As part of Repairfest, on Friday 12th November, TTT hosted an enjoyable sewing box workshop for women refugees from CARAS, in the hospitable surroundings of Mushkil Aasaan. Most of the materials for the workshop were sourced from the Work and Play Scrapstore. Supplies included a variety of small boxes, fabric, ribbons, braids and felts, as well as the contents of each box: scissors, needles, spare buttons, threads.
First we decorated each box, gluing on fabric, trimmings and feathers. Then we had fun making dome-shaped pincushions for the inside of our box lids and little needle books.
Feedback from the women was that they really needed a safe social space like this to gather together and share their worries. It was great to see them visibly relaxing as they took on these creative tasks. They were laughing and chatting and helping one another.
Each participant took home a beautifully decorated box filled with all the sewing necessities for future mending and repair projects!
At the request of the participants we are working with Oxfam, Tooting on a plan to host regular sewing workshop for the group.
We had a fantastic time at Tooting’s very own Fashion Show and Parade – Fixing Fashion – celebrating fashion that is pre-loved, upcycled, mended or handed down and kinder to our planet.
Read all about it and check out the images below (thanks to photographer Bryony @findmeintooting!)
It was a fantastic celebration of Tooting, the market and a signal to the wider community that it’s more than acceptable to buy your clothes from a charity shop, to repair rather than throw away and to celebrate the brilliant community of Tooting. It was all that we wished for and more.
We collaborated with the local Oxfam Shop who provided the majority of the outfits worn down the catwalk. The models were mostly traders from the market, locals into the market and supporters of the Share & Repair project. For many it was a personal journey to take that walk and the look of triumph after they had will be remembered for a long time.
Local bar and distillery Graveney Gin provided us with a brilliant up and coming DJ and Becky really set the right pace and mood. Transition Tooting’s own David Thorne acted as compere, sharing details of the models and outfits.
We were also joined by pupils from the local primary school Franciscan Primary School to display and discuss all of the recycling projects they were involved in. Their earnestness and excitement was enough to melt even the coldest heart.
We’d also like to thank local secondary school Lambeth Academy whose students assisted in the styling. One is hoping to become a fashion journalist and the majority of her personal statement for university applications was about her experiences on the day.
What really stood out was that the crowd watching represented the community of Tooting, we clearly spoke directly and there have been many cries for more of that please!
How about another show next year???
The evening also saw the launch of our photography exhibition – celebrating the individuals and small businesses who fix and mend in Tooting
All part of our Transition Town Tooting Share & Repair project.
So yesterday’s IPCC’s latest report says human activity is changing the climate in unprecedented and sometimes irreversible ways. [BBC Report]. The Guardian gives its verdict on the climate crimes of humanity as “guilty as hell”. The report itself is likely to be conservative, having been signed up to by all the world’s governments based on a review of thousands of scientific studies.
As we know politicians are much better at talking than taking any meaningful action to halt the Climate Crisis. As we approach COP 26 in Glasgow at the end of October, it has never been more imperative for the world to find a way to stop burning fossil fuels as soon as possible.
While this seems highly unlikely, here in south London, we can continue to make our own small contribution to reducing the impact of humans on the planet.
Coming up soon we have this year’s Tooting Foodival, our annual sustainable food festival taking place on 4th September 2021. We started this event in 2008 as a small way to combat the industrial homogenised food culture, to bring local and sustainable back into people’s consciousness. To get food miles to NEAR ZERO!
The premise of Foodival revolves around using home grown fruit and vegatables donated by local growers to create tasty dishes for all to sample. The event has been running since 2008 and always includes some new ideas and strands.
This year we are also focussing on some of the great initiatives that have emerged during lockdown that embrace sustainable living developed by local people such as recycling and upcycling, repairing, mending and re-creating.
Fast fashion for example has a huge environmental impact on the planet, leading many to think about buying less, caring more and making the clothes we love last longer. Why not get involved with our clothes upcycling event and maybe brave the catwalk with a repurposed creation?!
See our the Foodival blog and Instagram for more detail on this and other happenings at this year’s Foodival street festival.
When you are typing in WordPress if you want to create a new line of text Like this. You need to press the SHIFT key + the RETURN key. This creates a new line.
If you just hit the RETURN key you create a new paragraph, just like this puppy!
Can’t see the edit you just made on the live site?
Either navigate to the post on the website. When you find the post/page you want. Click on the ‘Edit Post’ button at the very top of the screen.
OR you can search for it. Go to the Dashboard
Then click on ‘Posts’ and use the Search to find what you are looking for.
Edit my page/post
NB You will only ever edit and create ‘Posts’ (NOT Pages). Only the top level pages (Like What we do, Contacts, etc) of the site are really Pages. Any hooo…
Only the items in the pink boxes are of interest.
If your page already exists then click on the ‘House’ button at the top of the screen. The site will load and you can navigate to your page/post.
When you have finished editing you must click the ‘Update‘ button to save. Otherwise all your edits will be lost.
How, do I undo a mistake
Easy use the keyboard short-cut for undo; on a PC is Ctrl + Z, Mac is Command + Z
If this does not take you far enough back (you can Ctrl+Z several times). Then you can look back at *all* the ‘revisions’ that WordPress automatically saves . Here’s a video that explains how to undo.
How do a create a new post
Click on the ‘+ New’ button Click on the ‘Post’ button
Don’t forget to hit the ‘Update’ button when you are done!
See a list of all the tags and categories
Go to the Dashboard view.
Click on ‘Posts’
Then click on ‘Tags’. You will see a list of all the tags used on this website. You can search them too!
Change the order of the Active Projects
The order the active projects appear is dictated by the date that WordPress thinks the Post was created. So we change the date of the post and, relative to the other active project posts, a post will move up or down the order. NB this date is not displayed to the user (until the post is no longer active).
Go to the Posts list
Click on the Active project category – So only the Active projects are displayed.
The Posts are displayed in date order – the same as on the live website.
Click on the ‘Quick Edit’ link of the post you want to move
Change the date to move it relative to the other active projects
Click ‘Update’
You will need to refresh the browser page to see the new world order that you have created.
Archive a no longer active project
To change where a post (project page) appears you just change its’ Category.
Open the Post you want to change. With the ‘Post’ tab selected (on the top right of the edit screen). Scroll down to the ‘Categories’ section. Click on the ‘Active project’ box to un-select it. Press the ‘Update’ button to save your changes!
Add a project to the ‘Things we’ve done’ list
To change where a post (project page) appears you just change its’ Category.
Open the Post you want to change. With the ‘Post’ tab selected (on the top right of the edit screen). Scroll down to the ‘Categories’ section. Click on the ‘Herstory’ box to select it. Press the ‘Update’ button to save your changes!
Add an Allied project
Add a new Page
Type in the Title – the name of the project
Add a Cover block and add an image to this block (this gives you the wide image- like Fishponds page.)
The layout from here on is up to you. I used a columns block (2 columns) to give the layout on the Fishponds page.
Critical
In the ‘Page’ tab of your new page. (see image below). Scroll down the righthand column and open up the ‘Page Attributes’ section.
In the ‘Template:’ dropdown menu
Select ‘Allied project’
Click the ‘Publish’ button to save your changes.
This displays the page with just the Footer from the TTT site.
Add a sub menu
This is not a simple process. Question whether you can achieve the desired effect using a single page and anchor points to specific parts of the page – just like this one.
Garry
Before you start create all the Posts that you want to link together. On a piece of paper write out the structure you want. Use post titles that will make sense to the visitor – not just to you!
You are going to need to login to the site as a site administrator (contact garry@smallmouse.com or Hilary for this). With great power comes great responsibility – please be very careful in there!
This is a lovely tutorial – maybe better than mine – please read it
Click on the ‘+ Conditions‘ then click the ‘Pages’ tab and check the box next to the page you want to add this menu too.
Save your changes!!!
Check your page and WTF it hasn’t changed. Yeah, there is one last thing… we need to change the page template to one with a top menu.
Change your page template to ‘Allied p with Menu’. To do this go to the page in edit view and change the Template in the ‘Page Attributes/Template:’ dropdown.
In the 6 weeks following Hallowe’en we’ve facilitated 4 Zoom participative workshops. We’ve been cooking-along, creating and crafting, writing and sharing poems, all in real time. We’ve been building skills, discussing and responding between friends, strangers and generations.
‘Distant Socialising, not Social Distancing’: we’ve been thinking about how this phrase sums up the experience of these online workshops during this winter of the pandemic. Physical distancing is necessary of course. ‘Distant socialising’ feels proactive & positive, but ‘social distancing’ – what’s that? Your next thought may be ‘is that what we want?’.
The workshops were remarkable experiences all round because of what was produced (poems, dishes and meals, decorations, presents) and because of how the interaction worked (goodwill, laughter, invitations, sharing, working alongside rather than telling what to do).
As a legacy of the fourth event we’ve created The ReSparkle! Booklet– all invited to see what we did and how you can make lovely things at home this week. Download it here.
Each of these events was 2 hours long – that sounds like a lot of screen time but the activities and groups were diverse and time flew by. They were not always predictable and linear – there was some uncertainty and some gentle chaos.
It helped to be tolerant and simply enjoy – like a relaxed performance in theatre. You could be active or do simply watch…one person said ‘I wouldn’t have joined a live event doing this’, so an online workshop may allow for individual preferences in a different way than face-to-face.
We felt participants were taking the opportunity to reach out (maybe taking a small risk) rather than being constrained by limitations in the pandemic: creating something new that’s unique, fun and energising.
We felt both welcomed and connected to strangers and friends across all ages. It’s a suprisingly intimate and personal experience – you are invited into others’ homes; people may drift in and out; questions and comments fly back and forth; participants proudly show what they have created.
We had up to 15 screens active in each of these 4 events – some peope solo, sometimes several from one family, sometimes people joining from beyond London and from outside the UK.
What did we do?
In first of these 4 workshops we celebrated Hallowe’en as if outdoors at the Tooting Community Garden, with potato printing, leaf lantern making and ghostly poetry-writing. The finale was cooking pumpkin soup outside on a fire in the dark (a family in Chicago cooked-along using butternut squash). Facilitation was by Becky, Chuck, Nikki and Barbara.
The next 2 workshops were both offered under the umbrella ofVegetanuary! our Facebook wellbeing and connection group based on vegetarian food (all welcome to join).
In the 2nd workshop we made delicious Ethiopian shiro wat and a robust salad with November veg box ingredients.
We cooked-along to create dishes from scratch, peered at the screen to keep up – and learned how to create hand shadow puppets. We were led by Nikki, Chuck. Becky and Barbara
A fortnight later, the 3rd workshop also focused on live cooking. After writing poems using words shared from the group, we created two kinds of pakoras and a raita. We continued to make a refreshing pomegranate and orange salad. In each kitchen there were probably unfamiliar ingredients, the smells of hot oil and spices and the challenge of opening a pomegranate without cutting the juicy seeds.
Our group facilitated in new roles: Barbara led the poetry writing, Nazma and Nikki led creating the dishes. The rest of us experienced cooking-along. There were some lovely-looking meals created within the workshop time.
The 4th workshop on December 13th was an online version of ReSparkle! – our Christmas connection and creativity event which we’ve offered locally in Tooting LIbrary since 2012. In this Zoom version we invited all-comers to a mix of crafting and sharing skills to demonstrate how household and scrap materials can be transformed into beautiful decorations and presents..
Participants made fantastic things! One young person messaged ‘I feel accomplished’ after she had done all the activities.
This photo is a page from The ReSparkle Booklet. You can download it to see what we made and learn how to create more decorations and presents yourself at home. Resina, Nikki, Nicola, Chuck and Jeni facilitated.
We’ll do more of these hybrid events and it would be great to explore ‘distant socializing’ and chat with other community groups about how others’ versions go. If you’ve not been involved in a creative online workshop, you may wonder ‘how does this work, is it productive, is it fun?’ Please look out for the next events and take the opportunity to join us in 2021. – Chuck W.
ReSparkle! 2020 is a fun crafts-making online workshop where you are guided to work at home using household materials to create beautiful things. It’s on Zoom on Sunday December 13th from 3-5pm.
The workshop is free: please register for a free ticket on Eventbrite at https://tinyurl.com/y27vzkvb Then we’ll be able to email you the Zoom access link before the event.
What will we do? We’ll offer you a series of practical crafts activities: 20 minutes for each. Our artist leaders will demonstrate and guide you, and in parallel others will be working on the same activity. Some of the activities will be making decorations, some could be presents.
Craft materials to prepare at homeClick here for the full list. Lots of the materials might have been going into the recycling bag or the compost – so we’ll be creating beauty out of waste.
Who is Resparkle! 2020 designed for? Anyone of any age; individuals who would like to do something different; housemates and families who can share a screen; carers who would like to get some ideas and experience of how to enjoy crafts safely and inexpensively at home with younger children.
We’ve offered lots of ReSparkle workshops since 2012.Click here for some past TTT blog posts & photos of what’s been created when we were face-to-face!
ReSparkle!2020 will be the same but different. We believe that online workshops can be welcoming, sociable and beneficial for wellbeing and connection.
On Zoom we’re all invited into each others’ homes – so there are many layers of welcome and community.
Join our fun free participative online Halloween workshop for all ages on Saturday 31st October from 4pm-6pm.
Coming to you from Tooting Community Garden, we’ll be creating crafts, writing poetry and cooking on the fire!
Please register on Eventbrite via this link https://tinyurl.com/yyfpfdt6 and we’ll send you the Zoom access code on Sat 31st.
You’re invited to join us on Zoom for a lovely afternoon workshop based at our Community Garden in Tooting, London. All welcome and your hosts will be Barbara, Becky, Nikki & Chuck. You can join in making crafts at home; have a pencil and paper ready for the poetry and for the cooking we’ll share a recipe and you can cook along.
From 4pm: Firstly we’ll create pictures and crafts with Halloween, autumn and natural themes: potato printing, luminous leaf jars and more.
From 4:45: Secondly, write a poem! We’ll help you write poems based on the crafts images or on the seasonal themes – we guarantee you will be surprised at the results!
From 5:15: Thirdly, join a fireside cook-along! Warm up with a spiced squash soup: make your own or just enjoying watching…it will be dark by the end so enjoy the fire!
Throughout we’ll celebrate what’s created by sharing across the Zoom group and taking screenshots (with your permission). We’ll close at 1800 with a warm glow of fun in the community.
What to Prepare at Home:
For crafts making: Potato, water-based paint, paint brush, paper/card, water to clean.
And for the leaf-candle lights: clean jam jar, dry fallen leaves, glue, a tea light, matches
For writing poems:Paper and a pen
For cooking:Normal kitchen equipment, and here’s the recipe if you would like to cook-along with us on Saturday!
On Saturday July 4th, 2020, Transition Town Tooting (TTT) invite you to join a safely distanced but socially connected celebration of Tooting community resilience, kindness and inventiveness: on and offline over the length of one summer’s day
The occasion gives time and space to mark our community’s survival, solidarity and connections in difficult times whilst also celebrating the 10th anniversary of the grand 2010 Tooting Trashcatchers Carnival – a large scale celebratory event reimagining Tooting.
We wish to make visible the invisible threads that sustain us as neighbours, friends, families and community groups. “How can we do that during a global health pandemic when we cannot gather together?”, we hear you ask…
With the help of the West African mythical Sankofa Bird.
The Sankofa Bird looks backwards and forwards in a single glance. Carrying an egg in its mouth – the seed for new stories – it says “it’s never too late to go back and fetch what you have forgot from the past – skills, stories, knowledge. The Sankofa Bird was the central character in the 2010 Carnival – visiting Tooting to gather stories and seeds for the future.
On July 4th, the Sankofa Bird returns to Tooting and would like to know how people have been getting on in these strange COVID times: what has kept us going? what or who do we miss? what do we hope in the future? The Bird’s visit gives us chance to reflect, individually and collectively on how we might “build back better”.
Here’s how you can join in:
4.51am Sankofa dawn arrival in Tooting (you can stay in bed!)
10.30 – 4pm: Visit the bird and answer its questions, safely, at one of these places, or online using #sankofareturn
10.30-11.30am: Sankofa goes walkabout in and around Tooting. Follow social media #sankofareturn for whereabouts
1-2pm: Tooting Community Garden, 5 North Drive, SW17
3-4pm: Tooting Bec Common, between entrance to Tooting Bec Lido and Lake.
Attendees to the open air sites are asked to wear masks and maintain 2m social distancing to ensure public health safety for all. All such measures will be strictly adhered to during The Return of The Sankofa Bird.
2-3pm: An Online invitation to those shielding:
For people who are shielding and unable to attend any open air visits, there will be an online event hosted by TTT member, Resina Chowdhury., to celebrate the creativity and achievements of those who have been shielding. We would like to hear your responses to the Sankofa Bird’s questions and would love you to share your creative endeavours that have been keeping you sane during this solitary period.
An Invitation to Children:Please do contribute too, through sending pictures of what kind of world you would like to see coming out of lockdown. You can send them to us via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using #sankofareturn.
You may have seen in the Lockdown Love series of blogposts that we have been running Tooting Virtual Green Drinks every 2 weeks since lockdown due to Coronavirus, all welcome, join the Facebook Group here. Well, one of those Green drinks was a lively discussion about the role of big business in a sustainable future. Our Tooting professional in the field, Jacqui Machin, facilitated an inquisitive, informative session, quietly interrogating big business and the possibility for positivity. Here’s Jacqui’s blog:
What makes a business good or bad? How does big business impact us in the Tooting community? And what do we want from big business? On Wednesday 3rd June, the Tooting Green Drinks community came together (virtually!) to discuss these questions. I am a Tooting resident and a Green Drinks regular, and I work with big business on sustainability and climate change. I wanted to bring this topic to Green Drinks as although I see lots of overlap between community and business priorities, there seems to be very little dialogue. We had a really lively discussion and it was great to hear so many diverse perspectives – here are just a few of the ideas we talked about.
Big businesses are a deeply embedded part of the society we all inhabit. As individuals, we are their customers and employees, and we might even own shares in them as part of our pensions. They provide jobs and infrastructure to our communities, tax revenues that fund public services, and act as suppliers, customers and competitors to small businesses. Like all parts of society, they also depend on nature, using natural resources and releasing waste or pollution into the environment. In our conversation, people shared their experiences of how big business can play these roles both to the benefit and detriment of society. In my line of work, I have seen that big business has some unique capabilities that mean they could play a crucial role in building the better future that we would all like: they can use their scale, skills and flexibility to help solve global problems, like building huge offshore wind farms, or finding new cures for widespread diseases.
The good businesses that the Green Drinks community identified were those that recognise their footprint and make targets to minimise it, provide a worthwhile product or service, support local suppliers, and respect their workforce. My favourite examples were companies that have decided to completely change what they do in order to be more sustainable and provide something that society needs. In contrast, the bad businesses that were highlighted are extractive, constantly pursue growth, put profits before people and planet, exploit staff and suppliers, and don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Ultimately, it seems that people value similar traits in companies as they value in people – we like those that take responsibility for their actions and treat others with respect; we dislike greed, dishonesty, selfishness and carelessness.
What do we want business to do differently, to help us build more sustainable communities?
At the end of Green Drinks, we thought about this question in small groups, and came up with a wishlist for business:
Do what you do, better!
Keep innovating so your products get better, and more sustainable, all the time
Think long-term and account for all the societal costs of the business
Tell us more about what we’re buying – how did making it affect people and planet?
Become a B-corp and solidify your commitment to consider the interests of the community and the environment
Localise!
Get to know the places where the business is present, and value the knowledge of local employees
Support our community by localising supply chains
Value the people that work for you!
Focus on employees and empower them to create positive changes
Fix the ratio between the highest and the lowest paid in the company
Give sustainability literacy training to all staff, so that people understand the impact of their company
Have a home-working charter – now we know how many people can work remotely, it’s time to commit to flexibility
How can we make our wishlist come true? We discussed how we can use our purchasing power to support those companies that are doing good things; as employees and shareholders we might also be able to chose to support better businesses and improve businesses from the inside. It can also be surprisingly effective to contact companies directly and ask for changes – you may feel like your email is a drop int he ocean, but I have seen many companies use customer queries to help decide which issues they should focus their sustainability efforts on. At the end of the day, businesses are made of people, and I truly believe that most of those people want what’s best for communities, our planet and for future generations. Many of them will already want to do the right thing – our purchases and our voices can help them make the case for it.
What I will take away from our conversation is that having an open dialogue between the people in business and the people in community (some of these are the same people) is enlightening for everyone, and I hope that conversation continues.
