Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Uncategorised

  • Restart-Sewstart Party back for the summer on August 4th

    Join our fixing and mending workshop with August’s Restart and Sewstart! Whether it’s electrical or electronic items that you don’t want to throw away or a sewing machine that is broken or you’re not sure how to use, we can help!

    Have a favourite piece of clothing that needs mending or altering and you’d like to learn how? Or simply good at fixing and mending stuff and want to volunteer?

    Or maybe you fancy a cup of tea, a piece of cake and a chance to find out more about Transition Tooting and what we get up to?

    Come along on Sat 4th August – 12.00 – 3.00pm Mushkil Aasaan, 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s)

    (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!
    Future dates are 13th October and 8th December.

    More info about Restart          More about Transition Town Tooting,
    email TTT here     TTT on twitter

  • Pop in to Stay With Love at the Sound Lounge on Saturday 28th and help us explore ideas for 2018

    Last chance this weekend to see the lovely Stay With Love exhibition of refugee and asylum-seeker arts and creativity at The Sound Lounge  210 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EJ.

    CARAS and TTT will be there at the exhibition ready to share tea, ideas and conversation from 3:30pm to 5:00pm on Saturday 28th Oct

    Look for us on the two long tables at the back, right next to the exhibition.

    All welcome on Saturday to:

    • have a cup of tea with us
    • see the exhibition of expressive and exciting creativity from many people and in many media
    • share ideas for 2018’s activities and local partners for projects with the varied groups supported by CARAS with TTT
    • help us plan what’s next in contributing to a welcoming and inclusive community in Tooting

     There’s plenty to explore for the future together!

  • Pumpkin Party – This Sunday 29th October

    Come and join our autumn festivities in Tooting Community Garden.

    Following on from our normal open gardening session (11am-1pm), we will celebrating all things pumpkin – you can carve your own creations into the pumpkins, help make some fresh pumpkin soup and learn how to make delicious damper bread over a fire. All activities are free and suitable for children and adults

    Pumpkin carving, pumpkin soup making and campfire cooking
    Date: Sunday 29th October
    Place: Tooting Community Garden, 5 North
    Drive, London SW16 1RL (see map)
    Time: 1pm-3pm

    Following the activities on Tooting Community Garden, Friends of Tooting Common will be holding their annual Pumpkin Parade on Tooting Common by the cafe, from 3.30pm to 5.15pm.There will be competitions for the funniest, scariest, and most artistic pumpkin
    (entry fee £2 per pumpkin, up to a maximum of £5 per family), plus competitions for fancy dress (in four different age groups). In addition, there will be storytelling, refreshments, tree dressing, and the event will finish with a grand parade of lit pumpkins.

  • ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition opens today in Tooting

    It’s the day of the opening of our CARAS partnership ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition at The Sound Lounge in Tooting – 210 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EJ

    All very welcome, and here are the timings:

    4:00-5:30pm Pop-up session making and crafts for all the family
    7:00pm Doors open, come and enjoy the exhibition
    7:30pm Formal welcome to ‘Stay With Love’ exhibition plus celebrating the young people who have gained work experience certificates. Followed by sharing any poems or spoken word pieces, and time for mingling and exploring the exhibition. Soft drinks only until 8:00.
    8:15pm Live music begins – some special treats in store

    It’s going to be a really enjoyable evening & we look forward to seeing you!
    Background info here. The exhibition continues thoughout October.

  • ‘Stay With Love’ Exhibition opening 3rd October in Tooting, plus a snapshot of the summer with families in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project.

    Two updates about our partnership project with the local charity CARAS and the refugees and asylum-seekers they support.

    1 ‘Stay With Love’ Exhibition during October ’17 at The Sound Lounge in Tooting.  
    The Sound Lounge, 210-212 Upper Tooting Road, TootingSW17 7EW

    We’re all thrilled that The Sound Lounge is hosting ‘Stay With Love’ – an exhibition of diverse work of all kinds that’s been produced together over the past year at CARAS and in our ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project workshops. So much creativity and enjoyment supported by a multi-skilled and diverse group of volunteers!

    The exhibition is opening on Tuesday 3rd October and will run throughout the month. Visit whenever the Sound Lounge is open.

    All welcome to the opening at The Sound Lounge, Tuesday 3rd Oct. We’ll be offering:

    • 4:00-5:30 pm A free after-school drop-in crafts workshop for all the family and all ages, with all materials supplied. And maybe we can add to the exhibition with what we make…
    • 7:00-8:00 pm: View the exhibits, join tours by their creators
    • 8:00 pm: Performances and celebration
    • 10:00 pm: Close

    We look forward to chatting about any of the work and the project, and thanks again to The Sound Lounge!

    2 Sharing our summer with families in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project.

    To whet your appetite, here’s an account of two summertime days in the ‘Gardens of Refuge’ Project. Resina is one of the volunteers with the project and she’s written this account. Thank you, Resina!

    “We’ve had a great summer. On 15 and 22 August two family activity days were held in the Tooting Community Garden. This gave families the opportunity to be introduced to the garden, which we’d been talking about in other activity sessions since Spring.

    On 15th August the families examined different vegetables and grains that had been grown in the garden and guessed what they were. One challenge was identifying what turned out to be our weird-looking patty pan squash!
    We used maps of the garden to actively explore it – and created a game of colouring in all the parts they visited – a fun way to become familiar with the different spaces of the garden. It was even better once we explained the game more clearly – one boy promptly collected in all the coloured felt pens we’d carefully placed at each point! 
     

    We arranged the previously-painted materials for the big garden mural.

    Some of the women enjoyed identifying the vegetables they recognised:  it was great to have our teff from the Horn of Africa appreciated by experts!
     
    One woman acknowleged that her own children didn’t play outside the way that she used to in her own country, a phenomenon that is occurring everywhere as children are becoming more sedentary in their lifestyle. 
    However in the community garden everyone had the opportunity to explore the ‘hidden’ areas, pick blackberries, plums, kale and coriander and run around in the sun. 
    Turnip-top seeds were planted to crop later in the year. Marshmallows were toasted and tea was brewed. It was a fun and relaxing day! 
    On 22nd August, families were able to spend another day in the community garden. 

    In groups we created a ‘palette of colours’ by picking petals or leaves from the garden and sticking them down, maybe in a rainbow sequence. This children particularly enjoyed this, and created some beautiful palettes. This activity was all about noticing the small things. 

    The sea urchin fossil

    We handled a flint tool from 6000 years ago, and a fossil sea-urchin from 66 million years ago – both found in the Garden. We imagined Tooting when nomadic groups hunted here, and millions of years before when it was under the sea…with many of the children chipping in ideas and what they had learned at school.

    Creating mural panels in Spring ’17

    We held a Grand Opening of the ceiling mural made for the water catchment roof (more photos to come…)

    Family groups had created all the different components since Easter in other activity days.

     

    Everyone was encouraged to lie in a hammock directly under the mural so they could enjoy looking at the patterns in the mural above them.
    This was a very enjoyable experience for all, and everyone wanted a turn.

    We cooked on charcoal – BBQ chicken and sweetcorn & made herb butter ‘straight from the garden’.
    Some engaged in all the activities with enthusiasm, others were content to sit, enjoy the peacefulness of the garden and chat to their friends in a beautiful setting.

    Another wonderful day of togetherness, some surprises, peace and feeling safe and welcome.”
    – Resina

  • Foodival 2017: “Thank You” to Tooting’s community of volunteers

    The 10th Tooting Foodival was only possible because of 
    many volunteers’ help and donations.
    Thank you all!

    Click here to see the details. Well over forty people helped on the day, plus many in preparation and in the long tail of follow up.
    Each of these people and organisations made the Foodival happen, and while there’s no priority order we want to highlight Naseem Aboobaker who has demonstrated such community spirit by offering us the hall at Mushkil Aasaan for free at so many Foodivals past.
    It’s always a risk to make a list and get it 100% correct – please let us know if we’ve left you out.

    Here she is at the 2010 Foodival

    The Foodival is nothing without an audience! We lost count at around 500 people – first-timers and some very loyal regulars.
    Here is one young girl we know and want to celebrate – same road, maybe the same chair.
    2010 to 2017! 

    And at the 2017 Foodival

    Get in touch with us if you fancy being part of TTT’s 2018 Tooting Foodival co-ordination group.
    We promise you fun, space to try out creative ideas, experience of live project management and lots of community support!

  • Top Tooting Cook 2017: the winners!

    Top Tooting Cook, the Foodival’s fun competition was ably co-ordinated by ‘firm but fair’ Belinda. We had a record-breaking number of entries.
    Here are the dishes – photographed during the judging, so some dishes have begun to be sampled. These are dishes crying out to be tasted (some people had to be held back…):

    There’s a wonderful variation of international cultures, colours, local ingredients, skills and why-not-have-a-go represented. How would you choose the different class winners and the overall Top Tooting Cook?

    Our three judges worked up and down the long tables in Mushkil Aasaan with their clipboards. They recorded their own views with 25% of marks awarded to each of four criteria:

    • How well does the dish fit the category it was entered for?
    • Taste?
    • Look?
    • How local to Tooting are the dish ingredients?

    The judges conferred, debated and added up their marks.

    Tension mounted in the hall as we looked from dish to dish and back at the judges’ impassive faces. Who would win? When could we eat all the dishes?

    The overall award of Top Tooting Cook went to…Imira for her Squash Compote!

    CONGRATULATIONS IMIRA!

    Here’s the full list of other winners per competition category:

    Savoury dish: 
    Muna Mohammed,Ethiopian Mixed Vegetarian Dish & Injera
    Savoury dish Runner Up: 
    Lila Benderdouch, Tortilla de Patatas
    Preserves: 
    Debbie Morey, Raspberry Jam
    Under 16: 
    Maryam Uddin, Flower Fruit Cake Crumble
    Pudding / Apples and Pears: 
    Debbie Morey, Apple Cake 
    Organizers’ Prize: 
    Charles Whitehead, Salty Pickled Tooting Plums 

    Click here to see the full TTC report.                                                                
    Thank you, judges: Saira, Brian and Rick!
    Thank you, local enterprises and organisations who donated prizes!
    Thank you, entrants, local vegetable and fruit donors and other contributors!
    We’ll share the recipes as soon as we can, to add to our community low food-mile localicious cookbook.

    The results are announced…

    More Tooting Foodival blog posts to come very soon: the famous ‘I Grew This’ poster, the list of produce donors, all the Thank Yous and a slide show of photos and videos of the day.

  • Our two-days-to-go update on the 10th Tooting Foodival: Music! Families! Donating produce!

    All welcome to celebrate local food, cooking and feasting right in the heart of Tooting on Saturday 16th from 11:00 to 5:00, at the combined venues of the hall at Mushkil Aasaan 220 – 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW and in Hereward Road next door.

    Foodival music update:
    The Sound Lounge has put together a fantastic programme for the Foodival Music Stage in Hereward Road. Thank you so much! Here it is:

    12:00  Hannah White singer-songwriter
    12:30  Jess Spink on keys, with a guitarist
    1:00    Easy Skanking duo acoustic Ska favourites 
    1:30    Grenville & Fleur mandolin & fiddle duo
    2:00    Artists from The Balham Ukulele Society with a mix of 
               traditional and contemporary favourites
    3:00    Maisie Johnson singer-songwriter 
    Foodival families update: 
    Looking across the activities, there are many attractive highlights for families, children and young people. In particular, blending creativity, food, nature and crafts:
    👪 YUM-JAM 11:30 – 1:15 The YUM-JAM is for families & children. The place for children to play with food! Yum-Jam is a workshop plus performance for children which mimics creating a magical dish from fascinating ingredients. With Andres & Emily. More info in this post.

    💓 Tooting’s Insects Need Your Love workshop exploring what’s all around us in Tooting 1:00-1:45 with Chuck

    🐞 Making Ladybird Houses workshop making houses which you can take away 1:45-2:30 with Nicola

    😲 Observation hive of thousands of bees plus local honey. All day long, with Richard  

    And more Crafts – adults can of course join these too (times tbc):
    🎨 Painting the big planters with Jeni

    🌵 Making a textile cactus to take home, with Nikki

    And more workshops on Growing, for older children & families:
    💚More Plants for Free! Taking cuttings to increase your plants. 12:00-12:45 with Dermot
    👽The amazing power of worms Composting 2:00-2:45 with Martin
    Update on donating your local produce:
    We look forward to an amazing selection – some we have heard about, and some will be a surprise. Don’t be shy, we’d love to celebrate what you have grown whether you are a beginner or an expert!
    Donation times are 5:00pm to 9:00pm at Mushkil Aasaan on Friday 15th Sept, and on Saturday morning from 10:00 to 11:00.
    Donations go to the Top Tooting Cook Competition (please enter! Details here) and to the Big Feast on Saturday.

  • The Tenth Tooting Foodival – one week to go! Here’s the schedule of timed events.

    All welcome to the free Tenth Tooting Foodival: one week from today on Saturday 16th September from 11:00 to 5:00.
    We’re celebrating locally-grown produce, local cooking skills and our annual communal feast – and Tooting!
    We’ll be enjoying all the stands, workshops and activities which you’ll discover right in the heart of Tooting.
    It’s all about the local community getting together, so do come along: it’s going to be a special day for the Foodival’s tenth anniversary!

    Mighty oaks grow from small acorns in fertile ground! Here’s a view of our very first Tooting Foodival in 2008:

    What do you need to do to really enjoy the Tooting Foodival?
    There are four ways to join in:

    1. Please donate some of your lovely locally-grown produce.
    It’s about contributing vegetables and fruit for fun, so don’t be shy. You can donate on Friday Sept 15th between 5:00 and 9:00 at Mushkil Aasaan, or Saturday morning between 10:00 and 11:00. Your produce is what the chefs use for the Big Feast, and what Top Tooting Cook competitors can use.

    Bramble & apple pie made by a child

    2. Join in our Top Tooting Cook competetion.
    All the details here. There are four classes, and your dishes need to be delivered to Mushkil Aasaan from 1:30 on Saturday. Judging is at 2:30. It’s a lot of fun and we all look forward to tasting what you make!

    3. Tell your friends, come along on Saturday, enjoy the Big Feast and all the activities.
    You’ll be amazed at how growing, donating, cooking, creativity and diverse people make a blend of ingredients that create a wonderful community day.

    4. Volunteer and help the day go brilliantly.
    The Tooting Foodival is a volunteer-run event. We welcome you to join us as an equal contributor, make new friends and maybe help design the Eleventh Foodival! Contact us by email here.

    All the events are either in the hall at Mushkil Aasaan at 220-222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nando’s) or outside in Hereward Road.

    Some of the events on Saturday 16th are running at scheduled times, so please don’t miss the ones you want to join.  
    Some are available all day from 11:00 to 5:00.

    There’s a Schedule for the timed events. To read and download the running order please click here. Here’s what’s in the timed Schedule:

    • The Big Feast with local chefs Manisha (from Pooja), Volker & Quinn and Elizabetta (from Minestra Supper Club)
    • The Top Tooting Cook Competition – judged by Brian (Tooting Town Centre Manager) Rick (Tooting chef) and Saira (of KarimaandSaira).
    • The Green Stage workshops all about local growing (details in this post here)
    • Children’s and Family activities including The Yum-Jam (details here), the Crafts Stage and Face Painting
    • The Soap Box – our speakers’ corner

    In our next blog post we’ll share the list of the stalls, stands and more which are running all day.

  • The Tenth Annual Tooting Foodival – 2 weeks to go! All welcome & here’s the latest plans!

    All welcome 11:00 to 5:00 on Saturday 16th Sept at Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW and in Hereward Road, right next door in the heart of Tooting

    Welcome to the latest plans for the Tooting Foodival!
      
    There’s lots happening and it all feeds into the Foodival’s purpose of celebrating local growing, sustainable food, local cooking and bringing the whole community together.
    All done in diverse creative, refreshing and participative ways.

    Would you like to volunteer as a Foodivalista?  
    Volunteering info here, and all welcome!

     Here’s a recap of the main events (more info on these three here)

    New information:
    Growing, Sustainability and Creative activities:
    Here are some details – please save the times to plan your visit

    👪 YUM-JAM 11:30 – 1:15 in Hereward Road
    The place for children to play with food! Yum-Jam is a workshop plus performance for children and families which mimics creating a magical dish from fascinating ingredients. With Andres, Emily and friends.

    1. 11:30 – 12:30 ‘Making’. Children create food props and costumes using recycled materials, learn quick facts and stories about vegetables
    2. 12:30 – 1:00 ‘Cooking’. The performance: children particpate using the props and knowledge from the Making, creating a fun and healthy imaginary dish with the help of a storyteller who invites the children to join the journey
    3. 1:00 ‘Feasting’. Enjoying some of the Foodival Big Feast treats together. Children can take home the props and illustrations they have made

    🌱GREEN STAGE 12:00 – 3:00 in the Hall at Mushkil Aasaan
    Three hands-on growing sessions. 45 minutes each, no need to book, all materials provided.

    1. 12:00 start ‘More Plants for Free’. Learn how to increase your plants by taking cuttings and division. Practice your skills with scissors, soil and sharp sand! Take away a new plant. With Dermot
    2. 13:00 start ‘Tooting’s insects need your love’. Sharing how to encourage pollinators and beneficial insects all year round in your balcony, beds or garden. With Chuck
    3. 14:00 start ‘Composting and the amazing power of the humble earthworm’. Working with nature to reduce waste and build soil fertility. With Martin

    🎨CRAFTS STAGE Timing tbc, in the Hall at Mushkil Aasaan
    Join Jeni, Nikki and Nicola to: 

    1. Make and decorate ladybird houses out of waste plastic bottles. Use them outdoors as shelter for overwintering beneficial insects.
    2. Make your very own textile cactus!
    3. Create on a bigger scale by decorating the Big Bed planter outside in Hereward Road

    More detail to come about many more activities!