Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Young People

  • Snapshots from the CARAS Open Day in Tooting

    TTT is looking forward to our new partnership project with CARAS and the RHS ‘Greening Grey Britain’ campaign (see our 18th Aug post below). To help launch ‘Rooting in Tooting’, we joined in at the CARAS Open Day at All Saints’ Church, Tooting. 
    It was a very welcoming day for the extended CARAS family, where many people knew each other and came to chat in the sun (or find some shade), or play outdoors. 
    We had a brilliant lunch made by The Chickpea Sisters (who’ll be at the Tooting Foodival on Sun 13th Sept). There was music, dancing…& some diverse growing action.

    Chris was flat out sowing seeds and playing with mud:
     

    Chris plus seed sowers
    Making mud seed bombs

     

    Threshing and winnowing wheat grown in the Tooting Community Garden: we took the heads of wheat and did the steps used round the world for thousands of years (and which are still in our language even if we’ve never seen it happen). 
    So, Seamus found helpers for threshing to separate the wheat grains from the heads, and then winnowing the resulting mix to remove the chaff:

    Bashing bags on the ground…
    …or jumping up and down on them
    Then, with the right puff, the chaff blows away
    Flicking up the chaff to catch the wind: experts!

    We also gathered great ideas in several languages for what to consider growing in the project: for food, for health, for beauty, and for nature:

    Thanks to all (of all ages) at the open day for getting so involved! 
    Plus, we’re grateful to Chris and Sophie from the RHS, and to Seamus, Jenny and Chuck from TTT, and all at CARAS. More news as ‘Rooting in Tooting’ develops.

  • Young people’s garden project leads to Rooting in Tooting

    If you’ve walked past the Derinton Community Centre in Tooting recently, you may have noticed vibrant yellow planters bursting with colourful flowers, where rubbish used to reside, and young people sitting on bright benches doing their homework.

    Those young people, who attend the CARAS youth club on the site, worked with a team from Transition Town Tooting to build the planters and the benches and paint them over a number of weeks. They sowed seeds early on in the project and also chose plants that now grow there, during a visit to Share Community Garden

    The project came about after the youth club made a visit to Tooting Community Garden.  This led to the idea of the teenagers creating an urban garden on-site over eight weekly Saturday sessions.

    “Before this, I didn’t know how to plant and grow plants, but I learned how, and I enjoyed making the planter too”, said Waseem, one of the young people who transformed the space.

    CARAS (previously Klevis Kola) is a community based organisation working with refugees and asylum seekers.  The gardening project was developed with the young people, encouraging teamwork and communication, developing and practicing new skills and meeting new people in the wider community.

    Jenny Teasdale, who coordinated Transition Town Tooting’s involvement said,

    “Working with these young people over the last couple of months has been wonderful. Together, we imagined the possibilities of an urban garden, creating a mood board of ideas, and then we made some of those ideas a reality.

    Everyone planted seeds in the first few weeks and the kids tended them throughout, watching sunflowers, beans and salad leaves growing, ready to be planted out in the final weeks. With wooden materials from the community garden, the kids cut, assembled and painted planters and benches – making design decisions on the fly and developing new skills along the way. As a group, we decided what plants to grow and where to site what we built.

    I know I wasn’t the only person sad to see the project come to an end, having enjoyed every second of the process. At the same time, we are all really happy to see the transformation in just two short months.”

    CARAS Youth Coordinator, Molly Abraham spoke about the project,

    “The gardening project with TTT has been a fantastic opportunity for young people who attend CARAS to gain skills, share knowledge and create something we are all extremely proud of.  It’s been amazing to watch the group grow in confidence as they became proficient with drills, saws and secateurs, and to relax into sharing stories of growing in their home countries.  Working with the wonderful team from TTT has been a real pleasure for all of us and we are excited to be able to develop the work, and the friendships, over the coming year.”

    “We painted the pallet planter and the yellow planter, and I sowed flowers and beans. They’re still growing”, said Hafso, shown here painting.

    Spurred on by the development of the space and the enthusiasm of the youth group, we are delighted to announce that CARAS and Transition Town Tooting are now working in partnership with the RHS over the next year, running monthly sessions with the youth club and adults at CARAS.

    The new project is called Rooting in Tooting, and is part of the RHS’s Greening Grey Britain scheme. We’ll be developing more flourishing, attractive growing ideas that will transform the site.  This practical, experiential project is just one of the ways CARAS is helping newly-arrived people to integrate into the vibrant community of Tooting.

    Chris Young from the RHS led a session with the youth group last Saturday:

    “I was very excited to make my first practical visit to the CARAS youth club, and had a great afternoon working with the youth club members and volunteers. We started by talking about our project to grow plants in various spaces surrounding the centre and then looked at propagating some herbs that could be used later on.
     
    I gave a quick demonstration of how to take cuttings from the plants I’d brought and then everyone got stuck in and had a go.We finished up by extracting seeds from dry seed heads and sorting them into origami seed packets we’d made earlier.

    Everybody was incredibly helpful, enthusiastic and welcoming. I was also impressed that some of the young people knew the plants I brought and told me about how and where they grow in their home countries.Fingers crossed that the cuttings root!
     
    Looking forward to my next visit for the community fun day on Saturday where we’ll set up stand for the project .”

    We’ll be promoting the new project at the CARAS Family Fun Day on Saturday, 22nd August.

  • Tooting Field Days – Free Family fun – Starting Sunday 19 April

    Tooting Field Days are local safaris based in and around Tooting; a chance to get outside and play, walk or make something. We can’t promise lions and zebras but you might discover something you’ve never seen before, think something new or have a mini adventure!

    Tooting Field Days will happen every month on a Sunday afternoon from April until September. The first Field Day is Sunday 19 April.

    The theme for the April Field Day is “Natural Neighbours.” Make a pine cone bird feeder, discover voices of Tooting past and do scavenger hunts in Streatham Cemetry. Drop in for part of the day or join us for the whole event.

    2pm: Meet at Tooting Library (75 Mitcham Road, SW17 9PD) to make a pine cone bird feeder that you can hang in your garden or balcony to encourage more feathered friends to visit you. Materials provided.

    3pm: Depart Tooting Library to do Tootingwalks 1, a specially-made audio walk packed full of music and the voices of local people, talking about Tooting past and present and Tooting’s love of food. MP3 players and maps provided.

    3.45 – 5.30: Treasure Trails, Scavenger Hunts and honey tasting in Streatham Cemetery (enter through gate on Broadwater Road).

    You can join us for the whole afternoon or drop in for just one section.

    All activities are suitable (and fun) for children and adults.

    Tooting Field Day is a collaboration between Transition Town Tooting and local arts organisation fanSHEN.

    To book a (free) place or for more information, click here

  • WHY ‘A Wild Afternoon in Tooting’? Part 2

    This is the second in our mini-series of 3 blogs about ‘why’ experiencing the urban outdoors can be valuable and significant for many people….something we’ll enjoy on Sunday (see the events listing opposite) in an informal way, based on fun and games.

    This blog is just a snapshot of a big subject, looking at another way for young people to experience the outdoors: participating in structured or formal programmes aimed at a very wide range of needs and using many methods. 

    One formal programme that happens right here in Wandsworth is The Challenge National Citizenship Scheme for 15-17 year olds. Read all about it at http://www.ncsthechallenge.org/ 
    There is still time to sign up for 2015!
    Tooting Community Garden has been involved with The Challenge for the past two years, providing practical experience of a community project, in our case in the outdoors.

    The 2013 group tackled our bread wheat – threshing, sifting and then grinding into flour to be baked into Foodival sourdough. It was an active day full of energy!

    The 2014 group had a damp day moving from “Am I expected to actually touch this earth..?” to “Wow, digging potatoes is like finding buried treasure” and putting their photos on Instagram.



    That group’s feedback was expressed tangibly when they donated over £30 to the Garden – cash they had raised in another part of their course and could have easily spent on themselves. We’re grateful –  much appreciated! 

    The Youth Club run by the Klevis Kola Foundation is another local programme. Details here: http://www.kleviskola.org/projects.php
    Alongside Club activities for young people in the asylum seeking and refugee community, a group of teenagers spent a few concentrated hours in the garden in January.  

    With english as the common language (we had five more to spare)…

    …we replanted the living willow yurt, a good wintertime job, and also tied in cut sycamore branches to bend over and define the future shape of the willow structure…so that it can come alive in our imaginations even if it will take a little while to get there

    While it was great to tick off an longstanding Garden job, the problem-solving and interchange between the young men was also rewarding. And that sense of shared achievement was extended to chatting while making tea in the volcano kettle, and sharing Steph’s cake.

    A longer-term structured outdoor programme (based in Brighton):
    Young substance abusers experiencing Forest School activities right in their neighbourhood
     Quoting a project leader:
    “Young people have come to a woodland site on a weekly basis for 10 weeks, and engaged in a whole range of activities based around a campfire setting. 
    The activities have included: fire lighting skills and fire management, using edged tools to make items from natural materials – wood, fibres – and cooking over the fire.

    The strength of the programme lay in the setting, which was, on the surface, very informal. The youngsters would essentially be joining in with the staff, who happened to be in the wood and engaged in activities themselves. There was freedom to choose to do other things, sit around the fire and chat, or make up their own ideas for things to do.”

    Some outcomes?

    • The focus on the the place and the activities on offer and not on ‘self improvement’ or the addressing of ‘issues’ allowed the young people some emotional room to become self-managing, and to make the relationships they needed in a neutral environment.
    • Each young person had their own personal sense of achievement and this was sensitively recognised and encouraged by the trainers.

    If you would like to read the full case study of this Forest School project, click here. Please contact us if you would like to read the wider research project with another ten case studies.

    Thanks for reading: the possibilities for engaging local young people with the urban outdoors are very diverse, the benefits are well known, and there is creative experience to share. Informal or formal, there is a green thread in exploring how powerful the outdoors can be, and it’s useful to get that conversation going locally. 

    See you Sunday for a very informal trial run!
    – Charles

  • WHY we’re offering our ‘Wild Afternoon in Tooting’ this Sunday 22nd Feb: Part 1

    All welcome to the two parts of our free half term Wild Afternoon in Tooting:
    at 1400: participative outdoor games for all the family
    at 1600: showing ‘Project Wild Thing’ film  

    All the details on our events calendar to the right of this blog page.
    It’s going to be a fun and engaging afternoon, even if it’s damp outdoors in the first part when we try out some games.
      
    Being outdoors in the city should be fun, available and accessible, and is valuable for us all. 

    For the next 3 days, we want to illustrate some different aspects of why we believe it’s important to offer ways to enjoy being outdoors – including the personal and informal as well as more formal examples.

    Why go outdoors in Tooting? Part 1 
    Rachel from fanSHEN Theatre will be helping run the games this Sunday. fanSHEN are also developing a 6-month series of free Tooting Field Days, which kick off in April in partnership with TTT.

    “As a warm-up to the Tooting Field Days, we’ll be helping out at Wild Afternoon, playing some games invented by the awesome San Francisco New Games Foundation. 

    Why? In August last year, our fanSHEN team spent almost every Saturday walking around Tooting, looking for good routes for the audio walks we were making. We had some ideas about what the routes might be, landmarks they might take in, how long they might take – but mostly we walked around to see where might be fun or interesting. 

    Flourishing in February
     When we got tired, we stopped at one of Tooting’s brilliant restaurants or cafes and refueled on egg kothu or samosas or 
    coffee while we pored over a map to see where we hadn’t tried yet. 
    We stumbled on places and met people 
    we wouldn’t normally. 
    Maybe because it was August and 
    everyone else was away, it felt a bit like a holiday, exploring a place without the pressure of needing to be in a 
    certain place at a particular time.

    These days weren’t particularly sunny – if you remember, a lovely sunny June gave way to a pretty mediocre July and August last year. They weren’t days when I would have sat outside; I’d have looked out of my window and seen it being overcast and blowy and decided not to make a big effort to leave the flat. But doing this project meant that I spent over 4 hours a day walking around outside. And it was brilliant.

    I think I probably spend most of my life in front of a screen. I don’t think as a kid I ever thought my life as a grown up would be like this. I don’t even think there was a point as a young adult I decided that I was happy to be this screen person because it was worth it for career success or something like that. Somehow I slid into this screen-based existence. Of course, on my desktop I have a picture taken on a real holiday, of a beautiful sunset.
    Flowering in February (hazel)

    So at some point while we were making these walks, I made a promise to myself to spend more time outside. 
    It’s a promise I’ve broken over the last six months. Yeah, it’s been winter, and yeah, I’ve been busy, but the bottom line is that I’ve opted for screen over surroundings, even though I know how much happier I’d be being outside. 
    (And I’m not the only one – there’s a body of evidence to suggest that well-being is improved by getting outside).

    But things are going to change. So we’re making the Tooting Field Day project about being outside, allowing yourself to be surprised and having fun with a bunch of people you might not meet in your daily life. There’ll be walks and games and craftiness and samosas and coffee and maybe even egg kothu! More details to come.
    Hopefully you can make it to the Wild Afternoon on Sunday 22nd and then monthly from April – bet you a samosa it’ll make you happier than spending the afternoon in front of the computer”

    Rachel Briscoe fanshen.org.uk  @fanshentheatre 
    Thank you, Rachel! 
    And all welcome on Sunday…and from April-Sept for the Field Days.
    – Charles

  • Reduce, Re-use, RESPARKLE! crafts workshop

    Tomorrow: Saturday 20th December
    TTT crafts with recycled materials, Tooting Library, 2:00 to 4:00

    Our free drop-in seasonal craft making workshop upstairs at the beautiful Tooting Library, 75 Mitcham Road, SW17 9PD. 

    All welcome, all ages, all tuition and materials provided
    Practical and fun session to illustrate making beautiful things from waste – and reduce carbon. Photos from our 2012 event here
     

    We’ll be using recycled materials to make creative presents, decorations or packages (for yourself or for others). 
    With quite a lot of glitter.

    Many thanks to the team at Tooting Library, and to GLL

    Crafts with recycled materials!
    Our biennial free drop-in seasonal craft making workshop upstairs at the beautiful Tooting Library.
    We’ll be using recycled materials to make creative presents, decorations or packages (for yourself or for others). With quite a lot of glitter.
    All welcome, all ages, all tuition and materials provided.
    Practical and fun session to illustrate making beautiful things from waste – and reduce carbon.
    Photos from our 2012 event here on PD:
    http://www.projectdirt.com/project/7213/#!/journal…
    Many thanks to the team at Tooting Library, and to GLL
    Any queries – email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
    – See more at: http://www.projectdirt.com/apps/event/32290/#sthash.fDExqieP.dpuf
    Crafts with recycled materials!
    Our biennial free drop-in seasonal craft making workshop upstairs at the beautiful Tooting Library.
    We’ll be using recycled materials to make creative presents, decorations or packages (for yourself or for others). With quite a lot of glitter.
    All welcome, all ages, all tuition and materials provided.
    Practical and fun session to illustrate making beautiful things from waste – and reduce carbon.
    Photos from our 2012 event here on PD:
    http://www.projectdirt.com/project/7213/#!/journal…
    Many thanks to the team at Tooting Library, and to GLL
    Any queries – email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
    – See more at: http://www.projectdirt.com/apps/event/32290/#sthash.fDExqieP.dpuf
    Crafts with recycled materials!
    Our biennial free drop-in seasonal craft making workshop upstairs at the beautiful Tooting Library.
    We’ll be using recycled materials to make creative presents, decorations or packages (for yourself or for others). With quite a lot of glitter.
    All welcome, all ages, all tuition and materials provided.
    Practical and fun session to illustrate making beautiful things from waste – and reduce carbon.
    Photos from our 2012 event here on PD:
    http://www.projectdirt.com/project/7213/#!/journal…
    Many thanks to the team at Tooting Library, and to GLL
    Any queries – email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
    – See more at: http://www.projectdirt.com/apps/event/32290/#sthash.fDExqieP.dpuf

    Crafts with recycled materials!
    Our biennial free drop-in seasonal craft making workshop upstairs at the beautiful Tooting Library.
    We’ll be using recycled materials to make creative presents, decorations or packages (for yourself or for others). With quite a lot of glitter.
    All welcome, all ages, all tuition and materials provided.
    Practical and fun session to illustrate making beautiful things from waste – and reduce carbon.
    Photos from our 2012 event here on PD:
    http://www.projectdirt.com/project/7213/#!/journal…
    Many thanks to the team at Tooting Library, and to GLL
    Any queries – email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
    – See more at: http://www.projectdirt.com/apps/event/32290/#sthash.fDExqieP.dpuf

  • Insect Hotel Wk3 – The Rising!

    Often with our work with Gatton, we’ll augment the sessions with the students with extra hours to maintain momentum as well as keep us on track. These augmenting sessions usually happen during normal garden hours on a Sunday, 11am to 1pm. So come down if you specifically want to contribute to this project. Send a message via transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    Week 3 saw the Insect Hotel rise-up from raw timbers to an upright structure – a great moment. Luckily, we had a couple of load testers to immediately make sure it was suitable for grubs to climb up!

    1. Preparing the ground  
    2. Building the frames
    The timbers used were the
    ones Gatton School had
    cut in preceding weeks
    3. Laying flag stone foundations

    4. There she rises! With two eager 
    climbers waiting in the wings

    5. Bang on level…

    The timbers used to be a fence that passed across the site – a  priority for us is to re-use as much as possible.

    The team on the day was Diana (with the level), Gerard (with the sideburns) Benji with the yellow coat and Dominic with the smile! Jenny is on the camera and that’s me in the hat!

    6. Here come the load testers

    Click below to read about how Gatton continued the build…

    7. Shelf building

     The following Tuesday, Gatton returned and the  students cracked on with making the shelves  that will go into the structure. 

     For us, having these two sides to a project is  very interesting and valuable. The sense of  teamwork is palpable. With the three Year 6  projects of the Rainwater Catchment, the Cold  Frame and now the Insect Hotel, we really do  achieve more than we could on our own through  sharing the project.
    8. What do you think??
    Meanwhile, our experiments with insect habitats continued. This week, we looked at habitats for the solitary bee, as well as other critters. Using an old oversized drainpipe, we cut up some old bamboo and stuffed it full. The solitary bees crawl in there and make a nest for their young, stacked along the tubes – pretty cool and very easy to make… they like a sunny, warm, dry spot – which they’ll get in the final hotel.
    A first home
    Meanwhile, for the solitary bees…

  • Week 2 of the Insect Hotel

     On Tuesday 11th November, we enjoyed the second session of our Insect Hotel Project at the Community Garden, with Year 6 from Gatton Primary School in Tooting.
     Each week there is a new group of 10 students from the two classes of Year 6, so it’s always good to welcome them to the garden before cracking into our project work. Charlie showed the 4000 yr old flint tool and the sea urchin fossil – found when the original veg beds were dug, only 3 years ago. Come along to witness them yourself.

    Can you spot the eco-system Engineer?

    It’s always good to ask the simple questions for any TTT project we undertake and our schools work is no different.

     So why build an Insect Hotel? This week’s group thought it would help the insects, give them protection and shelter and be a place to hibernate – all good, thoughtful points we reflected on for the rest of the session.

    Cutting the corner posts for the Hotel

    The measure…
    …the cut…
     Each group of 3 students figured out how to mark out before cutting. In the session, we completed work on our 4 main supporting posts, made from re-purposed fence posts. 
    …success!
      This engages maths, logical  thought and, of course, safe tool  use with every child using the  saw.

     Our group were brilliant –  engaged and enthusiastic  throughout.

    St.Bug’s Hotel!
    Exploring Insect Habitat 
     Each week, we’re playing with habitat by making a quick and dirty floor level hotel to inform the habitats we will place in the final structure. This weeks theme was crevices – nooks and crannies to encourage invertebrates and ladybirds – and was mostly built with tiles, twigs and an earth mound for our master ecosystem engineers – the humble worm. 
     So come along to the community garden, see the Insect Hotel emerge and explore the temporary accommodation the students of Gatton are creating! The Garden is open every Sunday, 11am to 1pm at 5 North Drive, Tooting, SW16 1RN.

  • Enjoying the Outdoors in Tooting – one theme for our St George’s Open Day stand

    Come and talk to us at our stand at St George’s Community Open Day on Saturday 15th Nov. about opportunities to get outside in Tooting. Outdoor Tooting can be a surprising and rewarding place for all ages, and TTT want to encourage more young people and adults to get outside – for fun, to play, for exercise, to meet people, to learn – & more.

    Four glimpses of our outdoor project with Gatton School:                                                      


    This morning we hosted 70 
    Year 4 children, staff and parents who were investigating what’s living in six different Community Garden habitats – with the group braving showers and wind.

    The end of today’s session, under the holm oak.
    Time to go home, and now the sun has come out.

    Last week, in one of the weekly sessions with Reception children

     

    A year ago, Year Six made a practice DIY drainpipe system to learn about getting water from the roof to the butts for the rainwater harvesting build project. 
    It worked!

     

    Back in September, just before the Tooting Foodival, teenagers from The Challenge project helped to harvest potatoes at the Garden, and much more. 
    (The rainwater build now doubling as an outdoor room, nice…)

    Adults are welcome outdoors! 
    Another way to enjoy being outside is to try on of FanSHEN Theatre’s Tootingwalks: two audio tours of Tooting that you can download to your mobile, and then walk the guided tour – or load on your computer to preview at home, like a radio programme. 
    For all the details online, click here. 
    Chat with us about the Tootingwalks if you come to St George’s.

    Or, get ideas with Project Wild Thing: click here for info. Adults or young people can be bold and pledge to spend an hour outside for every hour spent looking at a screen…..try it!

    We’re going to plan some Wild Days Out(doors) in Tooting in 2015, and also show the  ‘Project Wild Thing’ film one evening – keep in touch, chat at St George’s, and come and get involved.

  • Construction Begins on the Insect Hotel!

    This week we embarked on our next garden-based project with Year 6 students and teachers from Gatton Primary School in Tooting. This follows the Rainwater Catchment and Cold Frame projects of last year, as reported in this blog and on the education page of Issue 6 in the Transition Free Press.

    What is an Insect Hotel?

    Over the next 7 weeks we will be making an Insect Hotel! Why? This particular project is interesting to us and the school because it turns our attention to creepy crawlies, master pollinators, mini beasts, ecosystem engineers! Essential members of the garden food chain, both up and down!

    We’ll be encouraging solitary bees, worms, ladybirds, invertebrates, centipedes and millipedes to move in – still doesn’t tickle your fancy? How about spiders and wood lice, lacewings and stag beetles not to mention fungi and bacteria. All essential for enhancing biodiversity in the garden as well as the health of our wider ecosystem – something we all need.

    It might look like this!

    How will we do this? We’ll focus on creating the habitats that they love to make a 5 Star, concierged, en suite bug palace. Who wouldn’t want to move in!

    The project engages carpentry skills, exploration into bug habitats, study into ecosystems, recycling and re-using of materials and will be an ongoing learning resource at the garden.

    This first week, our main task was to start cutting the uprights for the structure of the hotel, defining its height. For this, we’re re-using fencing timbers donated from our site at 5 North Drive.

    You can find out more at Inspiration Green’s Insect Hotels article and The Wildlife Trust Building an Insect Hotel Habitat