Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Furzedown

  • 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:

  • Insect Hotel – Project Complete, first invertebrates move in!

    A lot has happened since the insects last blogged: 3 sessions with Gatton Primary, Christmas, New Year and most all of January! High time we caught you up.

    The last 3 sessions with the school where filled with habitat creation. Each week we looked back at the 15 minute “mini-hotels” during the first 4 sessions and were delighted to find lots of tenants. Wood lice, worms, centipedes and millipedes had moved in to the nooks and crannies.

    On Tuesday January 20th, we convened a celebration with 7 student reps and 2 VIPs… our local Councillor from Wandsworth Council, Candida Jones and Chris Young from RHS Campaign for School Gardening. TTT contributors to the project also came along, as did teachers from Gatton School. We’re delighted you could all come, thank you for sparing the time.

    The Insect Hotel is named! The 7 Student Reps with Rifat Batool, Headteacher and Chris Young, RHS  Regional Campaign for School Gardening Advisor, London.

    Read on to read the words of the Student Reps, what was their experience?

    After a brief welcome, it was over to the students to tell us about the experience form their point of view before the official naming of… wait for it… “Bugs’R’Us” Insect Hotel! Here’s excerpts of what the 7 children said:

    “The project that we have been working on (The Insect Hotel) has helped us develop a sense of responsibility as well as a variety of hands on skills like sawing, drilling, construction and of course our weekly search for the “bugs” that have taken shelter in our mini hotels.”

    Of the mini-hotels, the children said…
    “…it was always interesting to come back the next week to see what creatures were visiting and which “rooms” they preferred. Darker, gloomier and smaller seems to be the attraction.”

    “We were amazed to discover the hidden crevices that bugs seem to enjoy visiting when we created our mini hotels, to get an idea of the habitats of different creatures in the garden.”

    And of being in a natural environment – not an everyday experience in our urban setting…

    “We were quite amazed with ourselves to know that we could actually hold a worm in our hands and not run for cover.”

    And of the experience as a whole…
    “We have learned the importance of being eco-friendly, recycling our waste and the amazing role that “bugs” play in our environment.”

    “Overall, we had a wonderful and memorable experience and hope we come back here to contribute towards another project very soon.”

    Over the next weeks and months we’ll gently add habitat to the Hotel and label up the different niches we have created. We’re also starting a conversation about how to share learning about the project. Should you want to hear our experience in more detail – do email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com.

    A big thank you to Naseem Aboobaker and all at Mushkil Aasaan, the local charity who own the site and continue to encourage us to garden and teach at Tooting Community Garden.

    And thank you to Ms Syeda and Ms Shazia at Gatton School for leading the Eco-Schools project and checking permissions for photos for this blog week in week out!

    And the teachers and teaching assistants from Gatton School, Mr.Amin, Ms.Fathima, Ms.Neelam for your engagement at the garden and parallel work in the classroom – the students were really well prepared!

    And finally, a big THANK YOU to all the volunteers from Transition Town Tooting who contributed their time, energy and application to the project.

  • Insect Hotel – trash to treasure (of sorts…)

    Have you ever thought about how much material gets used once and thrown away? Or is not financially worth re-using? Or how most people won’t be satisfied buying something second hand, it has to be new?

    Somewhat in tune with Transition Network’s December theme of “Less is More”  I thought it would be of interest to look at the materials we are using in the Insect Hotel build.

    The structure is supported on waste flag stones donated to the garden. The four uprights used to be fence that ran across the garden and was blown down in the gales a year or two ago, the horizontal shelf supports too. Those bracing pieces are temporary…

    Week 5 – all we need now is the habitats… and the bugs!

    Click below to read how the roof was put together…

    This week, the students from Gatton raised the roof, along with David, Sharon, Esther and I. The roof is made of amazing 4b2 timber – this particular stuff came out of our loft when we were lucky enough to convert it a year ago. The booming domestic renovation business is not set up at all to re-use or recycle. Time and money rule, and its cheaper to dump these timbers in a skip than de-nail and re-use – criminal if you ask me, imagine a waterfall system of being passed onto smaller and smaller projects, but that’s another idea for another blog. The tiles too came from our job.

    Detail showing roof structure and re-use timber and tile

    If you need any of these materials, just go for a bike ride and find a house wrapped in scaffolding and ask the builders. Chances are, they’d be more than happy to offload it too you (you might need a bigger vehicle than a bike to transport it!) as it reduces their waste costs and so increases their profit as this is already figured into a fixed price to the client.

    The only thing new so far on the build is the tile batons – I couldn’t find any re-use ones, unfortunately. However, when I went to buy them, I found out my local timber merchant has stacks and stacks of pallets, considered an inconvenient waste and were kind enough to drop 5 of them round to the garden – that’s the rest of the shelving material sorted! The simplest Insect Hotels are made from skips, so if you’re looking to do one… check out here for pallet-based inspiration.

    And here for a previous blogpost on innovation in building waste re-use.

  • Community Renewable Energy in Furzedown


    We want to share this exciting news from the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone (FLCZ) AGM last week. There’s no time like the present, and we have decided to take the plunge and try our hardest to establish a community renewable energy project in Furzedown.

    What will that look like?

    In outline we’ll be supporting the generation of local power that should bring local benefits; probably a co-operative enterprise with a legacy for the future.  There are several models for this across the UK and abroad, and there is good local advice available: at the same time it is a pioneering project, and it will be challenging.

    Much more information to come as we get going, and we welcome local participation, partners, and support. We have a diverse team who want to make this work. More contributors welcome!

    We covered other topics too in the AGM, and the FLCZ aims to keep being active on accessible social, behavioural and technical projects that help demonstrate the value of low-carbon living, now.
    Links: 2014 AGM minutes  For background: 2013 Annual Report.

  • Furzedown Low Carbon Zone ‘AGM’ at Furzedown Festival Big Day Out

    On Saturday 15th June from 1200 – 400 the FLCZ will be celebrating its second birthday  at the Furzedown Festival’s Big Day Out. This is located at Furzedown Recreation Ground, Ramsdale Road, Tooting SW17 9BP. 

    Do stop by our stand and take part in our pop-up AGM: which simply means come along and discuss about what we’ve been doing, what we want to do, and how you can become involved as an individual, a family, and a local enterprise.  We’ll have copies of our mini Annual Report available, plus some low-carbon games and energy-saving tips, and we’ll let you know about joining in at the Community Garden.

    Click here to read or download the 2013 FLCZ Report.  We can chat about our most recent project coordinated with South Thames College: ‘Better Choices for a Better Future’. See the video online by clicking here. College students gained practical experience of sustainability in the community – exploring projects at Eardley School and Wink Salon. One student reached the shortlist for The Mayor of London Low Carbon Prize.  

    We hope to see you; and if you would like to get in contact with the FLCZ project, please email Graham at GPetersen@UCU.ORG.UK

  • Better Choices for a Better Future: talks, discussion and video 23rd April

    TTT and the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone project have been contributing to a South Thames College initiative since early 2013. 
    We’ve been opening up practical ways for college and university students to explore for themselves what sustainability means in the world of work.
    Local partners have included Eardley School and the Wink Salon in Furzedown – and we’re grateful to many others who have also contributed time, advice and resources.












    All welcome to join us next Tuesday in a free public meeting to hear all about it (see details above, and click here for the flyer). We’ll describe the project, and two of the students involved will introduce the brand new Better Choices for a Better Future video.

    Our guest speakers will explore how local authorities and employers can support jobs for a low carbon economy: we’re pleased to welcome Jonathan Cook, Deputy Leader of Wandsworth Borough Council, and Stephen Gapik, Head of Business Development, British Gas.

    Looking forwards, we’re developing new plans that combine community action with meeting national and global challenges.
    Please come on Tuesday if you would like to be involved!

  • Furzedown Low Carbon Zone

    Transition Town Tooting is a partner in promoting the “Furzedown Low Carbon Zone”, a new project that will help achieve the goal of an energy efficient, resilient Furzedown.  TTT has a stand at the Big Day Out and will co-host an inaugural meeting at the Furzedown Project, 91-93 Moyser Rd, SW16 6SJ on Monday 18th July, 7-9pm.  Further information will be posted soon!