Transition Town Tooting

Category: Other stuff

A place to gather things that have no category!

  • TTT’s Giles star of Sunday Times article

    …. you can spot him up the ladder in the photo…

  • Carbon Conversations

    Is our future worth a conversation?
    Would you like to reduce your carbon footprint?
    Would you like to take some practical steps on climate change?
    You are invited to take part in Carbon Conversations:
    a course of meetings starting soon in Tooting

     

    8-10 participants will meet as a group to explore climate change in a different way, focusing on values, feelings and lifestyle as well as kick-starting practical action to reduce carbon consumption in the home and community 
    Ø  Each two-hour session is supported by facilitators to build on the experience and interests of the participants: you do not need to feel you are an ‘expert’ to take part 
    Ø  Following a proven and well-designed structure, you will meet other people interested in creating a low-carbon future, and explorekey areas of your own carbon footprint including home energy, transport and travel, food, consumption and waste
    Ø  We will emphasise participation in the informal sessions – we won’t be giving lectures. You will share ideas, use the Carbon Conversations workbook, play some instructive and enjoyable games, identify tools and tips that will support you, and create personal plans that will reduce your carbon impact
    Ø  After the completion of the workshops you can choose to receive training on facilitating the course, and support other Carbon Conversations groups yourself
    The course will be facilitated by members of Transition Town Tooting. Course materials and design have been developed by Cambridge Carbon Footprint
    Meetings will take place on Monday evenings from 7-9pm. We will start the course of five meetings on Monday 28th February 2011, continuing on March 7th, March 14th & March 21st. The fifth meeting will be held on a date in May to be agreed with participants, getting together again after time taking action on individuals’ plans.  
    We will provide the facilitation and administration, and ask for a voluntary fee of £10 per person to cover the cost of the Carbon Conversations workbook

    Easily accessible, in Tooting – to be confirmed  

    Please email Charles at cemwhitehead@btinternet.com to join, express an interest, or ask any questions, and we will be in contact

    Carbon Conversations is one of the Guardian’s ‘Top 20 solutions to climate change’

  • Cold Water Swimming & Cycle Powered Cinema

    A few pictures from the recent UK Cold Water Swimming Championships where TTT ran a cycle powered cinema.

  • Walking: Mind How You Go

    “I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found was really going in.”  John Muir

    A very interesting Walking event was held on Jan 11th at Mushkil Aasaan, led by Belinda & Lucy, and featuring a variety of words of wisdom from Battersea Arts Centre Producer Lynn Goh, local GP Tom Coffey and Susie Morrow of Wandsworth Cycling Campaign.  Belinda recommended walking meditations such as those in this book, Lynn told us about a silent walking project she’d run, Tom talked about walking and health, (Walk4Life guided walks are a Wandsworth Council initiative), while Susie recommends The Energy Glut for a good read. 
    Several people had brought photos of five places on their own Tooting walks which we hope to develop into a walking map.  Can you identify my inspirational Tooting places above?!  Please send us your five photos. DT

  • Artistic Regeneration in Tooting

    After a really fantastic Mind How You Go Walking event last night (write-up coming shortly), which encouraged us to draw breath, take time, notice and listen to the sounds around and within, and of course in the wake of the epic Trashcatcher’s Carnival of 2010, TTT’s attention is drawn to further seeds of creative renewal in Tooting. Once packed with cinemas, but recently lacking any creative public space, Tooting has two exciting new artistic ventures taking flight this week.
    Tooting Market Project to be found at Unit 32 in the market for the next 3 months launches on Friday 14th at 4.30 p.m.  Local artists are joining forces with Tooting Market to regenerate some of the empty space into a thriving art gallery and studio between January & March 2011, creating an innovative “Heritage Wall” with the immediate community of stall holders and market users and facilitating the wider community in arts and heritage workshops.  More on facebook here
    Tooting Arts Club, meanwhile, launches on Saturday 15th with a party at Tooting Bec’s revamped Wheatsheaf (promising a bill including both Sadiq Khan and Arthur Smith – a new double act?) and states its aim to “produce plays both old and new, in various venues in Tooting” which sounds great!  A debut play “Invasion” will run at the Selkirk from 1st to 19th February.
    What next?  Not the return of Tooting cinema, surely?  DT

  • Transition Town Tooting – a history in maps

    This piece was produced as a response to Rob Hopkins call for examples of Transition Towns using meaningful maps.  It seemed a good moment to post it here as a taster for next Tuesday’s Open Event  where we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. See more info here.

    Tooting is an amorphous area stretching between and beyond two tube stations – Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway.  The road that runs between the two – the A24 – was originally a Roman road and is now a major arterial road leading from central London out towards the suburbs.  At one point its position as a tram interchange made it a centre for cinema – we once had 5 cinemas and now have none!  It carries 10 million cars a year in addition to several busy bus routes.  One of our earliest TTT blog posts shows a map and satellite image of the area.


    Transition Town Tooting (TTT) has developed a ‘tradition’ (if you can have one in such a short history!) of using maps as a focus for activity.  This stems from the fact that, though there are …numerous indoor and outdoor spaces used by local groups for social, education, faith, sports and other activities, there is no generally recognised physical hub available to the whole community.  Tooting has numerous halls but no Town Hall, two indoor markets but no Market Square, much green space but little centrally that is openly accessible.  Unsurprisingly the absence of shared public space is an issue which comes up regularly in our open discussions.   In the absence of an obvious ‘public’ space to gather, TTT has developed a peripatetic approach to several of its key activities, using maps as focus, publicity and guide.

    The first of these – the first Tooting Earth Talk Walk – visited seven places of faith and worship and each stop on the walk a faith leader spoke followed by a representative of Transition Town Tooting.  Much common ground emerged between Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu teachings about man’s responsibility to care for the earth and its bounty.  The Transition Town representatives gave personal perspectives about their involvement in the movement and their hopes and fears for the future of the earth.   Sue Rentoul’s beautifully drawn map – served both as a notice of the event and a guide on the day.

    Following this theme our second Foodival event involved the collection of locally grown produce which was distributed to and cooked up by seven local restaurants.  A growing number of local people followed this map as the fold-up ‘table of plenty’ used to served the food Pied Pipered its way the high street.  

    We’ve also used maps as a focus of discussion at several open events.  In March 2009 TTT joined in BATCA’s (the Balham and Tooting Community Association) Open Forum on the theme ‘Let’s make Tooting Better’.  The event included a workshop facilitated by Paul Squires of the New Economics Foundation which focused on key themes for wellbeing emerging from NEF research – ‘ connect’, ‘be active’, ‘ take notice’, ‘keep learning’, ‘give’.   A large map on the floor formed the focus for people’s ideas – more people friendly streets; more greenery and trees and (not surprisingly) lots of suggestions for shared community spaces…. 

    In 2009/10 maps of Tooting took over our lives.   On 29th June 2009 the TippingPoint Commission selected from 178 applications nationally the Trashcatchers’ Carnival in Tooting as one of 4 projects to be funded in 2010. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, presented £20,000 to Project Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts to lead a year long project in Tooting alongside Transition Town Tooting to use art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of all the community to create a large scale promenade on 4th July 2010.  Using recycling as a metaphor its aim was to build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting and have a lot of fun in the process.

    The long and tortuous process involved in seeking permission to peacefully process the carnival through the heart of Tooting’s community needs a chapter of its own.  Suffice it to say many many hours were spent, both within TTT and in official organisations and agencies, poring over maps considering possible routes.  Both access to public roads, and the Carnival’s final destination – a piece of public land used as a playing field – were problematic.  Discussions which began in September 2009 continued until literally the 11th hour on 2nd July 2010 when access to a partially closed high street was eventually confirmed by the local police.

    To cut a long story short – what started with our imaginations and a map (see this poster for the event) finally came alive on the day as over 800 Tooting carnivalistas found themselves in a brief but amazing shared space in the heart of their community.  

  • MIND HOW YOU GO!

    MIND HOW YOU GO! 
    Tues Jan 11th 7-9pm. Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road.
    TTT’s first step in 2011 will be a confident one.  
    We look at well-being and start with WALKING! Join us for an evening to celebrate this most human of activities and the manifold benefits it brings to our physical and mental well-being.
    To celebrate our local area, we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. We would like you to try this activity out, and bring your 5 most relevant photographs along to on January 11th.
    Do you make time for yourself to slow down and nurture calmness? 
    Here is a creative opportunity to connect with yourself, the environment and others and increase your physical activity in a way that is good for your wellbeing!
    By practising the art of stopping, we can enter the present moment and be nourished by the beauty and wonder of life in and around us.
    Instructions for Photo Walk:
    Go to the start of your chosen route. This doesn’t need to be anywhere special. It could be a route your walk daily, or one you do with the family, one that you’ve been meaning to try out. It could start at the side of a busy road, in a green space, inside a building.
    Make sure you are safe from vehicles, unlikely to be bumped by passers-by.
    Take a moment to close your eyes. Take in a breath, hold your breath and let it out, all for the count of 9 (3 in, 3 hold, 3 out). Do this 3 times.
    Still with your eyes shut, draw your attention to the big sounds around you, focus on them, and listen to them. Do the same with the sounds immediately around you. Then try to listen to your internal sounds, heart- beating, cracks, rumbles etc.. Carefully open your eyes and readjust yourself. You are now ready to do your photo walk! Dwell mindfully on your steps by taking slow purposeful steps. Stop walking from time to time, simply breathe, listen, and relax.
    Make this walk as long or as short as you like. As you walk, listen carefully to the sounds around you. Use your camera to focus on the sounds that draw your attention. Be selective with your shots. Try to capture things that illustrate this sound route.
    At the end of the walk, we invite you to select 5 images that portray your experience and illustrate this particular route and bring them to us on Jan 11th as A6 prints on paper. We will create walking maps together on the night.
    Join with others to hear about how central walking is to our communities and lives; our medical and spiritual health; our local history; Living Streets and how reducing carbon has many positive health benefits.

  • Confronting Change – London Transition at the South Bank Centre

    News from the Confronting Change event at the South Bank Centre last week organised by Transition Finsbury Park.  

    The event was a sell-out, and proved to be an inspirational coming together of London Transition initiatives, under the title “Confronting Change”.  Polly Higgins, a barrister and author of ‘Eradicating Ecocide’ was the host – she recently returned from the COP16 negotiations at Cancun and talked about what had happened there- followed by presentations from Rob Hopkins and Michael Meacher MP.  Read a great write up by Rob Hopkins on his blog here. 

    There was a fantastic outcome to the evening – Polly Higgins and a team of lawyers already working on a Transition Enabling Act!  Find out more and have your input on the Transition Network site here.

  • Photos from the winter making and social

    We had a fantastic time at the winter making and social – we learnt make pomanders from oranges, juggling balls from socks, wallets from fruit juice cartons, decorations from discarded plastic and cards from scrap paper.  We made a HUGE bowl of mincemeat which found its way into mince pies across Tooting.  Some of us even learnt how to knit.  Here are some lovely pics of the event…

  • Winter Social & Making Event

    On Tuesday 7th Dec there will be an opportunity to catch up and socialise at the Winter Social & Making evening.  Experts will be on hand to assist you in creating beautiful festive decorations and unique gifts from recycled materials.  Learn how to make greetings cards (bring old cards or pictures), wallets & purses (bring tetrapak!), juggling balls (bring old socks!), pomanders, bags & flip-flops (bring an old pair of jeans) and mincemeat!  You can even have a go at knitting!  
    Why trek round your local globalised shopping experience when you could make your own Christmas presents?!  See above some of the fab potato printed bags, for example, fashioned under the guidance of Ken McCalla at this year’s Foodival . 

    Bring food or drink to share – mulled wine and soft drinks will be provided at the Christian Education Centre, 21 Tooting Bec Rd. See you there!