Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Creative

  • 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!”

  • 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!

  • 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.

  • The fabulous OaKomotion! Carnival promenading in Furzedown: re-imagining, movement & change

    Ten days ago the fabulous OaKomotion! travelling Carnival promenaded all round Furzedown.

    The whole amazing sunny event was based on the sucess of the Furzedown Oak Community Project. 
    In the Project community artists and host groups adopted sections of the large American Oak felled locally. Then they created sculptures to give the oak a rich and longer life. Read all about the Project here!


    Oakomotion! started at 10:30 on Sunday 24th June outside Sprout Community Arts. As Fio Adamson says: 
    “As soon as Vince and the Never Wilbies started playing outside Sprout at 10.30 on Sunday morning I realised that music in the streets is all we need to complete the Furzedown dream.”
    Read about the whole carnival day in Fio’s report – read or download here.

    Tooting Community Garden hosted the last part of the day. Fio writes:
    “A secluded dream-place with bees buzzing, veggies growing and flowers greeting the sunshine.  The Bean Dragon made by myself and 80 others still lives and should live there for many years to come. Remember the Big Day Out 2016, Dahomey Road street party and the Foodival the same year? – yes,  you too probably chipped away then at the big piece of Oak and helped it on its way.”

    Here’s the oak Bean Dragon – part bench, all magic:

    Below there’s the new Community Garden table made with young refugees and asylum-seekers from the Tooting charity CARAS.
    It’s inscribed in many languages with messages of welcome, and all were invited to add more. When there was no more room on top it was the turn of the table legs to be decorated. Come and see the Dragon and the table any Sunday from 11-1 when the Garden is open to all.

    Really the whole day was about re-imagining, movement and change,
    from a felled tree to some beautiful living sculptures; 
    from all corners of Furzedown to our hidden but accessible oasis. 
    Thanks to Fio and all the OaKomotion! team.
    Here’s the dancing finale in the garden:

  • ‘Even When I Fall’ film showing to celebrate Refugee Week 2018 in Tooting

    Join us to celebrate Refugee Week 2018 in Tooting!
    It’s the 20th annual Refugee Week, and in TTT’s 10th anniversary year we’re proud to be showing ‘Even When I Fall’ in partnership with CARAS and St. Mary Magdalene Church, Wandsworth Common.
     
     
    When: Sunday 17th June. Doors open 7:00 for tea and a samosa and the film starts at 7:30
    Where: St Mary Magdalene Church, in the Main Hall. 202 Trinity Road SW17 7HP – near Wandsworth Common
    Free showing: we’ll ask for voluntary donations to cover costs
    Queries: please contact us by email
    ‘Even When I Fall’ is an intimate, beautiful film that harnesses the visual power of circus to give a unique perspective into the complex world of human trafficking.
    ‘Even When I Fall’ traces the journey of Sheetal and Saraswoti, two girls from Nepal. 
     
    They met as teenagers in a Kathmandu refuge, survivors of child trafficking to corrupt Indian circuses and brought back to a country they could barely remember.
     
    Inadvertently these girls were left with a secret weapon by their captors – their breath-taking skills as circus artists. 
    With 11 other young trafficking survivors, the girls form Circus Kathmandu – Nepal’s first and only circus.
    The group continues to take circus skills and trafficking awareness workshops all over Nepal.

  • All welcome to join in locally with our next five creative & thoughtful ‘Signs of Welcome’ workshops

    Our Signs of Welcome series of ten local workshops is continuing now over the next two weeks.
    Click here to read about the first five events and what we experienced together with our project partner CARAS.

    We created these participatory workshops to provide a vivid, simple and accessible opportunity to imagine how to welcome people new to the community and then make decorative signs to take away. 
    The workshops are for all ages and are free, fun, thoughtful and creative. 

    Each workshop runs in a great local venue which offers the space for all comers to join in. Thank you to all the venues for partnering with us and supporting the project.

    Signs of Welcome workshops in diverse places!

    The remaining workshops (all details on the TTT Events Calendar here on the blog):

    > Paradise Co-operative Garden, Earlsfield
       Sat 9th June, 10:00-12:00
     
    > St Mary Magdalene Church, Trinity Road, Tooting
       Weds 13th June, 4:00-5:30
     
    > Sprout Community Arts, Furzedown
       Fri 15th June, 4:00-5:30 

    > The Migration Museum, Vauxhall
       Thurs 21st June, 6:00pm-7:45pm 
       Part of a drop-in evening of events at the Museum, 
       all celebrating Refugee Week

     

    As we’ve run the events, new features have emerged. 
    Recently we offered the workshop at a Family Visit Day in Wandsworth Prison. With four walls surrounding participants, the signs they created became a way to imagine new welcomes and relationships. One adult’s sign simply stated ‘Kids Matter’. A family created a sign together, a graphic recording of a live and positive conversation between themselves.

    Our introductory script has developed. 
    Now we’re also saying “you can create signs to put up in the city spaces where you live – signs that don’t just label places or limit us (‘keep off the grass’ or ‘no ball games’). They’re about welcoming people and what we value when we get together”

    All welcome, all ages can join in 
    and each workshop is different!

     Many thanks for funding support from ThriveLDN, an initiative by the Mayor Of London.

  • Funding awarded for 2018 ‘Welcoming Signs’ partnership with CARAS. Plus: new creative community workshops running March-May.

    We’re planning the fourth year of TTT’s partnership with CARAS the Tooting charity working with refugee and asylum-seekers. 
     
    We’re thrilled that the partnership has been awarded funding for 2018 from Team London and Thrive LDN’s ‘Young London Inspired’ fund: “improving the lives and mental health of young Londoners by helping them to volunteer”.

    So, in 2018 one of our main focus areas will be enabling young people from CARAS to volunteer in the community. That means working with young people to imagine and design what they could contribute locally and what benefit that would have, as well as carrying out the voluntary time.

    The whole 2018 young people’s partnership is called ‘Welcoming Signs’. Many elements of our CARAS project involved community benefit and relationships in the past: for example these pallet-benches made with the CARAS Youth Club with welcoming invitations written in many languages had starring roles at TTT’s Tooting Twirl in July 2017:

     

    We’re fortunate and grateful that several local partner organisations in Tootings have been ‘reaching in’ to CARAS, seeking and offering voluntary projects. 
    We’ll share more very soon on the range of activities we’re exploring. 

    Plus we’ll continue to work through 2018 with other age groups served by CARAS: families, the women’s group, adults.

    The first community events with young people from CARAS included as contributors are starting in the next few weeks: on March 16th and 23rd we’re facilitating Signs of Welcome workshops across the border in Wimbledon, at The Sound Lounge pop-up venue. 
    It’s the same event run two times. 
    Six other local venues have agreed to offer more Signs of Welcome sessions between March and May as project partners. 
    The materials from the ‘Signs’ will always be re-purposed, saved from going to waste. Thanks to another partner, the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting for your support!

     

    The details: Signs of Welcome creative workshops this March

    “What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”

    Dates: Friday 16th March & Friday 23rd March
    Venue: The Sound Lounge, 8 The Broadway, Wimbledon SW19 1RE
    Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
    What to expect: (download the flier here)

    o   All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need

    o   Create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community. You can write in any language!

    o   Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018

    o   Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop

    o   We’ve chosen afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together

    Tooting friends are welcome to come over to Wimbledon to enjoy the first workshops and the familiar faces at The Sound Lounge.

    Please contact Charles by email here if you have any queries. Up-to-date news on the workshops will be on TTT’s facebook page & shared by twitter.



  • ‘Stay With Love’: Gardens of Refuge Project update

    We’re reporting back every six weeks on the Gardens of Refuge Project. That’s our local project running throughout 2017 with refugees and asylum-seekers living in and nearby Tooting, alongside our project partners CARAS and The Grange.

    Our previous summary at the end of May can be read here.
    In June and July we’ve worked with the CARAS Saturday Youth Club. 

    Elly Brown, MD at CARAS says:

    “We’ve already witnessed the
    transformations that take place
    when people from far and wide
    can use their skills and knowledge
    to create something shared.”
    What have we been doing together?
    ‘Stay with Love’ Making instant pallet benches:

    In one mighty 4-hour session, a loose and changing group from the CARAS Youth Club co-designed, shared ideas, problem solved and brought in new team members to make four of these pallet benches.
    Hats off to that dedicated group whose pride meant they insisted on eating their communal lunch sitting on the new benches.
    Part of the production line was to write messages of welcome and invitation on the seat backs. 
    These are in many languages.
    These young people have come to the UK in search of a welcome, safety and to put down new roots. It’s poignant that they felt comfortable to contribute their own personal invitations so directly to all-comers.

    These benches went on to the pop-up village green of the Tooting Twirl and now they’re in the Community Garden. Come and have a seat!
    ‘Stay with love’ as one young man wrote
    on a bench.

     

    Beetles and Bees 
    Making planters for Hillbrook School:

    Construction was more straightforward than the benches. With carpentry finished quickly, in June we painted the new planters cream.

    In parallel we spent time drawing insects (real and imagined) – offering this in the crowded hall alongside ping pong, pool and games. It was a fun experiment to have youth clubbers drop by the ‘insect table’ to sketch….a new experience for everyone.

    Our plan was to scan these drawings to make laser-cut plaques and cut-out insects to fix  onto the planters as fascinating decoration.
    It worked! Many thanks for patience & persistence to Dermot, the South London Makerspace and Nicola.

    Passing around these 3-D cutouts at the start of the following sessions, everyone could see the young people’s feelings of ownership and achievement.

    The planters were delivered to Hillbrook School this week. In September we’ll have a celebration there with youth club members to ‘cut the ribbon’ to launch children’s growing in the beautiful planters.

    PLUS: We’ve continued to work alongside young people looking after the planting done over 3 years at the CARAS office and the Hall around the corner. Thanks Rose, it’s looking very good!

    Now we’re planning the next steps for the Family Days we’re facilitating in August in the Community Garden.

    We’ve also begun to explore what we can do together with a new CARAS beneficiary group – single adults who don’t join the family days or the youth club.

    If you would like to co-facilitate or contribute your time or materials to the Gardens of Refuge project – please email us, we’d love to discuss it.
    – Charles

  • Welcome to TTT’s new governance team!

    There’s been another election recently in Tooting: TTT has a new governance team who will be carrying out their roles until spring 2019.

    TTT was established in 2008, and by 2011 we agreed to formalise the key governance roles and also fill them with willing volunteers who serve a term of two years. That means that:

    • no one has to do (or get stuck doing) the same role ‘for ever’
    • there’s an expectation that different individuals can step into these roles and carry them out in their own diverse & fresh ways
    • we share between us the responsibility for doing these useful roles which support us all in TTT

    Give them a wave! Welcome to TTT’s new governance team:

    From the left: meet the Treasurer David, the two Co-Chairs Jeni and Sharon and the Secretary Eleanor. They look forward to meeting you!

    All these roles are voluntary, and these four people work alongside TTT’s project co-ordinators – and maybe lead TTT projects themselves. Earlier in the year we shared the role profiles. The Co-Chairs, for example, fulfil a leadership rather than a management role for TTT as a whole.

    The election was part of TTT’s Annual Celebratory Extravaganza, where we invited partners, volunteers and the curious to join us to recap strategy and activities in the previous year and look forward to the next.

    We had an evening full of energy and heard from many colleagues who explored 15 projects large or small, long-term or one-off:

    • Thank you to all who spoke about projects and asked questions – and brought refreshments
    • Thank you to Dr Rosena Allin-Khan MP for her vivid summary of the value of bringing people together in a practical and creative way across the Tooting community’s diversity of views, voices and concerns.

    One group game we did was partly aimed at meeting new people and finding out who was in the room, and partly aimed at imagining (on the spot) some new potential taglines for TTT. There are some great comments written on these balloons! You’ll have to click to read them.

    There’s plenty to be involved with right now in TTT – no need to wait for the 2019 AGM. Please read the events listing and blog, sign up to our monthly email and keep an eye on facebook & twitter. Come and chat!

    1. Gardens of Refuge project: updating you on 4 fascinating strands at the end of May

      We’re sharing our monthly update about Gardens of Refuge.
      Gardens of Refuge is our 2017 partnership project with CARAS and The Grange to provide therapeutic and positive experiences for people of refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds who live in South-West London.
      There are four interrelated project strands to share:
      > Carpentry project with the Youth Club  
      > Family Activity Days
      > Vertical gardening with the Youth Club  
      > A 4-day trip to The Grange in Norfolk 

      1. Carpentry project with the Youth Club 
      We’ve developed a relationship with a nearby primary school who need planters for their own outdoor space.

      Led by Dermot, last weekend we began a series of 3 sessions to build and decorate these planters. The young people took on the design brief and modified the build based on other planters we have made together. In this case we’re making beds that are low enough for young children to use, and also tough enough to stand up to inevitable playground clambering.

      The session ran to twice its expected length because there was so much energy!
      Later on we have access to laser-cutting equipment or 3D printing to make plaques to fix to the beds.

      2. Family Activity Days
      This half term we have helped facilitate the fourth Family Day of 2017 – partly social, partly to do an interesting activity, partly to join together for a meal (allowing for Ramadan).


      Led by Jeni, we continued our mural project – the delightful idea of a ceiling decoration, based in images of water, for the underneath of the 4.5 metre-long rainwater catchment roof at the Tooting Community Garden.
      We started with impromptu storytelling in groups of 3 people of all ages, based on graphics done in April’s session.

      Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end, and each person supplied one of those – whatever their age.
      For example, using a painting of a snowflake, one story ran: ‘Once upon a time a beautiful snowflake was gently falling…..then the sun came out….and the snowflake turned to water and went plop on my head’. Hearing 9 or 10 of these imaginative stories was fantastic!

      Tuned up to be creative, we turned to painting details of our water images – either swirls and waves or drops (or petals…) – on the fascinating range of recycled scrap materials – metal, plastic, wood, CDs, buttons. (All from our friends at the Work and Play Scrapstore). Later we’ll arrange all these on the rainwater collector ceiling when we offer two Family sessions at the garden itself.

      3. Vertical gardening with the Youth Club
      In March and April Youth Club members made a pair of planters out of scrap pallets.  Since then we’ve been involving young people who want to work in depth with plants and keep all the planting looking good – all led by Rose, our team gardener.

      Each pallet has 3 very narrow beds, and we fixed them to the outside of the railings at the CARAS office at Blakenham Road. Both pallet-beds are planted with young plants grown in Tooting at Share Garden.
      Go and have a look – the beds symbolise the young people’s wish to look outwards, to interact with the wider community, to make something attractive for all to appreciate – and to enjoy the process.

      4. A 4-day trip to The Grange in Norfolk
      Earlier in May a group of 8 of us went to The Grange near Norwich – a respite centre combined with gardening and much more that CARAS has been to several times over the past 2 years. We were 4 young people from 3 countries, plus 4 adults from 3 countries, all helped by the two Grange hosts.

      We lived in the comfortable old house within ten acres of farmland, walked in the woods, looked at moths and grass snakes, cooked our meals, made bread and pots, made plant prints, played a lot of instruments and games, played with our mobiles.  On the middle day a larger group of 15 local people, including other refugees, joined for the weekly work day when a big list of jobs was tackled.

      The purpose is to have a positive, enjoyable, safe time together in a setting that is totally different from Tooting.
      It was a big privilege to join and help facilitate!

      Remember our Gardens of Refuge funding campaign and success?
      A proportion of the funds helps CARAS attend The Grange.
      More trips are planned for 2017.

      Thank you for reading about these diverse activities. We believe they add up to experiences which are valuable for all of us involved: we’re all beneficiaries.

      If you are interested to contribute either your time or other resources to help these projects – at a distance or hands-on – we’d love to talk about that. Please contact Charles by email.