Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Participation

  • Ready Steady GROW! for the 10th Tooting Foodival

    The Tooting Foodival celebrates local growing, cooking and eating together. It’s based on what people locally grow and donate – so we can all admire Tooting’s skills and productivity. Plus we can offer super ingredients to the Top Tooting Cook contest and the chefs’ delicious demonstrations. More info here.

    Sowing radishes
    Radishes harvested just 4 weeks later

    There’s still time to grow from scratch so you can donate to the Foodival on Saturday Sept 16th. It’s about sharing the love rather than growing big quantities. We’re  delighted by the diversity of what’s donated
    every year!

    Starting now, what can you sow, grow and harvest for the Foodival?

    If you can get sowing by the end of July, you could harvest these by mid-September:

    • Rocket
    • Coriander
    • mixed cutting Lettuces
    • Mustard Greens
    • Cima di Rapa (that’s turnip tops)
    •  And more – do share your suggestions.
    Rocket
    White turnips


    Alfalfa spouts, 5 days from starting

    Much closer to the Foodival date:
    > you could start Radishes as late as mid August
    > you could start Sprouting Seeds just a week before (here’s our handy guide)
    > you could sow Cress just a few days before

    Cress, 3 days from sowing

     Where can you grow?

    • In your own garden or allotment
    • In containers on a terrace, balcony or windowsill
    • At a nearby community garden

    Even if you’re a beginner, why not give it a go?

    Expert or newbie, everyone is included in our annual amazing ‘I Grew This’ celebratory Foodival poster:

    If you would like to ask questions or get advice, or come and grow from scratch with us at Tooting Comunity Garden – all welcome on Sundays and Wednesdays, 5 North Drive SW16 1RN. Check for updates on opening on our facebook page.

    NB there’s a highly-recommended session on container gardening by our friend Mark Ridsdill-Smith and more at the London Permaculture Festival on Sunday 30th July – see you there.

  • 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. Exploring Food and Travel in your carbon footprint – stories from May’s ‘Carbon Conversations’

      TTT’s 10th local Carbon Conversations series continues – the free weekly local facilitated meetings where participants can explore their own practical options for low-carbon living.

      The sessions are not only about ‘counting carbon’ and understanding our carbon footprint; they are also about exploring our own values and preferences in a safe and facilitated setting with a small group. Understanding the meaning of our choices…. the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’…. means we are more likely to take steps which we can sustain over time.
      Quoting one of the participants in this series:

      “The beauty of Carbon Conversations is 
      the optimism, creativity and ideas
      that are shared and emerge”


      Each of the six meetings has a theme – for example home energy, or waste. We reported on the first two sessions in this blog – read it here, and below two more participants describe the discussion points and feelings raised by the third and fourth meetings: about food and travel.


      1 Food: probably the issue that goes to the core of our identities more than any other.
      We did an activity reflecting on all the aspects of food production that worry us most. One of the group shared a really heart-rending story of playing a game with a child where they had to mime different animals. They wagged their tail like a dog, pranced like a horse, but when asked to enact a chicken they curled up into a ball on the floor. This child only knew a chicken as a dead body wrapped in clingfilm on a supermarket shelf. It was a poignant moment…

      We also played a board game to figure out the carbon emissions embedded in all the different stages of the food production process: growing, processing, packaging, transport.

      It was illuminating, but it also made us realise the complications of solely judging things based on carbon emissions. What is something is ‘really low carbon’ but harmful in other ways? There are lots of factors to take into account.
      It also made us reflect on the foods we eat. As one group member said: ‘it does make you think….what ARE we eating?!’

      2 Travel: The slow and rewarding journey
      As I cycled to the little flat in Tooting where our intimate group meets every week to talk through the labyrinthine emotions and values of our relationships with carbon, I was reminded of my first year after graduating from university with a degree in Geography. I wanted to live overseas and make the world a better place. That year alone I took 18 flights. 
      “Take a couple of minutes to think of your favourite journey to date – and also your nightmare journey – to share with the group.” This is how Ben introduced the session of Carbon Conversations with the theme of travel. 

      There was a surprising and reassuring synchronicity to everyone’s answers about their favourite journeys. A cycle trip with friends across Europe, a train ride, a walking pilgrimage to a friend’s cottage, a botched ferry booking requiring troubleshooting cycle journeys to make it to Portsmouth on time. In nearly all the examples, the journey was more memorable than the destination. 

      And why are these journeys so memorable? It’s the slowing down, the views from the windows, the conversations with strangers, the human pace. But then one participants looks confused. “But you can’t do it to all the people all the time”.. she says, half asking, half hoping, about talking to strangers. True that. 

      So if the journeys are the most memorable, why do we all fly everywhere so quickly? Why do we insist on so many destinations?  One participant suggests that it’s ‘constructed desire’. “I don’t want to go to Vietnam”, she says, “but sometimes I feel like maybe I should.”
      And it is complex. Families are spread around the world, jobs require meetings in far flung corners of the globe, billboards promise escape on golden beaches, and that super amazing permaculture training course I’ve had my eye is in the South of Spain. So is it possible to live in the world today while maintaining sustainable modes of travel?


      Since moving back to the UK, I’ve decided to live as locally as I possibly can. I only cycle, I dumpster dive for much of my food, I grow veg in a community garden, I switch off my lights when I’m not in the room, oh and I’ve cut down on international travel, to the extent that I’ve missed a friend’s wedding for the sake of reducing my carbon footprint. 

      And here’s the moment of truth. Ben hands me my carbon footprint calculation. The USA average is 20 tonnes of carbon per person by year, followed by the UK at 15. The world average is 4.5 tonnes while the sustainable world average is 1.5 tonnes. Tanzania’s average is 0.1 tonnes. I’m feeling optimistic.   

      I look at the sheet.
      19.18 tonnes. 


      It’s the two flights I took this year. Both of them to destinations which meant a lot to me. 

      ‘Tonnes of carbon’ is shorthand used to refer to the tonnes of CO2 and other ‘greenhouse gases’ released into the atmosphere. The impact that air travel has on our carbon footprint is undeniably unsustainable! Yet our lives are so scattered around the world already that it’s near impossible to imagine reining them in.

      The beauty of the Carbon Conversations program is the optimism, creativity and ideas that are shared and emerge. The lengths that some participants go to to find solutions is admirable. So is the faith that every change each of us makes as individuals will slowly but surely contribute to a change in emissions and in the global carbon culture. 

      So if you’re looking for alternatives, then two easy things you can do are:
      Oh and one more thing.. if the journey is just as interesting and exciting as the destination, then I think we can make the journey towards a carbon neutral world also just as rewarding. It can be slow, full of surprises, and of course, include conversations with strangers – which is just what Carbon Conversations gets us to do!


      We’ll share the stories of the last two sessions in this series. And if you like the sound of the content and style of these meetings, keep in touch and look out for the next series of Tooting Carbon Conversations.  

       – Charles

    2. Three diverse events in Tooting celebrating refugees and migration

      We’re continuing our 2017 Gardens of Refuge project with local refugees and asylum-seekers with workshops during May and into June.
      Alongside that long-term project, we want to share three diverse and fascinating events in Tooting which celebrate refugees and migration:

      To celebrate Refugee Week in June:

      1. Queens of Syria – free film Sunday 18th June

      We’re showing this thrilling and absorbing film about 50 Syrian refugee women joining together to prepare to perform an ancient Greek play about women and their families in war. It’s definitely NOT simply a ‘film of the play’ – it’s all about how the women explore telling their shared stories with passion and creativity. It’s a moving and positive film. Click here to see the flier, and save the date!

      • Date: Sunday 18th June
      • Timings: Doors open 4:00 pm for tea and samosas, film at 5:00.
      • Venue: Mushkil Aasaan, 220 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW

      2. Midsummer Merriment with CARAS on Thursday 22nd June 22nd
      Book now for CARAS’ comedy night in Tooting Market. The host will be Arthur Smith – the Night Mayor of Balham.
      A third of the tickets have been sold already, here’s the link.

      • Date: Thursday 22nd June
      • Timings: 7:30 to 10:30
      • Venue: Tooting Market, 21-23 Tooting High Street, SW17 0SN 


        Refugee Week is the annual festival which celebrates the contribution of refugees to the UK and encourages a better understanding between communities. We’ll share more & there’s online info here.

        Plus: this New Union Flag event has already happened but it worth looking up the project online 

        3. The New Union Flag project at Tooting Market
        Imagine what a British flag could look like if it reflected today’s multi-cultural society…
        Artist Gil Mualem-Doron brought this participative project to Tooting Market as part of the Wandsworth Fringe. Here is the link to the project on facebook.
        Gil is also took the project to Tara Arts on Sat May 20th.

      • Tooting Pollinator Party Sunday 21st May!

        We’d like to welcome everyone to the Tooting Community Garden on Sunday 21st May from 12:00 to 4:00 for our free Pollinator Party!
        Find us at 5 North Drive, SW16 1RN.

        What’s a Pollinator Party?
        It’s a lovely afternoon in the garden. We’re mixing together fun and instructive activities that focus on planting, beneficial insects and sharing our own growing experience of city gardening, Tooting style. 

         
        What’s good for our gardens and insects is also good for us!

        What can you come and do on the 21st?

        • We’ll celebrate the Community Garden’s 6th birthday with games, volcano kettle tea – and a cake. 
        • We’ll offer practical do-it-yourself making opportunities – creating cloches from plastic bottles and inventing wall planters from textile and plywood for strawberries or herbs.
        • We’ll have quizzes and activities about insects and pollination – and Lola Godoy’s geodesic dome to enjoy as a special habitat during the afternoon.
        • We’ll have a rolling workshop to distribute plants to the local people who have already signed up to join in with the Pollinator Paths Wandsworth project. Developed with London Sustainability Exchange, in this project 4 borough community gardens are each involving local gardeners (novices too) who will grow insect-friendly plants throughout 2017 on balconies, patios, at school, in the street and in back gardens. Over 60 local gardeners will share what they see, learn, enjoy and taste.
        • Feel free to relax, bring a picnic (we’re an alcohol-free site) – and of course do some gardening if you like.

         

         

        Timetable:
        We’ll run all the activities throughout the afternoon – and we’ll stop for tea together and blow out the candles on the cake at 3:30 pm.

        We’re very pleased that the day is part of both the Wandsworth Arts Fringe and the Chelsea Fringe: both full of other great events.

        We want this project, and all our community garden sessions, to help inspire new links, share skills and spark growing in lots of diverse settings across the whole borough.

        Lola and her dome will be with us on the 21st!
        Where are the Pollinator Paths project plants coming from?
        Almost all of them have been grown in Tooting by our friends at Share in their lovely garden tucked away in Springfield Hospital. Perennial plants and bulbs have been ordered in. The result is high quality and very low ‘plant miles’, a great sustainability feature of the project.
        Nasturtium & lemon lavender
        Bare-rooted red currants
        Please email us if you have any queries about the Pollinator Party or the ‘PPW’ project.

        Join in the Pollinator Paths Wandsworth facebook page to keep in touch with the project, and read the project description here.
        And finally, here’s the first post (for April) in the series that will continue telling the project story throughout 2017.

        How to carry a planter home

      • Update from the first two meetings in TTT’s current series of local Carbon Conversations

        TTT’s tenth series of local Carbon Conversations began in April with a group of 8 local people. Thanks to all, the sessions have been lively and informative.
         
        The series facilitator Ben has shared a short report of the first two sessions:
         
        “For our first session we had several interesting and far-ranging discussions.
        One of them was about what a low-carbon future would look like. 
        Several people suggested that everything would be conducted at a much more local level. But this left us thinking: does this mean we will have to unravel everything that globalisation has delivered? Is it possible (and desirable) to dismantle globalisation, or should we aim to retain aspects of it and go local only in certain ways?  
         
        For our discussion about a low carbon future we spoke about the importance of having more regulation from government to control carbon emissions, fossil fuel extraction, etc. But the issue of regulating ourselves was also raised. How will we regulate our own behaviour? Several people suggested education and how important that would be in the process.

        Ben continues his report:
        “For session two we discussed carbon reduction in our home energy consumption.

        Everyone agreed that the whole process of overhauling your house can feel very complex and overwhelming. There are so many things one can do, and most people don’t have the technical expertise to understand all the options thoroughly.
        We discussed the problems of the current housing market and how the energy rating of a home is often not very important to the people purchasing it. This is especially true in a housing market like London where people are just desperate to get on the housing ladder and probably aren’t too concerned about the energy efficiency of a home.
        The issue of being a tenant came up – we noted how there is little incentive for landlords to renovate their homes if their tenants are paying the bills.
        We also talked about communicating these issues and how to point out someone is overfilling the kettle without appearing a nag! You can tip-toe, or you can just tell someone they’re being daft…. (we will return to the issue of how to communicate climate change in session 6).
        Finally, the question came up of how to make carbon reduction at home glamorous. Loft conversions are glamorous. But carbon reduction isn’t. Or at least, at the moment. That could change….
        There were some positive notes as well.
        One potentially fun way of tackling the issue is by engaging children. If engaged they could be enthusiastic supporters of carbon reduction, if it is made fun, and if they have the chance to receive education on the issue – linking with what we discussed in week one.”
        Heat loss in a simplified detached house travels in all directions…would you have guessed those percentages?
        We’ll continue the coverage of this series of meetings, and more information about Carbon Conversations can be found by clicking here.
        Get in touch with TTT if you would like notice of when we are offering the 11th series – or get the core of a group together yourself, and we’ll find more people and maybe run it in your home!

      • Come to our Annual Celebratory Extravaganza Friday 28th April

        On Friday 28th April we are hosting our  

        Annual Celebratory Extravaganza!


        Everyone is welcome to join us at:   
        Derinton Community Centre
        101a/b Derinton Road
        Tooting, SW17 8HZ

        From 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm

        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. And share with your friends!

        Celebrating and sharing at TTT’s 2016 ACE

        We will be celebrating all of the past year’s achievements and the partnerships that have developed to help deliver those projects.

        We will also be signposting the exciting projects we have planned for the future and inviting people to get involved in their own way.

        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.


        What to expect:

        • TTT sustenance: a.k.a tea, cake, samosas, Turkish bread & hummus
        • Energy and participation: a Tooting-themed quiz & more
        • A celebration of past successes
        • Information about TTT’s projects
        • Sharing ideas you might have to improve our neighbourhood
        • Looking ahead and an invitation to get involved
        • Conversations with friends new and old
        • A TTT goody bag
        • Please note: so we can open the door and celebrate with our whole community and all the local people and partners who support us, the celebration will be alcohol free

          Eleanor writes about last year’s ACE: 

          “I attended for the first time last year and it was a fantastic event. The presentation of the successes really opened my eyes to what can be achieved when like-minded people get together on a common theme and don’t give up. 
          Even though I was already involved and getting the regular newsletter, there were lots of activities going on under the radar that were ready to shared by the enthusiastic people leading the charge. All of the activities presented together showed an incredible achievement.

          The activities included things like: workshops inspiring beginner gardeners, carbon conversations, helping to create a neighbourhood plan, running a community garden, sustainable art projects and restart parties.

          The main theme that stood out to me on the night was partnerships. It was clear that it wasn’t just TTT working on their own. The strength comes from the partnerships that TTT has developed and nurtured. These partnerships were not all with other environmental themed groups either. They cross a variety of sections of society and combine the interests of both parties to create amazing results.

          Last year’s event inspired me to get involved in more TTT projects.
          I hope I have inspired you to come along and see what is going on.”

          See you there on Friday 28th!

          Facebook invitation to share: https://goo.gl/lviVH1

        • Gardens of Refuge project. April ’17 update on vertical strawberries and a watery ceiling mural

          We’re continuing to facilitate workshops as part of the Gardens of Refuge project with refugees and asylum-seekers who use the local services of CARAS in Tooting.

          This is the project for which our partnership won funding from Aviva – via the public voting so many people joined last autumn.

          The emphasis of Gardens of Refuge is on creating therapeutic experiences where participants feel happy and safe to explore imaginative activities together.

          We’re working alongide the CARAS team and volunteers with two groups:

          • with the Saturday Youth Club (mostly unaccompanied teenagers) 
          • and with Family Activity Days (adults and children in half terms and school holidays)

          Here’s the story from Gardens of Refuge in March and April:


          Saturday Youth Club: our sessions take place alongside a whole range of other social and learning activities at the youth club. Success is when groups and individuals come and join in for some or all of the time, because they want to, and try out new things as well as building on what we all did together in ’15 & ’16 in ‘Rooting in Tooting’.
           

          In the 24th March and 1st April sessions the Club has built two pallet-planters and painted them ready for planting up.

          Below right, one of last year’s flourishing planters.

          We’ve also made a new vertical strawberry planter of textile (a theatre blackout curtain from the Scrapstore). Young people problem-solved how to make the planter, folding, tucking and stapling the heavy cloth onto a big piece of plywood (part of the old Community Garden fence…). 

          They planted it up with strawberries (these same plants were growing at CARAS in 2016 and overwintered in the Community Garden). The pallet planters and this strawberry wall are all at the entrance to the CARAS office, and the idea is for the benefits to be enjoyed by passers-by and visitors alike – a real Garden of Refuge in busy urban Tooting.

          April Family Activity Day: After our growing-based Day in February, we’re continuing to link family activities with our plans to offer sessions later in ’17 in the Community Garden.

          Our idea is to create a collaborative mural for the ‘ceiling’ of the rainwater harvesting roof in the Community Garden.
           It’s an exciting open-air space and the mural’s theme will be ‘Water’.

          That gives huge scope for decoration, pictures, ideas, celebration, story telling and sharing.  
          Water is life-giving for us all and for what we grow. Water is rich with diverse meanings worldwide.

          The rainwater harvesting roof built with Gatton School in ’13. Soon to have a ceiling mural!

          On Tuesday 11 April we made a start by immersing ourselves in ideas and images and different materials – there are so many threads to follow up.

          Thanks for these FAD photos, Nikki!

          The next session is in May, and we can’t wait…

          Another benefit is that the project is attracting new volunteers who have added their energy and diverse experience – so our whole group is learning together en route. Thanks to all the volunteer team & for your co-ordination, Dermot and Jeni! 

          We welcome contacts from others who would like to be involved, or who have ideas and resources to contribute.
          Please contact us by emailing TTT here.

          Yum! The crop in 2016’s textile planter

           – Charles

        • Our tenth series of Carbon Conversations postponed to start on 20th April

          TTT’s tenth series of local Carbon Conversations is going to start on Thursday April 20th
          We promise you will enjoy and also find a lot of practical value in this exploration of your own ‘low-carbon living’ choices and opportunities. 

          The outcome of the series is an action plan for reducing your own carbon footprint by understanding the impact of what’s in your own control – home energy, travel, food and purchases.

          An active game about the carbon footprint of food

          You’ll find it friendly, fun & surprising
          – and there’s just two places left!

          For all the details, please click here.
          And for our recent blog post (including the new dates) – click here.
          Don’t hesitate to get in touch with Ben at bencuddon@gmail.com even if you can’t make every date over the series of 6 meetings. 
          We look forward to seeing you!

        • Rewilding in Tooting – a new storytelling event to explore environmental thinking with children

          Children from 5 to 8 years old and accompanying adults are welcome to join this new event which explores rewilding and environmental thinking in a fascinating and participative way – right here in Tooting on Saturday 8th April.

          All welcome to come and explore our themes:

          Play – Learn – Dream 

          We’re thrilled that Andres Restrepo and Emily Duizend are running this imaginative free event based in the Tooting Community Garden.
           

          We hope you‘re intrigued and want to join us on the first weekend of the Easter holidays. Adults welcome if accompanying children, and together we’ll be look at nature, use our senses and imaginations, focus on what’s special about our surroundings, appreciate Tooting as a place – all from angles that may be new to us.
          When? Saturday 8th April, from 11:00 to 1:00. And it’s free
          Where? Tooting Community Garden, 5 North Drive SW16 1RN
          For who? Children aged 5 to 8 years old
          Details? Children need to be accompanied by an adult
          Flyer? Click here for a copy of the flyer
          How to book? Contact Andres by email to book and for more details

          We want to inspire children and adults to 

          explore how the outdoors can be experienced right here in the city
          All welcome on Saturday 8th April – please book in and we’ll see you there!