Transition Town Tooting

Category: Other stuff

A place to gather things that have no category!

  • Local Hustings for London Assembly elections

    On Tuesday evening, around 80 people gathered at Wimbledon’s  St. Mark’s Church to ask  four of the candidates for the London Assembly what they would do if they got into power on May 3rd.
    The candidates fielding questions were Leonie Cooper (Labour), Shas Sheehan (Liberal Democrat), Richard Tracey (Conservative and current Assembly Member for Merton & Wandsworth) and Roy Vickery (Green).

    This excellent meeting , ably chaired by the Rev Clive Gardner of St. Mark’s Church, got far beyond the personality politics of the Mayoral election. Lively questioning included how to make cycling in London safer, what to do about policing, the shortage of affordable housing, whether we need school buses, and how to make London more self-sufficient in energy.

    The Hustings was hosted jointly by St Mark’s Church, Transition Town Wimbledon, Wimbledon Civic Forum and Transition Town Tooting.

  • Spending time designing money

    Two workshops on 21 and 22 April provided lots of lovely ideas for the design of the Tooting Pound.

    It’s early days for the community currency but that didn’t stop the heated debates about who should be on the notes – should it be Wolfie (Citizen) Smith or Nurse Edith Cavell on the T£1; Hester Thrale or Samuel Johnson on the T£5 note; an ordinary Tooting mum or an Upper Tooting Road shopkeeper on the T£10; Paul Merton or George Cole on the T£20 note?

    The workshops were convened by Sue Rentoul and took place in Sprout, the community arts space on Moyser Road in Furzedown, which proved an excellent venue. Casual visitors to Emma Forrester’s show were also asked for their opinion about what the Tooting Pound could look like.
    We have some lively lists full of ideas. But the workshops didn’t stop there: some lovely drawings were created by budding designers and these will all inform the final designs. Here’s one design:
    Have a look at the lists of Tooting people, places, objects and animals that participants came up with over the weekend by placing stickers on images, or contributing new ideas:
    The most popular Tooting people to depict on the notes were:
    • Edith Cavell
    • George Eliot
    • Citizen Smith
    • Paul Merton
    • Georgina Weldon
    • Hester Thrale
    • George Cole
    • A local mum
    • Samuel Johnson
    • A local shopkeeper
    Stickers were also put on favourite Tooting places that people would like to see on the notes. Top spots were:
    • Tooting Bec Lido doors
    • Tooting Common
    • Tooting Market
    • Tooting Underground
    • Bingo Hall interior
    • Library
    • Harrington’s Pie and Mash shop
    • Sprout
    • Tooting Police Station
    And then there were things, objects and animals:
    • A coot on Tooting Common ponds
    • Boxes of produce at the market
    • The lamp post outside Tooting Broadway tube
    • Trashcatchers’ Sankofa Bird
    • The bench outside Tesco
    • Henna patterns on hands
    • Curry
    • African printed cloths
    • Green Parakeets

    You may have ideas of who or what should be on the notes and there will be other workshops coming soon.

    One event is on Wednesday 16th May from 6-8pm at 68 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7PB in the pop-up Transition Tooting shop:

    ‘The Tooting Pound: exploring the idea (and designs) of a local currency with Sue and Tim’
     
    See you there!

  • Growing Successfully in the City

    The ‘Monthly Do’ on Sunday April 22nd at Wandsworth Borough Council’s Pump House Gallery in Battersea Park saw several of us from Transition Tooting join with gallery staff to offer a drop-in afternoon about on ‘Growing Successfully in the City’. Yes – that broad topic included different prompts for the ways ‘urban growing’ is expressed: growing food and flowers; developing green space and experiencing nature; building wellbeing and happiness; growing knowledge and skills; playing; and making new links across the community.

    We were lucky to a few hours of sun within a weekend of blustery weather. After a quiet start, 145 people were counted into the Gallery by 4pm. The activities and displays attracted some of them – usually in couples it seemed – to join in:   
    Ø  to explore the networks of waste and new social relationships created and recorded by Jane in her Plastic Bottle Tops project

    Ø  to pick cards and share ideas, and think of personal actions to take in the DIY Happiness game guided (in the wind) by Belinda
    Ø  to play an outdoor Food Footprint game about CO2 in the UK food chain with Charles, using painted boxes from Tooting market
    Ø  to make urban-styled seed planters with Li

    Just as Charles’ talk on urban growing and transition was about to kick off at 3:30, the sky went black and a strong gust capsized one of the gazebos. All the helpers and audience went out to sort it out in the driving rain – a great image of community spirit in action…
    Difficult to plan, but I recommend it as a way to start a talk!  We began with a vivid sense of shared experience among a group who met as strangers: completely relevant to the topic.

    Thanks loads to Laura, responsible for Participation & Education at the Gallery, for conceiving the idea and inviting us, and to all the Gallery staff & Justin for a lot of work on the day. The Pump House is a great venue, and we’d love to develop something else together in the future.        Charles

  • Well Beeing Project

    Local artist team Jeni Walker and Leon Lawes have begun work to create a giant bee piñata that will process with Treasuring Tooting, the Transition Town Tooting wellbeing walk, on the 12th May. At a point on the walk the pinata will be smashed open in the traditional manner, what goodies will come forth is anybody’s guess.

    Why a Bee?
    The decline in honey bee numbers has been big news recently and the importance of our role in helping the numbers to grow has never been clearer. Treasuring Tooting is a celebration of the things in our local area that make us happy, and this giant bee symbolises the arrival of bees at Streatham Cemetery this May which makes us very happy indeed.
    See details of our sister project at the Cemetery at: http://www.friendsofstreathamcemetery.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111&Itemid=201 

    Why smash it up?
    The idea to create a piñata as our walk mascot was was initially met with mixed reactions. A lot of work went into the first two celebration creations and this would be no exception.

    Our thoughts turned to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition of creating complex circular pictures called Mandalas from coloured sand, only to destroy them soon after their completion. The practice is a reminder of the transient nature of material life, and so destroying a beautiful piñata will be an apt expression of the idea that true happiness does not come from the material and the transient.

    See the flyer for Treasuring Tooting if you scroll down in this blog.
    & more info to come as we make the bee – here and at http://thedaisybugco.com/well-beeing-project/

  • Four events between 21+22 April and 12 May

    We are very pleased to be able to share details of 4 events that are coming up between the weekend of 21+22 April and the 12th of May
    Help shape the Tooting Pound

    Design workshops: Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd April, both 11am-1pm
    Sprout, 74 Moyser Road, Furzedown, London SW16 6SQ

    The Tooting Pound is coming!
    Help design your local currency at these workshops:

    • who should be on the notes?
    • what local landmarks should be on them?
    • what colours should they be?
    All welcome – families, individuals, all ages.
    Tickets for this event are FREE but booking is recommended. Space in Sprout is limited so please make sure you can attend before booking: www.tooting_pound_workshop.eventbrite.co.uk
    More information about the Tooting Pound can be found here: www.tootingpound.org

    Growing Successfully in the City

    Sunday 22nd April from 11am-4pm

    Pump House Gallery, Battersea Park

    We are proud to be co-hosting the Pump House Gallery’s April ‘Monthly Do’ in Battersea Park.  All welcome to an interesting and entertaining afternoon in a beautiful location.

    It’s going to be National Gardening Week, so we decided to get thoughtful about Growing.
    Join us to explore ideas of Urban Growing of all kinds including gardening, low-carbon living, growing food and wellbeing.
    Make your own planter from recycled material to take home with you, ‘play with food’ on a giant scale, try some games about personal wellbeing and happiness, and meet members of TTT to find out more about transition’s varied approach to community growth.
    At 3.30pm Charles, TTT Co-Chair, will talk about the transition movement and different kinds of urban growing. Click on the link below for more information and to reserve a place for the talk: http://pumphousegallery.org.uk/events/april-monthly-do

    London Assembly Election Hustings

    Tuesday 24th April from 7:30pm

    St Mark’s Church, St Mark’s Place (behind Wimbledon Library), Wimbledon, SW19

    In partnership with a group of community organisations,TTT is helping to host a hustings with candidates from the main parties on April 24th.

    Wandsworth and Merton Boroughs are represented together by one London Assembly member, and elections to the Assembly are on May 3rd. Assembly members oversee London policy on transport, planning, the environment and policing.
    Come and meet candidates from the main parties, and ask them your questions.
    Hustings are 8:00-9:30, followed by informal discussion. All welcome!
    Venue: http://www.stmarkswimbledon.org.uk/
    Partners include the Wimbledon Civic Forum, Transition Town Wimbledon, St Mark’s Church, and Transition Town Tooting.
    Enquiries: ttwimbledon@yahoo.co.uk

    Treasuring Tooting – Treasure in Tooting

    Saturday 12thMay
    A day-long interactive walk around Tooting to celebrate wellbeing
    ‘Happiness and fulfillment come less from material wealth and more from relationships; less from focusing on ourselves and more from helping others; less from external factors outside our control and more from the way in which we choose to react to what happens to us.’ (Action for Happiness: 2012)

    On May 12th we’ll take a free dawn to dusk walk through Tooting celebrating the many places and things that contribute to our happiness.
    Following on from the Tooting Earth Talk Walk in 2009, the walk will visit favourite places from the Lido to the Library, Brickbox to the Bingo Hall, at each of which an aspect of our happiness and wellbeing will be experienced and celebrated.
    A map will guide us down the road and give timings for each location so people can join at any point. All ages welcome!
    Put the date in your diary and look out for more information soon….

  • Lovely Graphic of our planning meeting

    Transition Town Tooting hold regular planning meetings – all are welcome. To get a flavour of the kind of things we  discuss see HERE the first graphically recorded meeting notes, from our last meeting on the 20th March. This move towards the pictorial – done by Jeni Walker – was inspired by Alice Maggs’ graphic documentation of Carbon Conversations…

  • Locally-made video on community approaches to our low-carbon future

    In the post below on ‘Community Approaches to the Green Deal’, we mention the video that was being made to accompany the project.
    Now it’s finished and ready to enjoy on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNRx6tNFG8U 
    It’s seven minutes long – do have a look, and keep an eye out for the local locations and stars!
    The partners in the project are meeting in early May to develop next steps to keep the momentum going.
    We’ll keep you up to date with progress, and do get in contact via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com if you would like to be involved.

  • Snippets from Ecobuild 2012

    Ecobuild was again a source of wonder this year.  I liked the re-use of materials such as the pallet arch, rubber band lampshade and some lovely tiles made from impressions in every day bowls and dishes.  And then there was water bottle man publicising the amount of water wasted in the home.

    It’s always amazing what you can overhear too …

    “Cities are shaped by the environment, economy and equality, and the environment must guide the others”.

    “We need ‘urban respiration’ across systems such as food, water, energy, jobs”

    At a stand promoting ready-made turf full of wild flowers: “the best way to start is to kill off everything with glyphosate weed killer!”

  • Making the local low-carbon future happen now!

    On Thursday 15th March there were two fascinating local meetings which illustrated some of the interrelated aspects of making the low-carbon future a reality.

    The first one was held in the afternoon at S Thames College in Wandsworth, and speakers examined ways that the community can anticipate, influence and make the most of initiatives such as the Green Deal.
    (TTT has been a partner in a 4 month project organised by the Greener Jobs Alliance). As well as the work experience with S Thames College students, and sharing the excellent activities in local schools, and encouraging the development of the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, an outcome of the project will be a short video examining some of the challenges and practical responses. The video was premiered on the 15th. When the edit is complete, we’ll make it available on YouTube… Oscars look out!
    For more information on the project, please email TTT at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    The same evening saw a celebration party and an interim thank-you with the many volunteers, partners, advisors and investors who have helped establish the Brixton Energy share offer which is funding the rooftop renewable energy power station in the Loughborough Estate.

    They are keen to share experience and learning, and we’ll be talking in detail with them to help ‘Repowering South London’, and explore developing a local project like this that is suitable for Tooting.
    Congratulations! http://brixtonenergy.co.uk/

  • It’s Climate Week

    There are lots of different ways to support Climate Week: encouraging… taking action… challenging… celebrating… What’s yours?

    Looking forward to this week, three Transition Tooting colleagues – Susan, Alice and Charles – facilitated a workshop a fortnight ago with a dozen staff in a UK Government department, to contribute a stimulus for the senior director to write a personal blog during Climate Week. That blog has been posted yesterday on the department’s internal website: it touches on individual behaviours and choices as well as the department’s activities. 

    Why invest the time? For context, as in many organisations, there is a range of views and assumptions in this department about climate – and some sensitivity to change. It is easy to underestimate the  potential impact in an organisation of even a simple blog like this that demonstrates awareness, humanity and personal leadership. Clear communication is such an effective way to support change!

    What did we do in our workshop? Charles and Susan ran the ‘Home Energy’ section of Carbon Conversations (the five-part series of meetings TTT has offered locally over the past year), and discussed Susan’s own experience of carbon reduction in her own family’s house.
    Alice captured some of the interchange and questions from participants in a graphic record – also placed on the department’s internal web. Here’s one of her super drawings, reflecting discussion about Susan’s house:

    You’ll see the mention of the OWL electricity monitoring meter: that is where the senior director starts his blog. Please read on…….

    “Owls are currently big in our house….

    First, Helena (who is now 12) has been engaged in a theatrical presentation at school of a much loved children’s book, “Owl Babies”.  This required her (or more to the point, her granny and other adults in the household) to create a vast cardboard owl costume, ten or twenty times the size of an actual barn owl.  An unconscionable number of mostly adult person hours went in to this, and a rather smaller number of 12 year old ones.  Were she to be measured against the Senior Civil Service competencies, Helenawould score more highly on “setting direction” than on “engaging our people”.  So there was a certain frisson surrounding the owl construction project, especially in relation to those, like me, tasked with the clearing up stage of things.  Fortunately the performance itself went off really well.

    But the other prominent owl is our new electricity use monitoring device.  Many of you, I’m sure, will have them.  They tell you throughout the day exactly what your current electricity consumption is, and what it is costing you.  After an initial moment in which the younger members of the household competed with each other to see who could work out what combination of electrical appliances would send the device to the maximum dizzying level of expenditure, we have now got into quite a good routine.  The device sits on the kitchen table.  Mealtimes are preceded by a scurrying around process in which devices currently not being used have their plugs removed from sockets and switches turned off.  We are saving a small fortune.

    I have drawn two important insights from our electricity owl.  First, transparency is really powerful.  Simply seeing what we are consuming is leading us to consume less.  That is a real opportunity provided by Behavioural Insight work like that on transparency, nudge etc.  Second, thinking about our carbon footprint at home keeps climate change much more prominently in my mind when I arrive at work.

    The idea to get an Owl came from a ‘Carbon Conversation’ on energy in the home with a group of staff from across the department. We met a couple of weeks ago. The group discussed a range of ideas from solar panels and insulation down to energy efficient light bulbs and recycling.

    This week, as you know, is Climate Week….. ”

    (…the blog continues, exploring the department’s own work).

    What’s next? It was a very useful experience for us to facilitate together as a team. Personally, it showed me that one can achieve a lot in an hour, even from a ‘standing start’. And it was a creative way to work with a new kind of audience: I hope we can bring that experience back to Tooting, and to the way we run Carbon Conversations.

    To follow in the footsteps of TTT helping to influence exploration of climate change impact and personal behaviours….. do go and see Susan Venner’s house in Balham for yourself. It is open to the public on 24 March for guided tours. It’s a fascinating visit hosted by Susan, and places are limited, so please book on this link if you wish to join:
    http://www.superhomes.org.uk/events/london-balham-cornford-grove-24-03-2012/

    – Charles