Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Transition Network

  • Two inspiring & successful sustainability projects!

    Sharing two inspiring projects! 
    Both projects aim to demonstrate and create something that is beautiful and functional, creating results which please people and show that sustainability is achievable and attractive now.

    One is in Tooting: a front garden restoration that takes into account affordability and biodiversity.
    One is north London-based: an bamboo bicycle enterprise which is imaginative and practical.

    Tooting Front Garden Restoration
    The project has been a partnership between a housing association, residents, project leader and a professional team including Community Gardener Rose deFalbe. The intention was to carry out the restoration in a way that is participatory, affordable, adaptable, biodiverse and with zero environmental footprint. There’s a full description of the project downloadable here.
    Here’s the result photographed earlier this week. 37 Manville Road – go and have a look as it’s a beautiful sight!

    In April the restoration was Commended at the Wandsworth Design Awards. Here’s the team in front of their display with the Mayor of Wandsworth who gave out the awards.
    Congratulations!

    Bamboo Bicycle Club
    Engineer James Marr has established this business designing cycle frames out of bamboo (imported at the moment) and hemp (grown in Yorkshire). All the details online here.

    A unique element is that BBC sells no finished bikes at all: the new owners and riders make the frames and fit out the bikes themselves. James want to offer cycles that are sustainable, recyclable and designed collaboratively according to need.
    As a consumer, the maker-rider is in charge and makes all the decisions. Each maker practices or learns new skills.

    ‘His and hers’ road bikes

    Over 200 have been designed and built in all shapes and sizes (look at their Hall of Frames) – either from kits at home or on weekend courses where the output is a bamboo cycle frame that you then fit out with the drive train, wheels, handlebars, etc. Track bikes, tandems, balance bikes…and a new project in Africa where farmers will make their own bikes that can each carry 100kg.


    Another practical BBC project now: school groups of 5 children are making bamboo BMX frames for shared use – fantastic teamworking and design & technology experience.

    A vision for the future is that a family will plant bamboo on their urban plot. When the children are 8 they’ll cut their materials in the garden to make their first bikes at home… a lovely image.

    TTT met the Bamboo Bicycle Club at the London Permaculture Festival last Sunday, which we mentioned in our recent mailout.
    It was a great scene of stalls, children playing, several hundred people chatting and engaging, good food and a demonstration garden – plus two dozen workshops to choose from.

    We explored permaculture in our Growing Tooting grow-your-own workshops (for example in the 6th class and handout). While the concept covers far more than gardening, it is rooted in growing.

    Permaculture teacher Patrick Whitfield described it like this: 

    ‘Permaculture is a design system for human habitats which work with nature rather than against it. 
    It is modelled on natural living systems, and makes use of both traditional skills and modern science’.
     
    ‘Transition Towns’ and ‘Permaculture’ have very similar approaches. There’s a lot of shared history, research and ideas (plus some jargon which may not always help); both cover a huge international and diverse range of activities; both are practical and can-do. 
    The hall of stalls at the Permaculture Festival on 31st July

  • TTT’s experience of the Climate march weekend in London and Paris – our personal responses

    We’d like to share our responses to the Sunday 29th Climate Justice march in London, and to actions that replaced the banned march in Paris. 
    And we’d like to share news of the Transition Network day in Paris on Saturday 28th.
    All these events and more are urgently linked with the COP21 Climate talks in Paris which are running until December 13th.

    We’re sharing three blog posts: 

    • this post on some of our personal reactions
    • then a post about community-level responses
    • and finally a post about the global view 

    This is a snapshot of the experience we felt as participants….

    What did taking part mean to us personally?

    London

    Hilary: It was hugely reassuring to see so many other people willing to give up a cold and windy day to marching

    The march began, for us, at Tooting Bec Tube. We didn’t know how many would come, after putting out the invitation via our blog. On the day, 7 of us met, with the world on one head and giant sign saying, “urgent”.

    We emerged in the centre of London and spotted one or two other likely groups – I guess this is how a march begins, with intentional meeting of friends and colleagues with a common cause. By the time we arrived at Park Lane, we realised that there were many common causes to put under the banner of “Climate March” – vegans, community energy, anti-oil, anti-fracking, save the polar bears, Greenpeace, revolutionaries, drummers, fundraisers and photographers…

    We even had apples thrust until our palms from those campaigning against waste food! Delicious they were too.


    6 of us from Tooting joined with 49,994 others from everywhere else, resolved to make our voices heard in London.

    Hilary: I didn’t realise till afterwards how many others I knew were there as I spotted their twitter and Facebook posts – and found they must have been only yards from us on the day.

    Richard: My experience of the march was one of carnival, as seen in the pictures, juxtaposed with serious energy and desire that COP21 negotiations will be a success.

    Paris
    In Paris the Sunday 29th march was banned and there were two alternatives that Charles joined: 
    “I’ll describe one which had a very personal impact. 
      
    In place of marching, last week the call went out for pairs of shoes to be donated and assembled in the Place de la République. 

    Pictures went around the world…gifts of empty shoes from France’s diverse cultures. They represented people denied a voice to meet make their points together about climate justice.

     

    As well as being playful, the shoes had poignant associations of the debris and personal effects gathered after a disaster. A few hundred metres away the ad-hoc memorials to the Paris terrorist shootings look just like this.  
    I thought of the displays in prison camps…

    In the early afternoon passers-by began to shift the shoes, creating walking lines along the streets….“.
     
    Whatever the personal purpose or impact of taking part in a public demonstration; we are used to being able to express ourselves. Plenty of people around the world do not have that agency and voice.

    Do come along to any of our TTT meetings and events if you would like to explore any of this together in more depth. Or please email us, comment on facebook or tweet.

  • TTT’s experience of the Climate march weekend in London and Paris – the global view

    Our third post in response to the Climate march weekend, COP21 and Transition’s contribution

    Thinking about impact and action – the global view

    Paris 
    Charles: Another of the replacements for the banned Paris march was the ‘human chain’ – a line kilometres long where participants linked hands (for a short while…until the stewards said ‘C’est fini’ as the whole action was ad-hoc and not police-approved).

    Here’s some of Transition links in the chain. We‘re holding copies of the pages of ’21 Histoires de Transition’, strung like bunting.

    All along a street with several Metro stations – just like Balham to Tooting Broadway – there were theme clusters in the chain, where you could pop out of the Metro and group around global issues such as Energy, or Justice, or Nature, or Solutions. 

    There were other chains worldwide – including Brussels, just emerging from 4 days of public lock-down, and also replacing a banned march.
    The chain was ephemeral but we still came together to witness what we wanted to express in the planned march...along with a few mexican waves.
    Finally from Paris: two images from the Metro. The City of Paris filled the stations with motivational posters: yes very simple, but moving alongside the ads for Adele and Asus. Some private sector companies contributed too: here is Ben and Jerry’s offering a very strong message (more on their climate justice website – who knew?)“.

     

    London
    Hilary: On a global scale, it was great to return home and see all the pictures of marches around the world.


    After a day of action before the London Climate March, it was clear we were one part of a common voice across the world. 785,000 people marched in 2300 events in 175 countries (Avaaz). From the vulnerable Pacific Islands to the so-called “developed” nations, the difference in context makes you realise how unified the people of the world are, and how we, as individuals, as communities and as a global population care about our future, and that of our children, not to mentioned the 1000s of species perishing along the way.

    London’s march was one of 2300 globally

    Its well worth having a look at the images from around the world, written up in Avaaz’s report here . They called it “The Largest Climate mobilisation in history”.

    The following day, 190 global leaders arrive in Paris and began talks. 

    Globally, there are of course urgent challenges and campaigns which link us all, and link our wellbeing to our communities to the natural world and our activities on the planet.
    Some of the resources we use to keep in touch with global and local progress are:

    There are many more: 0ver 140 organisations are contributing to civil society climate-related actions in Paris.

    We will look for an early opportunity to show the brand new film ‘Demain‘ (‘Tomorrow’), premiered last evening, in which 6 people in their 30s travel the world looking at creative sustainability solutions that are happening now.

    Do come along to any of our TTT meetings and events if you would like to explore any of this together in more depth. Or please email us, comment on facebook or tweet.

  • TTT’s experience of the Climate march weekend in London and Paris – a sense of community

    Here‘s our second blog post in response to the Climate march weekend, COP21 and Transition’s contribution

    Some ‘community-level’ responses

    London
    We marched with the Transition bloc. Inherently local, it is affirming to feel part of a wider community form time to time. Sunday gave space for us all to talk to each other in a different context compared with many other occasions. This wasn’t about delivering a project, although ultimately it is, but did give space for strengthening bonds that will bear fruit in the future.

    The Transition gang, including friends from Lewes, Crystal Palace and Kingston
    Transition Town Huddle by Deborah Mason

    Paris

    Transition France and Transition groups in Paris co-hosted a free workshop day on Saturday 28th. 
    Here, we met in the huge (and unheated….) ‘La Générale’ space for an afternoon of sharing experience, eating and drinking, and then an evening conference.
     

    Charles: “For 13 hours I was immersed in a sharing community coming together with powerful intentions. The community included the everyday diversity of Paris with its mix of north african and mediterranean faces….different from the diversity we recognise at Tooting Broadway. It was affirming to feel that I could simply approach anyone and talk about shared ideas, ask for support or get some feedback.

    I hosted a workshop about TTT’s ‘Rooting in Tooting‘ project with CARAS, the Tooting charity working with asylum-seekers and refugees – aimed at valuing and including those people in our community. 
    (Notice our coats and scarves!)

    On the one hand not many participants had experience of working with the refugee community; on the other hand they offered many good reasons ‘why’ this project purpose is valuable. A strong message was ‘do this work because we are in our community together’. Yes we are experimenting with this project; it was great the group said it was inspiring and motivational to hear about.”

    The main event in the day was launching 21 Stories of Transition, the new book which illustrates 21 examples (and a few more) of sustainability actions being taken now by communities around the world…people who are not waiting for COP21 to agree. 

    Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Town approach, led the session along with others who had conceived the projects described.

     
    Buy the book for Christmas! (Details here, it’s available in both English and French). It’s a thrilling insight into the wider community of transition groups and their creativity and hard work.

    I won’t include any spoilers, but do look out for M. Mensch, Mayor of Ungersheim in Alsace, who has helped to lead (probably 21!) sustainability projects locally.  
    He showed me their wonderful town community currency: enlarge the photo…yes it called ‘the radish‘. 

    What would we call a Tooting community currency?

    Do come along to any of our TTT meetings and events if you would like to explore any of this together in more depth. Or please email us, comment on facebook or tweet.

  • Transition Network International Conference

    You may know that TTT is part of a network of Transition Towns round the world – community groups of all shapes and sizes who are each taking local action on environmental and social sustainability. TTT’s motto is Making Change in How We Live, Where We Live, in Light of Climate Change. That encourages a wide range of activities, and inspires us to want to get on with it alongside local partners who are ‘transitioning’ to establish a better future now.

    The Transition Network is hosting its first international conference for 3 years: hundreds of people are booked in from dozens of countries this weekend in Devon. 
    Nine of us from the TTT family are attending. It’s only a week after the Foodival – there are still many great and tired memories to share, and now we are about to make new ones.

     
    As I post this blog four of us are zooming down the road towing a cute caravan. 

    The others are packing or looking for their train tickets…


    Between us we’ve been invited to facilitate three workshops, and we’re proud to be able to do that: 

    • Tomorrow Lucy is co-facilitating a day workshop on ‘The Art of Invitation: creative engagement for ourselves and our communities’. Details are here.
    • On Saturday morning, Charles, Jenny, Richard and Sharon are hosting a workshop on ‘Outdoor Learning with Young People’. Details here.
    • On Saturday afternoon, Dan and Rachel from fanSHEN are offering a workshop on ‘Creative Facilitation’. Details here.

    We’ll all attend other sessions and there will be a lot of interaction and chatting in the lunch queues.

    It’s very inspiring to me that ‘Transition’ includes TTT’s local Tooting focus and the wide international network. 

    In the last month we’ve been lucky to welcome visitors from 2 overseas Transition initiatives – Catherine and Leonard from Transition Albany in the Bay Area of California…


     …and Caroline from Transition XL in Ixelles, Brussels. 
    We’ve learned a lot from them all, and also shared the joys of Tooting. 

    At the conference we’re looking forward to sharing ideas that encourage us and make our community projects more effective. 

    We’ll let you know all about it. -Charles