Transition Town Tooting

Category: Other stuff

A place to gather things that have no category!

  • SPRING STEPS

    I step down after four years as TTT’s Co-Chair – an energising and rewarding role. Daunting at times, (what are we doing??? how do we DO this?) and ultimately inspiring on a daily basis to see what incredible opportunities there are to bring about change,  using our imaginations and our wits to invent a more liveable future.  Thankyou thankyou thankyou to everyone collaborating to establish TTT since 2008.  I think we have opened up possibilities for re-imagining a more aware, creative and resilient Tooting.  A warm welcome to Tim Bage who joins Charles Whitehead as our inventive and resourceful Co-Chairs. 

    Our TTT AGM last week, gave us a chance to imagine ways in which the derelict chapel in Streatham Cemetery could be used as a community resource for quiet contemplation and re-skilling activities.  Some fantastic ideas came up, from a bio-diversity hub to cinema screenings to bee-keeping to a Passivhaus chapel.  We’ll be feeding them back to Lambeth Council who have expressed an interest in seeing the pretty Victorian chapel in use once more.  (Come on the Spring Wildflower walk there on March Sunday 25th 2.30pm with Roy Vickery. See http://www.friendsofstreathamcemetery.co.uk/)
    Transition and the Arts – As writer-artist in residence at Battersea Arts Centre join me for 3 (free) Playing For Time public sessions on March 16th, March 23rd and March 30th (all 5pm-6pm) to look at how the arts play a role in transitioning to a more ecological age. http://www.bac.org.uk/whats-on/playing-time-talks/
    AND HOW ABOUT THIS for bringing about change!  Lido bins, bought by the South London Swimming Club are now installed at Tooting Bec Lido! 
    Lucy

  • AGM Report

    Thanks very much to everyone who attended the 2012 AGM on Tuesday evening, in the Vestry at Streatham Cemetery on Garratt Lane. Following the adoption of our new constitution a year ago, this short annual formal meeting:

    • confirms by vote the people who will hold the key roles in helping us achieve our vision and support our projects 
    • hears a statement of TTT’s finances 
    • hears information about TTT’s communications choices, IT profile and users 
    • hears a brief summary from each of our main current project groups. 
    The graphic below represents TTT’s structure, roles and current projects, all on a single page:

    We are proud of this – thanks Leon! – as it is beautiful, creative, and easy to use image to support visualising and describing our activities and relationships.


    Supporting roles within the co-ordination group are shown in the roots of the plant, alongside some of our partners; and TTT’s current project groups are shown as the plant’s flowers. One specific point we have agreed is to rotate the main supporting TTT roles around the group, so that individuals hold a role for a period of two years – sharing the voluntary ‘workload’. Lucy Neal (who founded TTT 4 years ago) has stopped being formal co-chair, and Tim Bage now becomes co-chair alongside Charles Whitehead (who started a year ago, when Hilary Jennings left the role). These are changes in role, thankfully not changes to involvement in TTT!

    Other main roles continue to be fulfilled by the same individuals as during the past 12 months. If you have any questions please do contact transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    To finish here are some web stats:
    In the last year, there have been 40 blog posts, more than 6,000 unique visits to the site with nearly 10,000 page loads including remarkably hits from around the world.  In the last week for instance we had 46 visits from Germany and 29 from Russia!

    Meanwhile TTT has 43 blog members, 578 Twitter followers, 81 Project Dirt members, 179 likes on facebook, the Garden has 83, and more than 650 people receiving the regular TTT email.

  • US sustainability students walk the Transition talk in Tooting

    24 college students from the USA doing a ‘Sustainability in Europe’ course based in Denmark came to spend half a day in Tooting on Monday 5th March to kick off a week in the UK.

    Their curriculum explores the role of local communities as agents of change towards greater wellbeing and a more sustainable future. This includes getting out into the real world and seeing what people are doing.
    Two of us from Transition Town Tooting took them on a talking and walking tour.
    Lucky it was sunny…even if there was a freezing wind.
    We started at the busy road junction by Tooting Broadway tube, then north to Streatham Cemetery, where we explored the opportunities that the Friends of the cemetery are developing. We went back through residential streets and past Gatton Primary to Tooting Market, where we had snacks by the Brick Box and soaked up the atmosphere. Then into the meeting room at Mushkil Aasaan (thank you!) for a fuller discussion, and on up to Tooting Bec tube via asian sweet shops, and a peek into the Wheatsheaf. Three hour tour complete!

    At each place we talked about the students’ own first impressions of opportunities for supporting sustainable living in Tooting, and we described diverse existing and future local projects.
    In the longer discussion, the students offered very useful observations based on what they had seen, and on their own experience. It was valuable for us, and both humbling and exciting to think that some insights into community and sustainability in Tooting will find their way back to two dozen locations across the USA.
    – Charles and Lucy

  • Furzedown Low Carbon Zone meeting 1st March

    All welcome to an update meeting on the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, at the Furzedown Project, 91 Moyser Road, Tooting SW16 6SJ, on March 1st from 7:00-9:00.
    We will:

      • hear from Brixton Energy http://brixtonenergy.co.uk/, who are launching their exciting share offer right now for the UK’s first inner-city renewable energy project. That’s a scheme we would love to see in Furzedown in the future….!
      • share details of our current project with South Thames College, using video and work experience to engage local young people with low-carbon employment opportunities
      • and more! Please come along…

    • Transition 2.0 Vox Pops

      Here is 2-minute selection of Tooting vox pops as selected by Transition HQ as part of the new film’s promotion. Thanks to everyone who agreed to be interviewed, whether featured here or not. DT

    • In Transition 2.0

      The Trashcatchers Carnival and Brixton e-currency featured in the premiere screening of Transition 2.0 at the Sivayogam Hall in Tooting last night alongside some very interesting and inspring stories of transition inner and outer from around the world. Fuelled by the excellent Pooja samosas and a classic Lucy fruit cake (that’s a food item not an individual), a crowd of 60+ enjoyed the film and a good natter afterwards around the thought-provoking issues raised.

      I loved the idea of interest on investment capital being paid in locally baked bread and the Italian transitioners who ran for public office and won!  What stories inspired you?  And what similar kinds of project could we initiate in Tooting?                                                              dt

    • World Premiere in Tooting!

      World Premiere in Tooting!

      We are delighted to announce that the World Premiere of the film Transition 2.0 will take place in Tooting in a simultaneous broadcast with Totnes and other Transition initiatives around the world on Thursday 2nd February.

      And look that’s the Upper Tooting Road taking centre stage on the poster, the day the Trashcatchers’ Carnival took over the streets!  Tooting features and so might you, so put the date in your diary!

      Film venue:
      Sivayogam Hall, First Floor, Sri Muthumari Amman Temple

      Address:
      180-186 Upper Tooting Road
      Tooting, London, SW17 7EJ

      Note: please use entrance on corner of Hebdon Road and Upper Tooting Road.

      Time: 7:30 for 8:00 pm screening prompt. Strictly no alcohol.

      Entry will be free, but donations are welcome.

    • TTT First Tuesday on January 10th: ‘Just Do It’

      For the first of our free monthly meetings in 2012, we looked at What are the actions you’d love to take this year to help build your own and Tooting’s resilience, sustainability, wellbeing?

      This took us into the territory of New Year Resolutions – maybe easily made, and maybe hard to act on?

      We shared some of our own hopes for action in 2012 – personal and / or communal.


      We looked at some
      meanings of resolution:
      making a decision…
      reaching consensus…
      and getting things into
      focus, as in ‘high-resolution’
      photographs.

      We all need inspiration to make bold plans, especially in a challenging period of complex change, when we often need to act without being sure what will take place en route. To encourage us, we shared two exciting stories where Tooting people took action when ‘what would happen next’ was not guaranteed.

      Liz described One Little Wheel, a cycle trip between Europe and Thailand last year.

      Jake described his own experience of non-violent direct action, as shown in the film Just Do It.

      Finally, bringing what you would love to do in 2012 back to the experience of the meeting participants, Belinda outlined a set of keys to happiness to explore what supports each of us to act.

      One Little Wheel:

      Woven into the Liz and Catherine’s cycle ride between Europe and Thailand was an extra goal, beyond getting there safely.
      They committed themselves to stop often and talk with people they met about the local experience and impact of HIV / AIDS, which is a challenging if necessary conversation.

      See their website at http://onelittlewheel.com/ for their experience of raising this subject in schools, in the street, with the groups they met all along their journey.

      Just Do It:

      We showed some of the new documentary Just Do It: see http://justdoitfilm.com/ It is a ‘Tale of Modern Day Outlaws’ which describes environmental activism from the insiders’ viewpoint. Jake is in the film, and talked about his own experience.  
      Jake also described the new campaign he is involved with now, which focuses on fuel poverty in the UK: see http://fuelpovertyaction.wordpress.com/ 
      There are events to join, planned from 27th – 30th January.
      Both of these vivid and very personal stories were worthy of much longer sessions of course – and we were really grateful to hear them and be able to chat with Liz and Jake about what they learned. At the same time, we are not all going to cycle through Asia, or superglue ourselves to the RBS head office…. Given that the example of these stories can prompt us to be brave when taking our own local action, on whatever scale, what can help sustain us as we act?
      12 keys to happiness:
      As one way of looking at our own prompts for action, Belinda offered 12 keys to happiness- a set of behaviours such as appreciating, being active, optimism derived from wellbeing research and practice sources including the New Economics Foundation and the NHS. Each of us selected and discussed a key which we felt would support us to continue to act in 2012 on the things we want to do.


      As a practical experiment, we’ll continue working with these keys thoughout 2012 at each TTT meeting as a way to measure the keys’ usefulness as a tool. We also hope to provide baseline information on community wellbeing.
      We’ll explain more about this idea soon.

      Happy New Year! 

    • Just Do It

      Tuesday’s Open event is called Just Do It!
      What are the actions you’d love to take this year to help build your own and Tooting’s resilience, sustainability, wellbeing? What do you really want to do?  There isn’t a ‘right answer’ to this question, so it’s exciting & inspiring to hear others’ ideas and visions, share yours, get some tips, plan to act.
      At the event we will:
      Ø Hear examples of recent ‘just do it’ actions by local colleagues – including a cycle trip last year between Thailand and Europe
      Ø Watch and discuss some of the new documentary film ‘Just Do It’, which explores the Climate Camps, creating Transition Heathrow, and non-violent direct action over the past 2 years.
      Ø Do some blue sky action planning together
      Ø Share your views, and hear others’ ideas too
      Ø Share Transition Tooting’s plans for 2012 We’re looking forward to a great evening, and a year of change…

      Tue, 10th January, 7pm, Mushkil Aasaan, 220 Upper Tooting Road

      Meanwhile, this weekend the Tooting pound team will be on the streets on Saturday and the Community garden team will be planting willows on Sunday.  Feel free to join in with either activity!

    • Two London meetings in December emphasising community resilience

      TTT members took part in two recent London meetings:
      London Transition Groups Gathering

      On Dec 1st, 100 participants from over 25 London Transition groups – and beyond – met at City Hall, by Tower Bridge on the Thames.
      As well as meeting new people and following up links and ideas, we heard quick updates from 4 speakers:  on the London Low Carbon Communities Network, from two of London’s funded Low Carbon Zones, and from the founder of Project Dirt. All these talks mixed humour, honesty about mistakes and celebration of successes with encouragement for the rest of us in our diverse community projects.

      The main part of the evening was led by Rob Hopkins, who founded the Transition Movement seven years ago. His new book ‘The Transition Companion’ has just been launched: developed over 2 years of listening to and collecting stories about many Transition groups. (Yes, there is a lot in the book about Transition Tooting…have a look!).
       
      Rob facilitated the ‘audience’ to participate by exploring a new

      Transition tool – a set of cards illustrating the 40-plus ‘Ingredients of Transition’ which groups are using to support their projects and communities – and which he describes in the new book.

      Photo: Rob looks on as TTT’s ingedients are mapped by many hands using the picture cards
      Different groups in the gathering used sets of these cards to look at their own activities, history and plans – laying them out on the floor as timelines, or as maps.

      It was fun, and easier to do than to explain. We had great ‘show and tell’ discussions as we went round the room, seeing what sense different groups have made of the ingredients.

       
      Photo: Jeni describes TTT’s journey 

      If you would like to know more about these ‘Ingredients of Transition’, have a look on line at http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ingredients