Wildlife Gardening Forum, London

Two of us from TTT joined the Wildlife Gardening Forum on 28 November - a hundred people face to face from many sectors and all sizes of organisation: government departments, researchers, urban farmers, scientists, community enterprises, architects, 'green infrastructure' experts...and individual gardeners.

The programme (see it here.) was an excellent fit with local steps to a sustainable Tooting - at the very practical level of bringing more of nature into all our lives, and appreciating nature's relationship with our wellbeing, as well as responding to global challenges like the growth of cities and climate change.

For interest: do you know...
That over 60% of the area of the City of London is roofed - a third of which is suitable now to become 'green roofs' growing native plants, cooling the environment, and looking beautiful?

The Forum aims to share practice, knowledge, and science, not hot air - and that reminds me, the meeting was held in a retrofitted tram shed which has been developed to the 'passive house' standard: super-insulated, airtight...and with no supplementary heating at all. Great to have the location, and the topic, all joined up!

It left me with positive examples of things we can do together locally. In particular it was great timing in relation to the current community consultation on plans for Springfield Park, and the opportunity to make sustainability and biodiversity the foundations for all the activities of the new Park.
We'll follow up with more about that - for now, see www.springfieldregeneration.co.uk

Green Gown Award presentation 27th November

Sadiq Khan MP presented the 'Best Newcomer' Green Gown Award from the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges to Sue Rimmer, Principal of South Thames College, at the Furzedown Project in Moyser Road.

This local project with the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone involved many partners, including Transition Town Tooting.

The Award citation described the project as 'an excellent example of a local sustainability alliance: learning with and learning from other organisations and sectors'.



Andy Marks, Head Teacher of Eardley School, outlined the new project starting in the school: the first step is an energy efficiency evaluation being carried out this week. 
 
And we had an excellent celebratory cake!

Many thanks to all the project's participants and supporters - we will share more updates soon. For more about the Award, please see the more detailed posting below in this blog.

Vision & Pathways 2012

Some of the hands that contributed to this weekend's Vision & Pathways Day, again held at the fantastic chapel in Streatham Cemetery.  Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially Malik Gul of WCEN and Graham Peterson of the Greener Jobs Alliance who both joined us over lunch.

Will Tooting begin to look like this imagined plasticine scene some time in the near future?  (Where Jane claims dogs will rule ... which might fit with Jasmine's petting zoo ...)


And what a lot of potential projects we have to develop in 2013 (see left)  How will we choose?

Lots of food for thought ... & a great selection of home made food brought by everyone (thanks Mal for organising).

We did some listening:

some stretching:

and some prioritising:

One of our next steps will be to refine TTT's Strategy.  We'll share when and how we'll do that: all welcome to contribute.



Day of Stories in Tooting Library - Visions for Tooting on a big jigsaw

On Saturday 3rd November TTT helped Tooting Library run a drop-in Day of Stories.
Library staff and volunteers read engaging stories, Alison offered a participative 'live' story, and Jane & Charles ran 2 hours of making and crafts that also told a story: 'What would you like to see in Tooting?'

Children and adults took part, and there was a great atmosphere on the first floor of the Library - the sun streaming in the windows, mixed ages busy on different activities on the carpet or tables, a row of other young people on the computers, storytelling in the middle of the space: all in all, certainly what we love to see in Tooting! 



Many thanks to Liz, Bill and Heather in the Library. We are hoping to be be offering crafts and making again on Saturday December 15th in the Library - more details to follow, and please come along.

Green Gown Awards 2012: the winner is our shared project in Tooting's Furzedown Low Carbon Zone

South Thames College has won the prestigious 2012 Green Gown Award in the 'Best Newcomer' category, from a strong field of 5 other finalists.

Sadiq Khan MP will celebrate the Award with a local presentation to Sue Rimmer, Principal of South Thames College

The Green Gown Awards recognise exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken in tertiary education across the UK
This award was won for the project carried out in the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone with the Greener Jobs Alliance, Transition Town Tooting, and other valued local partners.
That's fantastic recognition of hard work, and will help enormously with the profile (and funding!) of further projects.

For all the detail, see the Winner's brochure: on page 4 there's the detail about our project -  including a picture of a TTT Carbon Conversations workshop in action in Furzedown. Go to the Awards website at http://www.eauc.org.uk/2012_green_gown_awards

We made this video in spring 2012 about the project - do have another look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNRx6tNFG8U

Award celebration:
There's a celebration on Tuesday November 27th from 6 to 7pm at the Furzedown Project, 91-93 Moyser Road, SW16.
Sadiq Khan MP will present the Award to Sue Rimmer, Principal of South Thames College
All welcome for some celebration cake!
Details in the Events listing here on the TTT blog, and for a .pdf copy of the celebration flyer, click here.

 

For more information, email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com