Transition Town Tooting

Author: Transition Town Tooting

  • Growing Community in the Heart of the City: two linked local events offered as part of The Mayor of London’s National Park City Festival

    ‘Growing Communities in the Heart of the City’ is this weekend in the Tooting Community Garden!
    We’ll be running our free open day on Sunday 28th July from 12:00-4:00 to celebrate the National Park City Festival and also our 8th birthday (we’ve opened the garden on around 400 Sundays!)

     

    What will we be doing on Sunday?

    • Welcoming everyone to come along and enjoy the space – no need to book.
    • Bring a picnic, and we’ll provide activities, green space, shade and plenty of cool water!
    • We’re offering a particular welcome to families with young children or babies – come and have some outdoor time in a safe and welcoming place.
    • We’ll have a range of fun garden-themed activities for families and young children.
    • We’re also offering three timed workshops, just drop in:
      • 12:30 – 1:30, learn about making vertical wall planters so you can garden anywhere with very little space
      • 1:00 – 2:00, learn about selecting and taking care of plants, and choose some to pot up and take home
      • 2:30 – 3:30, be ‘Drawn to Nature’ and join our plant life drawing workshop for adults and teenager
    • Of course you can simply come along and enjoy being in the garden – so do bring a blanket to sit on and a picnic.
    All welcome!
    You can follow Tooting Community Garden on Facebook and Instagram – join us!
     

    We’re celebrating city growing and the outdoors, creating an environment which is good for ourselves, for the community and for nature.

    We also facilitate other community programmes in the Community Garden. 
    For six years we have run outdoor learning with Gatton School and garden and wellbeing activities with the beneficiaries at CARAS the Tooting charity working with asylum-seekers and refugees.  

    We’re proud to be able to offer to share the space with everyone locally and also very grateful to Naseem Aboobaker of Mushkil Aasaan for the free use of her land to create this community garden during these years.


    At the end of July it’s The Mayor of London’s National Park City Festival. The Festival is city-wide and celebrates London becoming the first urban national park in the world, with three objectives: making London greener, healthier and wilder. 

    On July 22 and July 28 we are offering two free events that we have developed along with Ravenstone School. 
    The events are called Growing Community in the Heart of the City…Parts 1 and 2.
    Links to both the events:
    Part 1 is on Monday 22nd July at Ravenstone School. For details please click here. 
    Part 2 is on Sunday 28th July at Tooting Community Garden. Please click here for details. 
    Here’s a thumbnail of the Community Garden poster.
    You can download it by clicking here. The day is also the Garden’s 8th birthday!
    Both these events are going to be participative and fun. 
    At each, you can simply come along and enjoy the atmosphere, or come for some of the timed workshops. No need to book.
    There’s similar but different things happening at each event: you are very welcome to come to both!
    For example in the Ravenstone School workshop on 22nd July, we’ll make wall planters using re-purposed pallets and we’ll show participants how to establish and care for plants you can take home in containers. You can find out about The Wild Place For Nature that’s being created at the school
    At the Community Garden on the 28th July we’ll be making vertical planters using saved-from-waste textile and learning about planting and looking after plants you can take home. 
    Plus: come and be drawn to nature in our outdoor plant life-drawing workshop.
    Of course you can simply chill out in the lovely garden – and we are offering a particular welcome to families with babies or young children who may love to be out in our city oasis.
    The common green thread running through both events is celebrating city growing and the outdoors, creating an environment which is good for ourselves, for the community and for nature.
    Lots more information to come about all the content of both events. Check the links above for outline details and timings.
    Would you like to volunteer? Get in touch and let’s chat!

    Save the dates and we look forward to welcoming you.

  • Time to be growing for the Foodival!

    There are over two growing months until the Tooting Foodival.

    That’s plenty of time to grow local vegetables from scratch to donate or cook for the Foodival community festival on September 14th.

    What can you grow well in your garden, containers or window box in a couple of months?
    Who can you get involved? There’s a school summer holiday soon, and could the children be in charge? The RHS has a guide to getting children interested in gardening, here.

    The varieties below will all grow fast.
    Click on the vegetables in the list for more information from gardening websites.
    Are some of these new to you? Try them out:

    Coriander

    Cress
    Lettuce

    Mizuna

    Radish

    Rocket


    Kohl Rabi  and Beetroot
    are worth a try too.

    Click here to download a copy of these suggestions with the links to the gardening websites.

    What else could be grown quickly? Please share your ideas with us all: Tooting Foodival and Tooting Community Garden are on Instagram, and the garden is on Facebook too.

    Happy growing and see you at the Foodival. 
    It will be great to see your produce and we’ll add you to our ‘I Grew This!’ poster, 2019 edition

  • Restart & Sewstart Party Sat July 6th

    Help us break the myth that things can’t be fixed!  
    Do you have broken electrical or electronic items that you don’t want to throw away? Or a favourite piece of clothing that needs mending or altering? Check out these happy fixers from our last session in May – who mended a pancake maker, a rucksack and a handheld vacuum cleaner! 

    Maybe you’re already great at fixing and mending stuff – or you’d like to learn how? We have a great and growing groups of local fixers working together to solve problems and sort out fixes… 

    Our head fixer, Mike Grahn, recently featured in the celebration of Volunteers Week– have a read of this lovely piece. 
     

    Mike says: “We help fix, show how to fix and expel the myth that things can’t be fixed. Throwing away electronics as soon as they don’t work anymore is a mind-set that needs to be changed. And I can see from my involvement in Restart, that there are lots of community-minded people starting to change their opinions on how they view tech.”  

    Or maybe you 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? Come along between 13.30 – 16.30 on 6th July 7th Sept 9th Nov 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)

  • TTT Meeting notes for June Monthly Meeting

    Thanks to Richard for chairing the June TTT meeting. Subjects covered included:

    • Renewable Energy (Heide)
    • TTT Governance (Lucy)

    The full notes can be found HERE.  

    Our next open meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 9th July, keep an eye on the TTT diary for time (it’ll be about 7/7.30) and location. All welcome to offer items for the agenda, speak or just come to listen in and discover what TTT is about.

  • Jellybrella: TTT’s invitation to be creative

    A second set of photos of our Jellybrella creative workshop on May 11th. These  are all about the day as an invitation to be creative…welcoming people in new ways…and what participants thought about it.

    All the background on this participative creative community sustainability project is in a past blog post – please click here It includes “what and why is a Jellybrella?” 

    We asked for feedback and below there’s a photo of two of the evaluation forms completed on May 11th (click here to enlarge):

    We’re proud that participants found the Jellybrella day welcoming and inviting.

    Reaching parts we had not expected, David even wrote a very special Jellybrella song for one young girl who is a fan of Morrissey (think ‘Jacky’s Only Happy When She’s Up On The Stage’).

    May 11th lyrics here


    About 60 people came along on May 11th; over half were children. The participants were very diverse: half were english and half from many other places: several European and S Asian countries – and Mexico!

    In our earlier adult workshops in March and April the balance was 2/3 of participants from countries other than the UK.
    Lastly, everyone was from other countries in our February family workshop with CARAS refugee family participants. 65 took part in that workshop (2/3 were children).

    A total of 140 people of all ages and cultures took part in our 5 Jellybrella workshops.

    We’re going to write up our collective reflections on the Jellybrella project, and we’ll share our learning soon.
    And we’ll share our ideas for Jellybrella 2!

  • May 2019 Newsletter

    This month’s newsletter can be read HERE

    Don’t forget tomorrow’s Restart/Sewstart Party at Mushkil Aasaan 1.30 till 4.30. All welcome.

  • Making together to create a Jellybrella on Saturday

    We were thrilled with the Jellybrella creative workshop on last Saturday May 11th which we facilitated at Sprout Arts in Furzedown as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe.
    The weather was mostly kind and we did most of the day outdoors. Thanks for all the support and to Nikki, David, Jane & Chuck for facilitating.

    Lots of people came and many of them worked together – parents and children, friends, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren – as well as others who created solo.
    It was fascinating to experience the energy of all these different relationships expressed in making together. 

    Do you work closely, or independently? Is there a plan or are you both developing the Jellybrella as you go along? Who’s leading? What’s the energy like – thoughtful, stimulated, quiet, noisy?
     

    These photos celebrate making together – and we’ll share some more sets of photos on other aspects: happiness, pride, fun, wellbeing, surprise, working with the re-purposed materials, the Jellybrella’s message & story. 


    Jellybrella has been fascinating and we have a lot to reflect on in terms of community participation and carrying off bold ideas.
    We also have more to share on the adult workshops that led up to this public event on Saturday.
    If you missed it, here’s a link explaining the Jellybrella project which we’ve been working with throughout this spring: https://tinyurl.com/y6t9pb9o

  • What combines creativity, community participation, charity, fun, repurposing waste, wellbeing, inclusion & shopping for good?

    Jellybrella does! (now we know…)
    On the Bank Holiday weekend and all next week: combine your love of creativity and fun with shopping in a good cause.

    Visit the super new Wandsworth Oasis shop at 61 Balham High Rd & admire windows full of Jellybrella creations. 

    The Jellybrellas were created last week by local adults with sight loss from Thomas Pocklington Trust Balham Resource Centre nearby: these two photos are from that workshop.

    Thanks so much to Gill the Balham Oasis shop manager for all the support collecting customers’ umbrellas since February and saying ‘yes, have the window!’ as a wonderful opportunity to share the joy of Jellybrella! Thanks also to Michelle the manager at Oasis Trinity Road and Joy in Oasis Mitcham Lane.

    Make your own Jellybrella on Saturday May 11th at our free public workshop at Sprout Community Arts – all the details at tinyurl.com/y6t9pb9o
    What will your Jellybrella be like? 
    We can’t wait to find out!
     

  • Restart: Sat 18th May

    Join this month’s Restart / Sewstart fixing and mending workshop on Saturday 18th May from 1.30pm to 4.30pm. As usual our volunteer fixers will be doing their best to fix your broken electrical or electronic items and importantly keep them out of landfill. Meanwhile on the Sewstart table you might get some help mending or altering a favourite piece of clothing. If you are already great at fixing and mending stuff why not join our growing group of local fixers? 

    It is of course perfectly fine just to come along to see what’s happening, enjoy a cup of tea, a piece of cake or find out more about Transition Tooting. Venue: Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)

    Do remember that 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 

    And further Tooting Restart dates for your diary this year are:
    6th July, 7th Sept & 9th Nov

  • April TTT Meeting Notes

    Thanks to Resina for chairing the April TTT meeting. Subjects covered included:

    • Project income for TTT – Richard
    • New Governance – Richard
    • The Woodfield Project – Emma
    • Ecobricking – Resina
    • Big Day Out – Resina
    • Plastic Free Furzedown – Moira from PFF
    • Foodival – David
    • BWTUC Press statement – Graham

    The full notes can be found HERE.  

    Our next open meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 14th May at 7.30 p.m. and will be chaired by Lucy.  Venue TBC.  All welcome to offer items for the agenda, speak or just come to listen in and discover what TTT is about.