Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Volunteering

  • Join us at the London National Park City Fair on 21st July to co-create a Greener, Healthier and Wilder London!

    We’re thrilled to be invited to contribute to the London National Park City Fair on Saturday July 21st 11:00 – 5:00 – all the details here.

    The purpose of the Fair is to celebrate’s London’s potential to be Greener, Healthier and Wilder.
    Two dozen stands & an A-Z of short talks will show how that potential can be an imagined & achieved right now.

    Our stand focuses on our partnership projects and facilitation since 2015 with CARAS the Tooting charity who work with refugees and asylum-seekers: all about social sustainability in the community.

    We’ll be sharing our thoughtful, creative and fun Signs of Welcome making workshop – come and join in: any ages, any languages welcome and you can take your signs home to brighten up your neighbourhood.

    We’ll share 5 short case studies that explore our work in partnership with CARAS beneficiaries, and explore options with stand visitors who are interested to get involved as volunteers.
    You can read the case studies here.

    There’s also a more formal description of the history and impact of the partnership since 2015 – read it here.

    Finally on sharing learning, there’s an article on our Stay With Love pallet-benches on the London National Park City website in the Making a Difference section here.

    We’ll have a prize draw to attract a lucky winner plus family or friends to Tooting for a Taste of Tooting experience! You’ll enjoy our diverse food culture, try recipes from CARAS participants and cook on an open fire on the Tooting Community Garden. Here’s a copy of the prize draw details: you have to come along to the Fair to enter!

    Please join in the fun of the Fair and meet us at the stand – we look forward to seeing you and we’re proud to be contributing alongside so many fascinating London groups.

  • 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.

  • The simple invitations of our ‘Signs of Welcome’ workshops have brought vivid, compelling and complex results. More to come, please join in!

    It’s TTT’s tenth anniversary, and we’re facilitating ten free, fun, thoughtful and creative ‘Signs of Welcome’ workshops locally, along with our partner CARAS. We’re in diverse venues that are themselves welcoming and interesting spaces to visit: cafes, shops, local enterprises.
    We’re half way through – five workshops completed since March and five more in the next few weeks.  
    All welcome! 
    See the TTT events calendar for all the dates and details. 

    The NEXT ‘Signs’ workshop is in the wonderful surroundings of the Wandsworth Oasis shop at Amen Corner on Friday 1st June from 4:00-5:30. 
    That’s at 234-250 Mitcham Rd, Tooting SW17 9NT.
    Have you ever done a creative workshop in a shop? Was it as amazing a place as the Amen Corner Oasis shop? You’ll have time to browse….and it’s half term, so all the family can join.

    We have lots of ‘Signs’ in many languages – all responding to this open question: “What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”
    They’ve been fascinating sessions which everyone seems to appreciate. Expressing ourselves, meeting others, making it visual and being creative by ‘thinking with our hands’ is a very powerful mix.
    A brilliant and valuable extra is that young people from the CARAS youth club have been joining in to gain volunteering experience co-facilitating a creative community session. 
    There’s been inspiring communication across the cakes and mint tea on the cafe tables. Young people who are refugees and asylum-seekers have enjoyed friendly venues they may not have considered visiting, and met many local people they would not otherwise have encountered.  

    Throughout there’s been interwoven threads of self-expression plus a two-way invitation to ask questions and share experiences.


    We have a vivid record of the sessions in the shape of the Signs themselves. They’ll be included in a local exhibition during Refugee Week, June 18th-24th: details to come. The materials for the Signs are re-purposed from publicity boards from the wonderful Work and Play Scrapstore. We had one of our workshops there, and met this Japanese architect who joined in (with a translation on the back):
    These workshops are part of our partnership with CARAS throughout 2018 – the partnership purpose throughout the year will be to facilitate events which draw refugees and asylum-seekers and the local community closer together. For more about the year’s projects, please click here, and there are lots of pictures on our TTT Facebook pages. 
    Many thanks to the partnership funder ThriveLDN, an initiative by the Mayor Of London .


  • ‘Signs of Welcome’ free, creative, hands-on & local workshops from March to June 2018

    In March we started our run of ‘Signs of Welcome’ creative workshops, and between now and June we’re offering more public hands-on events with local project partners. 

    In the workshops you’ll explore your responses 
    to this open question: 
    “What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”
    You’ll imagine what message you would like to say to refugees, asylum-seekers or others new to the community.
    You’ll design and create signs to express your message.
    You can take them home or loan them to us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June.

    The next two events are in the Easter holidays:

    Date:  Wednesday 11th April  
    Venue: Tartine Artinasal
    9 Upper Tooting Road, Tooting Bec, SW17 7TS 
    Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm

    Date:  Friday 13th April 
    Venue: Home Community Cafe
    St Andrew’s Earlsfield, Garratt Lane SW18 4SR
    Timings: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
    What to expect: 
    • All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need 
    • Design and create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community
    • Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop 
    • No need to book
    • We’ve included weekends and afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together 
    • Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018
    • Workshop run by Transition Town Tooting and CARAS (the Tooting charity serving refugees and asylum-seekers)

      Thanks to our local partner the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting, the signs will always be made using materials saved from going to waste. 

      Write your signs in any language!
      Design a message using both sides of your sign!

      Many thanks to all the local partners hosting free Signs of Welcome workshops, including:

      • Fridays March 10th & 23rd. The Sound Lounge, Wimbledon

      • Wednesday April 11th. Tartine Artinasal, Tooting Bec

      • Friday April 13th. Home Community Cafe, Earlsfield

      • Friday June 1st. Wandsworth Oasis shop, Amen Corner

      • Saturday June 9th. Paradise Co-operative, Earlsfield

      • Friday June 15th. Sprout Community Arts, Furzedown
      We’ll share the details of each workshop closer to the time. 

      This project is a strand of the 2018 Welcoming Signs partnership between TTT and CARAS and local venues and other supporters. The purpose throughout the year will be to facilitate events which draw refugees & asylum-seekers closer together with the local community.

    • 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.



    • A party marking the end of our Gardens of Refuge project year with asylum-seekers and refugees. Plus ‘Signs of Welcome’: to be continued in 2018.

      It’s the end of the project year for our partnership with the CARAS team and the refugees and asylum-seekers they serve.

      Of course we are going to do more all together in 2018, and we’re planning that now.

      Yesterday was the end-of-year CARAS Saturday Youth Club party, enjoyed by over 50 young people and volunteers. 

      It was a high-energy afternoon with continuous home-made food to keep us going.

       Alongside the ping pong and games:

      • we did more carpentry on the big pallet-table we’re making for the Tooting Community garden
      • we made lots of Christmas baubles as gifts
      • we made over 20 macramé knotted hanging planters, using offcuts of T shirts as the strings. We were thrilled to have Tooting spider plants and tradescantia from Share Community garden.
      • we finished the party with a gift game of choice and chance from the roll of the dice to select, give, and swap presents

      The youth club is always a wonderful few hours when lots is offered and appreciated – all at the same time. 

      So we’re sharing photos mixed together, like the day itself. Its impact and welcome always feels much more than the sum of all the separate activities spread over 3 or 4 hours.

      Signs of Welcome workshop
      Late in November we had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop at the Museum Of London. CARAS is included in the fascinating exhibition called The City is Ours. It’s on until 2nd January and all ages would enjoy the mix of imagination, facts and ideas about living in complex diverse city like London. It’s well worth visiting!

      We ran a short hands-on workshop for children and adults in which we made Signs of Welcome, inviting anyone – including refugees and asylum-seekers – to rest, enjoy, join in with what they find in London.

      Without a lot of theory or introduction, over 50 people drew and decorated their welcomes in many languages.     We used strips of recycled foamboard from the Work and Play Scrapstore in Earslfield. Just like using the re-purposed strips of T shirt to make hanging planters it was good to explain that the attractive materials were saved from waste.
      It was an energising and also thoughtful hour. Many of the Signs were taken home and some were given to us for a future exhibition we’re thinking about. We’ll do this workshop again in 2018 locally.        It seems to touch participants and encourage them to say what they feel – and it’s a good design challenge that produces lovely images.
      Thanks so much to everyone who has participated in & contributed to the Gardens of Refuge Project this year!
      We’re proud that includes a broad and diverse group of young people, adults and families from the asylum-seeking and refugee community; CARAS staff and volunteers; local partners including Share Community, The Scrapstore, The Sound Lounge Trust, South London Makerspace, Fulham Timber, Martin Speed Ltd; TTT and Tooting Community Garden volunteers and session facilitators.
      More to come in 2018 and get in contact if you would like to join in.

    • 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

      • ‘Gardens of Refuge’ project wins 2017 funding from the Aviva Community Fund

        We are thrilled that Gardens of Refuge, the 2017 project working with Tooting refugees and asylum-seekers, has been awarded funding by Aviva. The project application was made by the local charity CARAS (Community Action for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers) and TTT are the partners along with The Grange respite centre in Norfolk.

        Thank you for all your votes and support! 

        Here’s our vision for the Gardens of Refuge project: please click here to read

        This funding award lets us look forward to a fascinating 2017, developing and delivering the new project and building on our learning and experience from our previous project together.  

        We want to do some things that we know work well, and also some new things.

        Plus we’ll invite ideas (and resources) from the many well-wishers who voted for Gardens of Refuge last November.

        A new feature that will add value is the new CARAS Youth Council. This governance group will help provide a voice for project beneficiaries in the youth club.
        We’ll also be working with other members of the CARAS community.

        We all expect to learn and benefit. One of our first reactions, apart from joy at the award and making the project real, is that this award gives profile and visibility to the fact that refugees’ lives matter, and that they have much to contribute in our shared communities.

        We’ll post more information on project plans as they develop.
        Yes, we all worked hard to get to this stage, so it’s great to have the affirmation from the Aviva Fund judges.
        It took us a while to be sure on announcement day: students of communication will be interested that Aviva made the ‘Project Winner’ info available online and by twitter…and it was 24 hours before CARAS received a direct email saying ‘You’ve won!’. By then we’d taken the public messages at face value and trusted that it was all true.

        And there are some extra surprises – such as a reception at Parliament in late January where all the funded projects can meet each other and their constituency MPs.

        We’ve worked since early 2015 with CARAS – that was on the ‘Rooting in Tooting’ project, supported by the Royal Horticultural Society’s ‘Greening Grey Britain’ campaign and by Sir Walter St John’s Educational Charity – more info here. That project brought new volunteers to CARAS & TTT; we’re really delighted with that.

        Thanks again for all your interest and support – 
        this is a very motivating start to the New Year!

      • Team London’s International Volunteering Conference, December 5th at London’s City Hall

        Egle, Jenny and Chuck were honoured to be able to present our shared experience from the joint CARAS + TTT ‘Rooting in Tooting’ project at this free conference yesterday. It was run by Team London to celebrate the end of London’s tenure as International City of Volunteering for 2016. Over 300 people attended.

        We tried to tell the story visually with pictures of participants and activities over 2015 and 2016. Here’s a snapshot of our presentation:

        You can look at the slides in the normal way by clicking here on the conference website. Our session was shared with Alkisti Macrynikola from Ethelon, an NGO in Greece who also work with refugees.

        We emphasised the project benefits for the young people, for CARAS, for the community, and for TTT. A graphic facilitator captured the day’s learning and stories, and Rooting in Tooting features in the top right of the image:

        We’re glad that some of the key points have come through – including achieving a ‘Sense of Belonging’ with the young people from the CARAS Youth Club. You can see the graphic full size by clicking here.
        There’s a lot of detail to explore!

        The main hall – wow!

        It was inspiring and too much to summarise in a few sentences – have a look at all the session presentations by clicking here. (Scroll right to the bottom of the page). One debate was whether ‘volunteering’ could be called ‘social action’ to make it sound more focused or more attractive to a different audience -‘to be continued!’

        London’s City Hall is a great venue, and the whole event was very welcoming. Thank you for inviting us!

        Tower Bridge, Chuck & Egle

        The garden at Potter’s Fields