the garden and was blown down in the gales a year or two ago, the horizontal shelf supports too. Those bracing pieces are temporary…

    Week 5 – all we need now is the habitats… and the bugs!

    Click below to read how the roof was put together…

    This week, the students from Gatton raised the roof, along with David, Sharon, Esther and I. The roof is made of amazing 4b2 timber – this particular stuff came out of our loft when we were lucky enough to convert it a year ago. The booming domestic renovation business is not set up at all to re-use or recycle. Time and money rule, and its cheaper to dump these timbers in a skip than de-nail and re-use – criminal if you ask me, imagine a waterfall system of being passed onto smaller and smaller projects, but that’s another idea for another blog. The tiles too came from our job.

    Detail showing roof structure and re-use timber and tile

    If you need any of these materials, just go for a bike ride and find a house wrapped in scaffolding and ask the builders. Chances are, they’d be more than happy to offload it too you (you might need a bigger vehicle than a bike to transport it!) as it reduces their waste costs and so increases their profit as this is already figured into a fixed price to the client.

    The only thing new so far on the build is the tile batons – I couldn’t find any re-use ones, unfortunately. However, when I went to buy them, I found out my local timber merchant has stacks and stacks of pallets, considered an inconvenient waste and were kind enough to drop 5 of them round to the garden – that’s the rest of the shelving material sorted! The simplest Insect Hotels are made from skips, so if you’re looking to do one… check out here for pallet-based inspiration.

    And here for a previous blogpost on innovation in building waste re-use.

  • Insect Hotel: Looking back, looking forward – re-using all the way

    It’s been 4 1/2 weeks since we started the Insect Hotel build. In the Tuesday sessions with Gatton Primary, we have welcomed 40 students to the garden. We have shown them flint tools found at the site from thousands of years ago, the growing beds created only a few years ago and the Rainwater Catchment constructed with last years Year 6 group.  We’ve asked “why an insect hotel?” , measured and cut the structure of the Insect Hotel and made 4 experimental habitats. Not to mention handled a number of the mini beasts who might take up residence – to great hilarity.

    So far, the Insect Hotel is 100% made from re-used materials – timber from a fallen fence, paving slabs discarded as extras. We’ll continue to endeavour to do this, trying to reduce waste and show what is possible, with a little effort and energy.

    We’ve seen how TTT volunteers are essential to any projects success and
    prove how together we can go further.

    Watch this space – this week will see the roof going on – topping out! A big moment in any construction project. Following that – we pack it full of enticing habitat and wait for the guests to arrive…

  • Seize Your Pension Power To Save The Planet

    Your pension can change the world! 
    Right now, it’s funding climate change…

    On December 9th we are running an event with Share Action looking at how the gazillions sloshing around in the UK’s pension funds are invested in fossil fuel companies and other high-carbon industries which are driving the world towards dangerous climate change.

    This is our money and we should have a say in how it is used shouldn’t we? 

    By taking back control over the cash invested in pensions, we can make sure it’s supporting a better future.

    This workshop will cover the basics of how your pension is invested and how pension savers can take action to effect change. Join us for the evening to learn about your pension power can save the planet!
    Tuesday 9th December 2014, 7-9pm at Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Rd, SW17 7EW [poster to download]

  • Insect Hotel Wk3 – The Rising!

    Often with our work with Gatton, we’ll augment the sessions with the students with extra hours to maintain momentum as well as keep us on track. These augmenting sessions usually happen during normal garden hours on a Sunday, 11am to 1pm. So come down if you specifically want to contribute to this project. Send a message via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    Week 3 saw the Insect Hotel rise-up from raw timbers to an upright structure – a great moment. Luckily, we had a couple of load testers to immediately make sure it was suitable for grubs to climb up!

    1. Preparing the ground  
    2. Building the frames
    The timbers used were the
    ones Gatton School had
    cut in preceding weeks
    3. Laying flag stone foundations

    4. There she rises! With two eager 
    climbers waiting in the wings

    5. Bang on level…

    The timbers used to be a fence that passed across the site – a  priority for us is to re-use as much as possible.

    The team on the day was Diana (with the level), Gerard (with the sideburns) Benji with the yellow coat and Dominic with the smile! Jenny is on the camera and that’s me in the hat!

    6. Here come the load testers

    Click below to read about how Gatton continued the build…

    7. Shelf building

     The following Tuesday, Gatton returned and the  students cracked on with making the shelves  that will go into the structure. 

     For us, having these two sides to a project is  very interesting and valuable. The sense of  teamwork is palpable. With the three Year 6  projects of the Rainwater Catchment, the Cold  Frame and now the Insect Hotel, we really do  achieve more than we could on our own through  sharing the project.
    8. What do you think??
    Meanwhile, our experiments with insect habitats continued. This week, we looked at habitats for the solitary bee, as well as other critters. Using an old oversized drainpipe, we cut up some old bamboo and stuffed it full. The solitary bees crawl in there and make a nest for their young, stacked along the tubes – pretty cool and very easy to make… they like a sunny, warm, dry spot – which they’ll get in the final hotel.
    A first home
    Meanwhile, for the solitary bees…

  • 100 children in the Garden: hunting for minibeasts and for bears in mid-November

    In the past fortnight we have hosted two year groups of 50 children each with staff and parents from Gatton School for two special mid-November outdoor learning sessions, Tooting style.

    Year Four actively searched the garden’s diverse habitats for minibeasts as part of a curriculum day on the natural world. They found worms, woodlice, centipedes, snails, spiders, beetles, and more.

    Year One went step-by-step through an active version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – a super experience of literacy, creativity and using their imaginations outdoors.

    What did Year 4 do?

    They dug energetically
    They peered under the roof

    Clipboards came out with the sun
    They inspected everything

    Year One’s Bear Hunt was thrilling…..
    …click below to read on

    50 Year 1 childen singing ‘We’re not scared..’ was great to hear. The children walked through the Long Grass, they crossed the Deep River, they dragged themselves through the Mud, they went through the Forest, they battled the Snowstorm…

    Crossing the Deep Cold River

    Battling the snowstorm

    Through the Forest


     
    …and they found the Cave. 

    In the Cave….was the BEAR!


    Was the bear real? Some children thought the best thing to do was to hug the bear..and others ran back to the Forest.

    How did the visit end? 
    With more songs, and with snacks of carrots and pears – and all the cores went straight into the compost. Nothing left but footprints and good memories.

    It was a privilege to host both year groups in the Community Garden, and to see the children being so adventurous, responsive and positive, and the sessions so creatively prepared.
    And if you don’t know the story, click here to see Michael Rosen performing his poem..and try it out yourself.