Transition Town Tooting

Category: Other stuff

A place to gather things that have no category!

  • TTT’s Annual Celebratory Extravaganza 2019

    We’re holding our AGM to share the parts of our community activities that you don’t know exist!
    > Saturday March 2nd, 2pm to 5pm at Mushkil Aasaan

    We would like to invite you to the TTT Annual Celebratory Extravaganza (ACE)
    ACE is an opportunity for us to come together to celebrate achievements locally and to thank everyone who has supported us over the last year.

    It’s a place to meet other local people who share our goals: Making Change in How We Live, Where We Live, In Light of Climate Change.

    And a chance to find out about our projects and get involved.

    Saturday, 2nd March 2019
    2pm to 5 pm
    Mushkil Aasaan 222 Upper Tooting Rd, London SW17 7EW

    Everyone is welcome!
    If you’re on our mailing list, like or follow our Facebook or Twitter accounts, have been to any of our events, or are just interested to find out what we do in Tooting – come along!

    It’s helpful if you can let us know you are coming by joining the facebook event.

    What to expect
    Tea, cake, samosas, Turkish bread & hummus
    A celebration of what was achieved last year

    Discover more about TTT’s projects

    Share an idea you might have to improve our neighbourhood A look ahead and an invite to get involved

    Conversations with friends new and old

    Any updates will be listed there so check back in closer to the date.

    Alongside our traditional AGM materials there will be space for catching up with people, learning more about projects as well as refreshments and cake.

    Outline timings:

    2pm Check out the market stalls highlighting TTT’s work and help yourself to refreshments
    Take your seats and welcome to the event.
    2:30 Celebration of last year’s achievements (The Past)
    The Present and AGM business
    3:30 The Future – Looking forward to 2019
    4:30 Finish and cake
    Market stalls will be available till 5pm

  • Jellybrella: TTT’s creative project for spring 2019

    In Spring 2019 TTT is inviting everyone to join in with Jellybrella, our free and participatory community arts sustainabity project reusing waste to celebrate creativity, diversity, welcoming, wellbeing and making alongside others.  
    We’ll be popping up in February, March, April & May. All invited!

    It’s early days to be sharing this, but we’ve started to share info on Jellybrella so it’s an opportunity to tell the full story on the blog. Yesterday we created an Instagram account – have a look.
    Thanks loads to David Pitt for donating time to create our logo!
    We’re proud that the May 11th event will be part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe. It will be a free family creative workshop for adults & children where we’ll use scrap materials to create exciting sculptures. 
    Specifically we’ll be transforming the lost and found umbrellas of Tooting, getting together to enjoy some community making –  we’ll all become artists making our community beautiful with stories & hands-on making together.
    Why umbrellas? We’ve realised they are everywhere – in pubs, stations, public spaces; left behind, lost, broken…or maybe usable.
     
    Umbrellas represent shelter, put you into your own little umbrella-world and we use them to express ourselves, to look and feel good. They are so diverse…and that’s before we have decorated them.
    Why Jellybrella? Think umbrellas transformed into jellyfish: we’ll re-use waste materials to make giant sea creatures, sea flowers & jellyfish.
    Before the public event on May 11th we’re also doing a series of workshops with diverse local adult groups. Those will be differently-facilitated from the family day – an adult group’s response to creating with umbrellas will be different if, for example, they are visually impaired or a dementia group. Please get in contact here to chat if you are part of an adult group that may be interested to host a workshop.
    Whatever the setting, in the workshops neglected umbrellas will come alive with their trailing tentacles of many colours. Or make your Jellybrella into a message or poem with a cascade of words.  As proud makers we’ll parade them – the test ones we’ve made are great in motion. If it rains on our parade…we’ll have our Jellybrellas!
    There will also be a storyteller who will move us with tales of lost & found umbrellas & living with less waste, helping us all be artists taking care of the health and wellbeing of our neighbours, community and city.
    All materials will be provided – if you like please bring your own favourite or neglected umbrella (surprise us!) to transform into a Jellybrella.
    The venue in May will be Sprout Community Arts in Furzedown and we have 3 other key partners. Young people from CARAS are aiming to co-facilitate and we’re looking forward to fabulous materials from the Work & Play Scrapstore and from Wandsworth Oasis – thanks for all this community support!
    We are also very grateful for the support of the award of a Wandsworth Arts Fringe Grant. That’s great to make the project happen and to put it on the map, and having the funds enables local artists to maintain their own livelihoods. 
    “People don’t know that we need Jellybrella but afterwards we’ll wonder how we lived without!”

  • What’s happening with the knitted bees of Tooting? – Update #2 on our partnership project with CARAS

    We’ve enjoyed and learned so much from our partnership project with CARAS which has been running since spring 2015.
    Here’s Update #2 on one more of the project strands – this one involving the CARAS Women’s Group for refugees and asylum-seekers. We shared Update #1 a fortnight ago – read it here.

    The knitted honeybees of Tooting
    It’s not often you can ask “what’s happening in the world of Tooting’s knitted & crocheted bees?” We’ve been busy since spring 2018 on a fascinating quest that started with our beekeeper friend Richard who is Chair of the London Beekepers Association asking “Do you know anyone who could make some model bees as teaching aids? Toy bees available online are all hopelessly inaccurate…we need about 50…”
    I immediately said “yes!” and a new project was born…which has developed to include the CARAS Family Day and Women’s Group, a wonderful local group of knitters, beekepers and TTT.

    It’s been so moving to us all that this novel partnership has come together: local craftspeople with experience and skill plus refugee women with skills and desire to create plus our own TTT colleagues. We’ve got together for the interest and challenge, in order to work with a London-wide group’s own fascinating project in an imaginative way.

    Attaching wings and legs at the CARAS Women’s Group

    Richard and the LBKA are developing participative classes for schools. The bee models would need to have the correct number of legs (6), eyes (5) and wings (4), with antennae (2) in just the right place on their heads (“not like antlers and not like whiskers”), triangular downward-facing heads, a waist: all giving the general look of a honeybee with correct details while also being imaginative prompts for LBKA workshops. The bees should definitely not have cartoon smiles.


    We chatted: Jane suggested crochet or knitting rather than sewing; Nicola knew just the right people – a group of Knitters and Natterers including Margaret, Dora, Joan and Mandie who regularly make dozens of stuffed textile toys for local charities. Co-ordinated by Margaret, we settled on finger puppet bees and over 50 bee bodies were knitted and crocheted. Margaret created patterns and templates for the bee parts – a first for her (maybe a first in London?).

    Dora
    Joan

    Samples were made and adjusted and tried out in LBKA pilot school workshops where children took on the diverse roles of honeybees: exploring, doing the waggle-dance, foraging & more.
    Richard visited a CARAS Family Day session in the Tooting Community Garden where many of the Women’s Group participants were present with their families. He took along an observation bee hive, local honey to sample and talked about individuals’ own experience of bees.

    Mandie
    Margaret & Nicola

    The final phase of making took place this month in the CARAS Women’s Group where Margaret facilitated 50+ bee puppets having their wings and legs cut out of gauze or felt and sewn on by the refugee and asylum-seekers at the group. One woman said that she was pleased to be ‘helping educate about bees and honey’. Many of the women would like to do more knitting and crochet. (And so could the CARAS Youth Club. Our session a year ago making macrame plant pot holders was very popular with young men and women both).

    At one level when we have been occupied in the project we take it for granted – this is how we do things, how TTT  promotes community participation, creativity, fun and problem-solving. 
    Then, perhaps when we’re explaining this to someone new, we realise “Wow! This is an amazing experience…all this sharing for the love of it, sustained over 10 months. That’s a world I like to be part of!”

    Plus we know we are all contributing to people of all ages learning about honeybees, pollination and the value of protecting habitats and growing bee-forage plants in the city. LBKA’s tagline is ‘What’s good for bees is good for people’.

    Thinking about bee puppet materials: most materials used have been ‘in stock’ in the makers’ sewing boxes and cupboards. Margaret produced mosquito netting for bees’ wings that she had saved since working in Africa 40 years ago. Ditto her vintage Shamrock brand Irish linen carpet thread. We found wool and more at the Work & Play Scrapstore.

    Jeni

    Nothing new has been purchased. The bee puppets have been created out of the love of making and sharing.
    If you are inspired to take part the CARAS + TTT projects – perhaps offering good ideas or simply your time, sharing specialist skills, as a donor in kind, as a partner group – you are very welcome to contact Chuck at TTT by email here.
    Over 40 individuals and 15 local organisations locally have contributed to the partnership in many ways over the past 4 years.
    Thanks to everyone involved so far! – Chuck

  • Vegetanuary! meets… Wicked Vegan!

    Vegetanuary! meets… Wicked Vegan!

    As part of Vegetanuary this year I’ve been going along to meet the Restauranteurs of the area who are focusing on either vegan or vegetarian food to ask them some simple questions about why open that kind of place and what the feedback has been… first up, Wicked Vegan on Hildreth Street in Balham. You must go, its delicious casual food for hanging out with your mates. I heartily recommend it.

    Wicked!
    What is Vegetanuary??

    Vegetanuary! is our annual, month long sharing of vegetarian and vegan food. Anyone can join in, you’ll find lots of new recipes, ideas and articles being shared about food. Come join us on the Facebook group HERE

    Open 7 months ago, Wicked Vegan is run by businessman Gurkan Bozdere, but as he says, “I’m not a vegan, but I’m trying! My Sister in law and wife encouraged me to do something ethical”, so he opened a vegan restaurant. I think that’s awesome and the kind of change this exciting to see. Gurkan explained how he was excited about how the food business is changing, with lots more vegan restaurants opening. “I’m a businessman, motivated to be making money, but why not be ethical at the same time?” Yes! Yes! Yes! Earn a living and be ethical, let’s do that!

    Gurkan, his wife, Betty and sister in law, Necla, enlisted some expert help by the Stokey Veg & Vegan Chef Daniele Aloi to develop the menu, test out ideas and discover what Wicked Vegan has become – a restaurant full of super tasty, indulgence food in the shape of burgers, salads and wraps, washed down by smoothies, local beers and juices.

    Gurkan on the left and Head Chef Robert Drajna. Check out that menu!

    I continued by asking Gurkan, do you now eat more vegetarian and vegan foods as a result of opening the restaurant?

    Gurkan: “I eat a lot more, for sure, I eat here everyday. Mum cooks a lot of vegetarian food, I’m Turkish, we don’t really cook a lot of kebabs at home, loads of stews, lots of vegetables, no meat. Only the rice that we make that we add butter, so got my Mum to stop using the butter in the rice. Lots of the food we’re eating is vegan anyway.”

    Gurkan also discovered a motivating benefit of changing his diet… “I used to train a lot, but, never was able to loose the belly, never lost weight, it was only when I started to eat more vegan foods, that I started loosing the weight”

    I suspect opening a new business might help someone loose weight too… however he went on to say, “A lot of vegan food places opening up now are based on fried foods, we have a lot of that on the menu, but we also have a lot of healthy options, gluten free, you can have that burger on a bed of salad. Oven cooked burgers as well as fried burgers. It’s a 50/50 split.

    The famous sign in the restaurant that was revealed out front during the refurb

    Richard C: “And how has the response been?”

    G: “Really really positive. Didn’t get it right the first time. All of our packaging was compostable – cutlery and plates. Working a take away concept. But feedback from customers was you need more plates and cutlery. We made some mistakes initially. We intend to be here a long time, people really really like the food.”

    RC: “Are all your customers vegans? Or are they just people who are hungry?”

    G: “Bit of both really. A lot of vegan people bring in their friends to try vegan foods for the first time. You know, they come back, they love the food. We’ve had that as well, “I’m not vegan, so I don’t really want to try vegan food”.

    However, Gurkan’s take on it is that if it tastes good, why wouldn’t you go vegan? I’d say it has to taste good and feel satisfying for it to challenge meat based diets…

    RC: “What’s your favourite thing about vegan food?”

    G: “Eating vegan food, you really don’t feel tired afterwards. I still eat meat, but I always feel tired after. When I eat vegan food, I feel really light. I don’t feel half as tired afterwards.”

    This is the kind of thing that we don’t notice until we change something and something to learn about other aspects of the change we need to make in light of climate change, perhaps.

    RC: “What are your plans for 2019? Lets talk about sharing the cake…”

    G: “Would love to expand into Hackney, Spitalfields Market. Haven’t really looked into it, Balham branch is still pretty new, still learning. Want to feel confident that it would be a manageable step.

    Don’t forget the people who have worked at the Balham base from Day 1. Would be great to give them the opportunity of starting something from scratch, lets “share the cake”!”

    Gurkan’s talking about Kat Cox, who you can see on the wee video, Head Chef Robert Drajna and Sean Briggs. I really got the sense that they are all part of the team and integral to the success of Wicked Vegan.

    RC: “Do you get the sense that something’s going to happen this year with vegan/vegetarian food? That its becoming more the norm? Do you think you’ll  have less people coming in saying, “I don’t eat Vegan food?” ”

    G: “The complete opposite. Think you’ll get more people becoming vegan or vegetarian. We’ll eat less meat, for sure. in 10/15 years its going to be weird seeing people eat so much meat.”

    RC: “Why do you think that is, from your viewpoint?”

    G: “Because, I don’t think animals are farmed naturally anymore… people are becoming more mindful of this now, there is information out there now that is available to everyone.”

    Thank you, Gurkan, Kat and the crew, for having a chat and for the delicious chilli burger – new to the menu. Next up, I’m off to chat to Leon who runs Get Juiced in Tooting Market, deeeee-licious!

    Where should I go after that? What’s your favourite veggie/vegan place?

  • Eco-checking, a memorial bench, school planters, knitted bees and Jellybrella – 2019 Update #1 on our partnership project with CARAS

    We’ve enjoyed and learned so much from our partnership project with CARAS which has been running since spring 2015.
    Here’s a short update on several of the strands – taking the first three in the list above, each of which has involved the Youth Club for asylum-seekers and refugees. We’ll share Update #2 soon.

    As ever, if you are inspired to contribute to the projects – offering good ideas or simply your time, sharing specialist skills, as a donor in kind, as a partner group – you are very welcome to contact Chuck at TTT by email here.
    Over 40 individuals and a dozen local organisations locally have been involved with the TTT + CARAS partnership in many ways over the past 4 years.

    Eco-Checking the CARAS offices
    CARAS has achieved a gold standard London Youth Quality Mark for carrying out participatory and youth-led eco-check of activities across 3 sets of sustainability criteria: Energy & Water; Healthy Living and Litter & Waste. Helped by Egle from CARAS and Sara from TTT, a team of young people identified relevant issues and then analysed how well the organisation as a whole deals with the challenges.

    The intention was not to blame, but to make an action plan for ‘things to change and put right’ as well as ‘things we do well already…and so we should keep doing them!’

    Examples from the action plan:

    • stop purchasing single use plastics for the many meals that are prepared as part of the CARAS programmes
    • renew the planting boxes outside the offices for 2019 so that we’re growing what we might like to eat, and so that there are beautiful plants that are welcoming, that we like and that are good for pollinating insects

    Here are the brand new colourful plates, bowls and cutlery which will be used again and again at CARAS and on Family Days at other local venues.
    You’re welcome to read the eco-check detail – click here.
    It’s admirable because it is short, practical and understandable, and transferable to many other community voluntary settings.

    Congratulations to the multi-language group who came together in Tooting to put the eco-check together!


    Benches and Planters
    Since last summer we’ve been designing and making a bench for The Spires, a local charity working with homeless people. The bench is a memorial to past users of The Spires who have died.

    That’s an example of this whole past year’s priority with CARAS young people: to engage them directly with community groups with needs that the youth club can respond to with energy, skills and creativity.
    It’s been a fascinating design and build experience. Later we’ll share a summary of the project from model making onwards, showing how many hands have been able to contribute.

    The final stage is to add the names of the people for whom the bench is a memorial, and this is being done using laser-cut adhesive copper tape.
    TTT’s bench project co-ordinator Dermot says:
    “It’s moving and humbling to see the young people taking such care with typefaces and the fiddly details necessary in order to a high-impact bench which celebrates people they have never met. Seeing the bench all the way through to completion over months of work is a big achievement”.

    The next project that we’ll do with the Youth Club is another example of a local group ‘reaching in’ to engage with CARAS young people alongside their own team. Chestnut Grove Academy want to create set of planters located right at their newly-created entrance – perhaps to grow ingredients for Food Tech, perhaps to make a quiet space for the Library which looks out on the site, certainly to create a beautiful space. The school wants to commission these planters in an original and creative way.

    The entrance to Chestnut Grove, with the site on the left.

    We’ll be facilitating CARAS young people to work on site with the school community including parents and students. This is a new challenge – for for the first time in 4 years of our build projects we won’t be doing mobile carpentry on the steps of the Hall at Derinton Road!

    In our next update we’ll share news on knitted bees and Jellybrella. We look forward to teasing your interest and sharing details. – Chuck

  • ReSparkle! Celebrating Creativity and Christmas crafts at Tooting Library

    TTT have been ReSparkling with Tooting Library since 2012 – it’s always a magical event upstairs in the beautiful children’s library. 

    Indoors last Saturday the library was full of colour, light and energy as it became darker, wetter and stormier outside. 

    It’s a free and simple event: for two hours we offered 5 activity tables, with eight of us helping.  

    Why is it so fun and rewarding?

    We think it’s because:
    1. There are familiar faces and new families every year – diverse, multilingual, positive, keen to experiment.
    2. Creating a special occasion together is a good feeling 

    3. The Library is such an excellent trusted community social hub in the buzzy retail heart of Tooting. Everyone is welcome, nothing is for sale, everyone can work at their own pace and  materials and goodwill are shared freely.
    4. Children, parents and carers are discovering and making together – all generations trying out very different activities, getting familiar (again?) with using glue, scissors, staplers, velcro.
    All these activities and more can be repeated at home.

    5. Everyone creates using simple materials – making beautiful decorations and presents out of everyday things and scrap saved from waste.  
    6. There’s always new ideas – new activities, new facilitators from TTT, creative solutions from participants (turning the drinks cartons inside out to show off the silvery liner was very neat!)

    There’s more photos by Bryony, Chuck & Annie to look at online – please click here. And there’s more of just Bryony’s beautiful photos of ReSparkle online here – thank you Bryony!

    ReSparkle! exactly six years ago on Dec 15th 2012

    We value our long-lasting partnership with Tooting Library very much and want to say thanks to the Library team for hosting us so many times since 2012.

    Many thanks to our TTT team of fab facilitators: Annie, Bryony, Elly, Jane, Jeni, Nicola, Resina & Chuck.
    We’re looking forward to December 2019 – please put ReSparkle in your diary!

  • A Magical Festive Feast

    St Marks United Reformed Church in Balham festooned with vine leaves, fairy lights and candles, offered the perfect backdrop for a magical festive evening at TTT’s Christmas Dinner last night. The invite to “Norah’s Magical Feast” promised a festive culinary celebration and what a feast it proved to be!  Norah won the overall Top Tooting Cook competition at Tooting Foodival in September scoring not only for the taste and look of all her entries to three categories, but also for her exceptional use of locally sourced ingredients including fruit, vegetables, eggs and honey.

    In true MasterChef style, Norah delighted the guests with a sumptuous three course meal starting with a platter of sharing plates of courgette and haloumi fritters and three different kinds of homemade vegetable dips. Generous mains of roast salmon, lamb shank or a winter vegetable tagine followed. Dessert was a splendid affair of sticky fig pudding with salted caramel & coconut topping, roasted fruits with black cherry sorbet or a selection of artisan sheep & goats cheeses served with a variety of chutneys and oatcakes.

    Aided by her assistants Dani and Chris, Norah gave us a Christmas dinner to remember for years to come. If you want to sample the delights of Norah’s Kitchen please get in touch with her here. 
    Thanks to Bryony Williams #findmeintooting for her photos.

  • Restart Party & Toy Mending this Saturday

    Our next Restart Party in Tooting is at Mushkil Aasaan this coming Saturday 8th December, 13.30-16.30.  At this event, as ever, you can bring in broken electronics and see if our team of volunteer fixers can give them a new lease of life or at least identify the problem.  The ethos behind our Restart parties is to keep items out of landfill by repairing and re-using.  It’s an antidote to the throw away culture that can sometimes prevail.


    Mending Toys Too!
    Just in time for Christmas this event also includes toy mending.  Why buy yet more new stuff when we could help you to repair some old things that you or your family love?  Dig those cherished broken items out of the bottom of the cupboard and bring them along.  What better gift than a surprise repair for the kids?  Our Supermen (and Superwomen) fixers will do our best to make them good as new!
     Image result for picture of broken toys

    And our usual reminder …
    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 the Restart Project here

  • Mushkil Aasaan Needs Our Support!

    Mushkil Aasaan could be under threat because the Council has withdrawn its contract to provide social care to vulnerable people in our local community.

    Of course the Council has a right to seek the best deal for constituents, but in this instance one wonders whether commercial expedience is trumping common sense in the Council’s offer of the contract to non-specialist providers, who may lack MA’s local experience, knowledge and cultural sensitivity.

    Local people are getting together to try to get the Council to change its mind. 


    The flyer above explains how to get involved in either the public meeting at Mushkil Aasaan on Monday or at the Council meeting on Wednesday of next week.

    You can follow latest development on the Mushkil Action twitter feed and website.

    From TTT’s perspective we are incredibly grateful to Mushkil Aasaan director Naseem Aboobaker for her offer of free meeting space in the hall over the last 10 years, and provision of a space for Tooting Community Garden in the grounds of 5 North Drive for the last 7 years.  Many reading this will have been to Foodival, Restarts, Gardening sessions or other meetings all of which have been faciliated by Naseem’s kindness and community spirit.

    Now Naseem requests that the Council reinstate Mushkil Aasaan’s contract and status as a Specialist Provider and TTT strongly supports this.  Do get involved if you can over the next days.  Naseem and Mushkil Aasaan have been a great help to TTT;  let’s see how we can offer support in return at this stressful time.

  • ReSparkle! with TTT at Tooting Library, 2pm to 4 pm on Saturday 15th December 2018

    All welcome to join TTT’s free Christmas crafts workshop at Tooting Library, creating beautiful presents and decorations to take home.

    We’ve been inviting everyone to ReSparkle! since 2012, and it’s always a magical event.

     

    When? Saturday 15th December from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
    Where? 75 Mitcham Road SW17 9PD
    We’ll be upstairs in the lovely children’s library.  
    Free, drop-in and for all ages.

    All materials provided – and everything we’ll use to make beautiful creations is waste that’s being saved from going to scrap.
    “Reduce…Re-purpose…ReSparkle!”

    Thanks loads to our partners at Tooting Library – if you have any queries, please phone the Library on 0208 767 0543. NB children under 8 must always be accompanied by a responsible adult.

    Come and join the fun – please spread the word and tell your friends. Click here to read or download the poster.