Transition Town Tooting

In Transition 2.0

2012-02-03T13:53:00.001Z

The Trashcatchers Carnival and Brixton e-currency featured in the premiere screening of Transition 2.0 at the Sivayogam Hall in Tooting last night alongside some very interesting and inspring stories of transition inner and outer from around the world. Fuelled by the excellent Pooja samosas and a classic Lucy fruit cake (that's a food item not an individual), a crowd of 60+ enjoyed the film and a good natter afterwards around the thought-provoking issues raised.

I loved the idea of interest on investment capital being paid in locally baked bread and the Italian transitioners who ran for public office and won! What stories inspired you? And what similar kinds of project could we initiate in Tooting? dt

World Premiere in Tooting!

2012-01-18T10:54:00.001Z

We are delighted to announce that the World Premiere of the film Transition 2.0 will take place in Tooting in a simultaneous broadcast with Totnes and other Transition initiatives around the world on Thursday 2nd February.

And look that's the Upper Tooting Road taking centre stage on the poster, the day the Trashcatchers' Carnival took over the streets! Tooting features and so might you, so put the date in your diary!

Film venue:
Sivayogam Hall, First Floor, Sri Muthumari Amman Temple

Address:
180-186 Upper Tooting Road
Tooting, London, SW17 7EJ

Note: please use entrance on corner of Hebdon Road and Upper Tooting Road.

Time: 7:30 for 8:00 pm screening prompt. Strictly no alcohol.

Entry will be free, but donations are welcome.

Watch the trailer here.

TTT First Tuesday on January 10th: 'Just Do It'

2012-01-14T17:39:00.001Z

For the first of our free monthly meetings in 2012, we looked at What are the actions you’d love to take this year to help build your own and Tooting’s resilience, sustainability, wellbeing?

This took us into the territory of New Year Resolutions - maybe easily made, and maybe hard to act on?

We shared some of our own hopes for action in 2012 - personal and / or communal.

We looked at some
meanings of resolution:
making a decision...
reaching consensus...
and getting things into
focus, as in 'high-resolution'
photographs.

We all need inspiration to make bold plans, especially in a challenging period of complex change, when we often need to act without being sure what will take place en route. To encourage us, we shared two exciting stories where Tooting people took action when 'what would happen next' was not guaranteed.

Liz described One Little Wheel, a cycle trip between Europe and Thailand last year.

Jake described his own experience of non-violent direct action, as shown in the film Just Do It.

Finally, bringing what you would love to do in 2012 back to the experience of the meeting participants, Belinda outlined a set of keys to happiness to explore what supports each of us to act.

One Little Wheel:

Woven into the Liz and Catherine's cycle ride between Europe and Thailand was an extra goal, beyond getting there safely.

They committed themselves to stop often and talk with people they met about the local experience and impact of HIV / AIDS, which is a challenging if necessary conversation.

See their website at http://onelittlewheel.com/ for their experience of raising this subject in schools, in the street, with the groups they met all along their journey.

Just Do It:

We showed some of the new documentary Just Do It: see http://justdoitfilm.com/ It is a 'Tale of Modern Day Outlaws' which describes environmental activism from the insiders' viewpoint. Jake is in the film, and talked about his own experience.

Jake also described the new campaign he is involved with now, which focuses on fuel poverty in the UK: see http://fuelpovertyaction.wordpress.com/

There are events to join, planned from 27th - 30th January.

Both of these vivid and very personal stories were worthy of much longer sessions of course - and we were really grateful to hear them and be able to chat with Liz and Jake about what they learned. At the same time, we are not all going to cycle through Asia, or superglue ourselves to the RBS head office.... Given that the example of these stories can prompt us to be brave when taking our own local action, on whatever scale, what can help sustain us as we act?

12 keys to happiness:

As one way of looking at our own prompts for action, Belinda offered 12 keys to happiness- a set of behaviours such as appreciating, being active, optimism derived from wellbeing research and practice sources including the New Economics Foundation and the NHS. Each of us selected and discussed a key which we felt would support us to continue to act in 2012 on the things we want to do.

As a practical experiment, we'll continue working with these keys thoughout 2012 at each TTT meeting as a way to measure the keys' usefulness as a tool. We also hope to provide baseline information on community wellbeing.
We'll explain more about this idea soon.

Happy New Year!

Just Do It

2012-01-06T19:01:00.001Z

Tuesday's Open event is called Just Do It!
What are the actions you’d love to take this year to help build your own and Tooting’s resilience, sustainability, wellbeing? What do you really want to do? There isn’t a ‘right answer’ to this question, so it’s exciting & inspiring to hear others’ ideas and visions, share yours, get some tips, plan to act.
At the event we will:
Ø Hear examples of recent ‘just do it’ actions by local colleagues – including a cycle trip last year between Thailand and Europe
Ø Watch and discuss some of the new documentary film ‘Just Do It’, which explores the Climate Camps, creating Transition Heathrow, and non-violent direct action over the past 2 years.
Ø Do some blue sky action planning together
Ø Share your views, and hear others’ ideas too
Ø Share Transition Tooting’s plans for 2012 We’re looking forward to a great evening, and a year of change…

Tue, 10th January, 7pm, Mushkil Aasaan, 220 Upper Tooting Road

Meanwhile, this weekend the Tooting pound team will be on the streets on Saturday and the Community garden team will be planting willows on Sunday. Feel free to join in with either activity!

Two London meetings in December emphasising community resilience

2011-12-16T12:20:00.009Z

TTT members took part in two recent London meetings:
London Transition Groups Gathering

On Dec 1^st, 100 participants from over 25 London Transition groups - and beyond - met at City Hall, by Tower Bridge on the Thames.

As well as meeting new people and following up links and ideas, we heard quick updates from 4 speakers: on the London Low Carbon Communities Network, from two of London’s funded Low Carbon Zones, and from the founder of Project Dirt. All these talks mixed humour, honesty about mistakes and celebration of successes with encouragement for the rest of us in our diverse community projects.

The main part of the evening was led by Rob Hopkins, who founded the Transition Movement seven years ago. His new book ‘The Transition Companion’ has just been launched: developed over 2 years of listening to and collecting stories about many Transition groups. (Yes, there is a lot in the book about Transition Tooting…have a look!).

Rob facilitated the ‘audience’ to participate by exploring a new

Transition tool – a set of cards illustrating the 40-plus ‘Ingredients of Transition’ which groups are using to support their projects and communities – and which he describes in the new book.

Photo: Rob looks on as TTT's ingedients are mapped by many hands using the picture cards

Different groups in the gathering used sets of these cards to look at their own activities, history and plans - laying them out on the floor as timelines, or as maps.

It was fun, and easier to do than to explain. We had great ‘show and tell’ discussions as we went round the room, seeing what sense different groups have made of the ingredients.

Photo: Jeni describes TTT's journey

If you would like to know more about these ‘Ingredients of Transition’, have a look on line at http://www.transitionnetwork.org/ingredients

2011-12-16T12:19:00.001Z

City University Food Symposium
On December 13^th, City University hosted its second Food Symposium, bringing together over 150 people from community and consumer groups, farmers and food producers, wholesalers and retail chains, unions, universities, the NHS, local authorities, and the government.
The overall topic was the direction, roles and challenges facing UK food policy - influenced of course by change across the globe.
The day was convened by Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, who has supported several Transition Tooting events and lives locally.

After a morning of talks from a wide range of experts, the group divided into three (‘Civil Society’; the ‘Food Supply Chain’; the ‘State’) and addressed these questions: “what are the current challenges facing the UK food system from your perspective?”, and “what can be done about those challenges, and who will do it?”

Some of the practical points that came up which are very relevant to communities such as Tooting included:

Ø How can consumers have more direct involvement with food production?

Ø How can we find delicious and nutritious food in a time of austerity, when processed food that’s high in sugars and fats is the cheapest to buy, and available everywhere?

Ø How can we integrate the health benefits of good diet with other factors that promote wellbeing – exercise, keeping active, connecting with other people?

Ø How can we reduce waste in food (<50% of disposable income is spent on food, and <30% of food is wasted).

Ø How to use good food well, and also ‘cut carbon’ - in the home, and in procurement by large purchasers such as hospitals?

Ø How can we establish ‘Fair Trade’ locally in the UK?

Practical advice & feedback from these sessions will be shared soon, and we will post a link on the TTT blog.

Footfall on our High Streets (plus some webbed feet too.....)

2011-12-15T21:23:00.002Z

It's a fact: a local economy needs to take account of Peak Oil and Climate Change. We cannot 'grow' our economy without recognising we live on a finite planet. Our fiscal 'crisis' is tagged to these two reality-checked 'barriers to growth.' How exciting to see the new government Mary Portas report on bringing life back onto our High Streets talk of community well-being and sustainability - though she explains it in terms of building social and cultural capital to build economic capital - bringing human footfall back onto our High Streets to create vibrant centres.

To join the dots between what Transition's been exploring for 4 years and what Portas herself is saying, do look at this recent Transition Culture blog by Rob Hopkins. 'Another world is not only possible..she's opening a bakery around the corner'.

'The national chains and large stores can increase our oil dependency rather than reduce it, and this is not a time when that is a smart thing to do." A resilient, thriving, sustainable living local economy instead takes account of 'plugging the leaks' in our local Tooting economy and recognises how much MORE small and medium businesses contribute to local resilience than large brand companies who relocate at the drop of a hat. Smaller businesses are the ones that actually build a community’s resilience. We do hope Wandsworth Council are taking note..

Portas' idea of local people as 'co-creators' of town life rather than simply consumers came alive during the TTT/BATCA re-envisioned High Street excercise back in March 2010 Let's Make Tooting Better . A vision was conjured with more people-friendly streets, facilities for arts and learning and safe and easy places to meet, a redeveloped Tooting Market and much more..As we all move brilliantly down the road together in that direction, let's not forget to take account of the real barriers to growth - peak oil and climate change.

And doing just that, see Tooting's own contribution to Transition in 10 Objects - spot 2 Trashcatching Carnival Ducks, Bertie and Gertie adding to the footfall on July 4th 2010 along with 5000 others...now that's what we call footfall!

Watch this space for work on Tooting's community currency and more footfall action in 2012. A good season to all.

TTT

Festive Making & Social II

2011-12-08T21:13:00.001Z

An interesting evening learning new craft ideas and chatting was had by all on Tuesday evening. Wreath making from Community Garden unwanted ivy (great idea Maddie) and wrapping paper printed from polystyrene sheets (thanks Gillian) were particular hits alongside Mal's poms-poms! Is Hilary still knitting that pink thing? What will it be?

Festive Making & Social

2011-12-04T16:57:00.000Z

Tuesday sees the return of the TTT Festive Making & Social event which last year saw many of you unleash your creative skills making greeting cards, wallets from juice cartons, paper and even mincemeat!

This year, we have a plethora of talented creative types taking part with decorative pom-poms, origami and recycling of unwanted gifts already on the agenda.

Why not come along on the 6th December and get involved? Perhaps you would like to teach others a new skill or simply join in and learn something new yourself? Or both!

Things You Might Bring:

An unwanted gift to swap
Colourful wool for pom-poms
Any old wrapping paper, junk mail or magazines to recycle into something artistic

It's suitable for all the family. There will be a (non-alcoholic) fruit punch and something to eat, but do bring any food you can to share. The event runs from 6pm till 9pm at Mushkil Aasaan 222 Upper Tooting Rd

Vision & Pathways Reflections

2011-11-25T15:57:00.084Z

A few reflections sent by participants after the Vision & Pathways day which took us from Where has TTT come from? via Where are we now? Where are we going? and How are we going to get there? to How will we know when we get there?

"I stepped through a leaf circle into a very different space ... a really great thought provoking day"

"I loved being in the cemetery - it was a gorgeous spot to be on such a beautiful autumn day"

"Wow ... thanks all for lovely day and your company"

"A comfortable and enjoyable day spent with friends planning and thinking about life. If I had stayed at home I would have been busy sanding, painting and cleaning, this was much better!"

"My highspots of the day were where everyone talked about when they first encountered TTT and the what their highlight had been - it was lovely to hear how what felt sometimes like small events or moments had rippled out and caught people's imaginations".

Report of WEF meeting on local impact of the Green New Deal

2011-11-21T18:26:00.002Z

Several of us from Transition Tooting attended this months' excellent WEF Open Meeting and WEF Co-Chair Jon Irwin has very kindly written up the details of the meeting for those who were not able to attend.

Green Deal - Notes from the Open Meeting 3rd November 2011
John Alker, Policy Director of the Green Building Council (GBC) introduced the Green Deal, as Justine Greening MP was delayed in arriving.

Background to the GBC:
It is a charity funded by it's members (building organisations, local authorities number amongst them). They are apolitical and can be viewed as part trade association part NGO. They form part of an international network of other green building council's with a presence in 80 countries.
25% of UK energy use is by UK housing stock. On average there are between 25-30k deaths each winter that are attributable to the cold.

Green Deal:
GBC has been involved in 2009 proposing a "pay as you save" scheme. The ideas from this have been taken up in the Green Deal. The charge for work done under the green deal is attached the the property over a 25 year period. Key element to the Green Deal is the Golden rule. Only measures that result in cost savings through energy efficiency over the lifetime of the deal can be included in it.

Energy efficiency should be part of market valuation of properties, to provide greater incentives for home owners to invest, and for buyers to take into account the energy efficiency of their potential future home.

There is the possibility for the green deal to include much more than insulation / double glazing. Boilers / lighting could also be included in time, providing that they satisfy the golden rule.

Key challenges:
1 Uptake
2 Assessment - needs to be robust
3 Industry capacity and skills to do the work
4 Interest rates & Golden rule
5 Access for SME's

Needs to be strong uptake for it to work. Assessment of homes needs to be good so that the improvements work. There need to be skilled people who can do the work. Interest rates are key, because of the financing nature of the deal. If interest rates soar, then that could limit what could be done. Access for SME's, a lot of people in the building trade are working in SME's, they need to have access to it as they do the majority of refurbishment work in people's homes.

By 2018 rental properties need to meet level E of energy efficiency. By 2016, tenants will be able to ask their landlords to make improvements to meet that energy rating, and the landlords will need to make the necessary improvements.

Possible incentives:
In x number of years time all properties need to meet a certain energy efficiency level.
Stamp duty rebate - if people improve their properties within a certain time frame after buying the property a rebate could be offered on the stamp duty.
Change VAT on services to make buildings more energy efficient match levels on goods which result in increased energy efficiency.
Green Investment Bank could help provide the finance behind the deal.

Justine Greening MP
Commented that the Green Deal won't be good for everyone, as it will depend on each individual's circumstances and needs. Local provision of services is key, as is affordability. An accredited surveyor would put together a package for that building. Accredited people do the work, they invoice the energy supplier. The "debt" is attached to the property, and would be paid off through the energy bills. The principal is that, from the month after a person has Green Deal work done in their homes, their energy bills will be less, and will continue to decrease. By next Autumn, the Green Deal should have started.

Comments raised by audience:
Hassle particularly for older people having other people coming into their homes - The assessor would work with the individual to create a personalised green deal for them and their property.

Cllr Jonathan Cook mentioned that Wandsworth Council is doing a trial with 1500 houses in Furzedown / Graveney, with work to improve those properties in partnership with local suppliers.

Consumer protection is key - accreditation of suppliers as well as product warranties.

Clean Air Act - radical changes to homes has happened before. In 1950's over a 10 year period some 100,000 homes were converted in Wandsworth to stop burning coal.

Switching energy suppliers - that would still be possible. The "debt" would be attached the the property, and the "repayments" would be taken as part of your energy bill from your new supplier.

Vision & Pathways

2011-11-19T23:33:00.002Z

We had an inspiring Vision & Pathways all day event at the amazing Streatham Cemetery (in Tooting) today, covering the past, present and future of TTT. Hopefully we'll have a write up in due course, but meanwhile here is some photographic evidence!

This bucolic rural idyll is in Tooting; no seriously it is ...

These people have vision or are at least on a pathway ...

And this year's Turner prize nominees are ...

More photos here:

Local Economy & Currency

2011-11-09T21:46:00.040Z

At the First Tuesday event on 1st November 2011 members of the local community came together to discuss the issues facing the local economy and what could be achieved by developing a community currency. Could a Tooting Pound become a reality? With one of highest levels of independent small businesses in the country, people like Tooting’s quirky feeling of energy, which we would not want to lose in favour of tidiness or an influx of chain stores.

Encouragingly the group felt that a community currency might help facilitate connections in the local economy, while also boosting the sense of community, causing people to explore new places to shop. Perhaps the successful night time economy could help drive the daytime economy and maybe the currency would enable small businesses to feel connected, resilient, and therefore stronger together.

Thanks to Alex from TT Brixton who gave us a fascinating account of their experience of developing, implementing and maintaining the Brixton pound, to Chuck for bringing his money facts and extensive collection of bank notes from round the world and to Tim for running the evening and continuing to champion the concept.

We are definitely encouraged to put more time into developing a community currency with the caveat that ultimately the success or failure of the project rests with local people and businesses who might use it. It is obvious that if people in our community feel important, valued and included in the project, then the currency is more likely to succeed. After all is said and done, it will become their money!

Experiencing the camp at St Paul's

2011-11-04T13:08:00.006Z

This past week, two TTT supporters have made separate visits to the 'Occupy London' camp outside St Paul's Cathedral. We asked them both to blog on our site to share their responses, and we hope you find their personal comments interesting and thought-provoking:

Jesse's experience:
On Saturday I decided to see what all the fuss was about and spend some time at the Occupy London Stock Exchange Camp outside St Paul’s. As has been commented on in the mainstream media it is difficult to simplify and describe; I thought it would be good to share my experience and let everyone know how they can get involved if they're interested.
Firstly, I feel the comments that have been made that the camp is ‘incoherent’ and ‘don’t know what they want’ are missing the point. Protests such as strikes and marches often have demands but the Occupy movement is different, it’s about participation and opening up space to have a conversation about the type of world and society we want to live in, talking to one another and working on solutions together. It made me think that Transition Towns are, in a way, also about ‘occupying’ our communities positively to help build resilience.

If, like me, you don’t think we can solve our environmental problems without addressing issues of social justice then I think the coming together of environmental activism with calls for social justice is a very positive step. I have been back today to listen to a talk by Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone: essential reading on the effect of inequality on social cohesion and a huge number of other issues from levels of trust to crime rates.

The other Transition-related part of the camp it is that I was very impressed by how they have created a low carbon community from scratch. Great public transport links, communal veggie cooking, low heating bills and an excellent waste management system. I heard a rumour that they have single-handedly increased the City of London’s recycling levels!

If you want to get involved at the camp discussing how environmental and economic justice are linked, the environment working group meet at the info tent outside St Paul’s on Wednesday and Sunday at 5pm. There is also a working group dedicated to recycling and waste management at the camp. I’m not sure when they meet, but as I said it’s about participation - so go along and find out!
I’d be interested in your thoughts about the Occupy movement - do add comments below.

All the best, Jesse

Jane's experience:

2011-11-04T13:07:00.001Z

I had been meaning to offer solidarity to the St Paul’s Camp for days and decided to spend last Wednesday there with the tenters. I arrived from the Tube fired up that someone is making a visible statement, to cry out against the extreme levels of inequality in our society. It has been too long.
From the hedonistic values and consumer culture of the ‘there is no such thing as society’ eighties, is main stream society now getting the message of social justice? Has the financial crisis seen a phoenix begin to arise from the violent ashes of recession?

I went down the alley close to the Cathedral via the cash point, reflecting on the fact I had ready cash, and saw the tops of tents around the side of the site. I was anxious in case there was an aggressive police presence; remembering three hours of kettling on the Student March last November.

But it was fine! Relaxed, wet, a bit miserable...tents of children painting, tents for faith groups, tents for bags and supplies. Posters asking for volunteer first aiders and night guards for the kitchen. My favourite banner was ‘Compost Capitalism’, and a beautiful small embroidery saying ‘liberation’ hanging on the official wire fencing. A row of recycling bins…boy they are good!

One tent was selling cakes and teas, like a church fete. I wanted to make a donation so asked a guy who to speak to - he guided me, and as he went repositioned tents on the way, ones which the rain and wind had blown over. There was nothing to stake the tents to …some had bags of rubble; others, a wing and a prayer.
‘We all look after each other’ he said as he fiddled with the guy ropes …great, I thought, a tight group. I had read in the paper about their voting system and how hand signals were used for the group to indicate the need to talk, the need to shut up and to give someone else a go, and how to agree or disagree. Well organised.
My guide, who I was worried about being cold, was handing out leaflets to passers-by. It was a bit of a cattle market with tourists taking pictures… but what a great location to spread the word!

I went to the Info Tent (good organisation), with info on the day’s events: a discussion on the Tobin tax; faith tent mediation (shame I missed it). The tent had hand-sewn fabric pigeon holes for the different groups for messages; I clocked the ‘outreach group’ one.
There were huddles of young people standing around, talking about issues. After donating I wandered freely …reading the posters and looking at the art and messages woven into the wire fencing by the wind and rain. There was also a donation spot for food.
I took a bunch of ‘Occupy London’ flyers and started to hand them out, and wandered back to Evensong at Southwark Cathedral, distributing I went. Walking cross the Millennium Bridge I reflected on the camp and its Statement of Consensus reached on different issues, which were printed on the reverse of their flyer. I agreed strongly with each one. I felt exhilarated and wondered what would be useful support to keep those guys warm in the cold and wet over the coming days and hopefully months.

What will happen next, who knows? But it is true that anything is possible, even in our ordered British society. You just don’t know!
Jane

Local Economy & Community Currency Event

2011-10-22T10:30:00.003+01:00

What can we do together to support the local economy?

What's the value in developing a Tooting community currency?

Many local businesses are in direct competition with national chains, the internet and large suburban shopping centres. When 'big business' wins, another local shop closes or a small business goes bankrupt.

If you, like us, are concerned about the local economy and wish to talk to other like minded people our Local Economy & Community Currency event on Nov 1st might be just for you! We will be discussing how to strengthen our local economy, build new relationships, and how we spend our money. We will ask if we want a thriving local economy, or are we happy with our money going elsewhere? Do we want extended supply chains or short ones? How would this benefit us? Would a community currency help?

Venue: Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Rd 7-9 pm. All Welcome.

Gaia - the Cabaret

2011-10-19T11:19:00.000+01:00

At short notice, Peter Horton of Gaia's Company is offering an extra night of his current cabaret tour of songs, sketches and curiosity. Transition Town Tooting is delighted to support Gaia the Cabaret at the Wheatsheaf in Tooting Bec next Tues 25th Oct at 8pm. Come along!

"Common Knowledge: Drawing Tooting"

2011-10-17T16:13:00.001+01:00

Sunny weather brought 15 local people, including several Transition Tooting friends, onto Tooting Common to join a Wandsworth Arts ‘Big Draw’ event on Saturday 15th Oct:

"Explore the hidden ecology of Tooting Common

with artist Jacques Nimki through drawing, talking and walking.”

We practiced 'measured drawing', collected leaves and seeds in paper boxes which we made on the spot, and tried drawing in tiny sketchbooks – no excuses for not having materials with us!

We looked at the Common through our own varied and personal experience of the space - including searching for stories in the apparently random paths we followed (Jacques calls them ‘desire lines’). We felt this drawing and observing both plants and social meaning should be continued - all part of valuing what makes Tooting special.

Foodival & Roots

2011-09-21T10:34:00.000+01:00

More photos from Foodival now online - thank you Chuck! Keep 'em coming if you have any good ones!

Meanwhile congratulations to Tim for the successful first run out of a Tooting currency at Foodival with our prototype pound, already known on the streets of south London as a "ROOT" (rather than a quid). Go to the ROOT'S NEW WEBSITE (fast work there Tim) - it's the destination of choice for anyone out there even vaguely intrigued by the idea of helping put the Root in Tooting.

Fun at Foodival!

2011-09-17T19:18:00.001+01:00

It was a great afternoon at the Tooting Foodival with local fruit and veg turned into delicious Tooting dishes by local restaurants and purchased by the Tooting public using a prototype Tooting currency the Tooting Root, all in our local Tooting Market! Thanks to all who helped out including restaurants Meze, Al Mirage, Lahore Karahi, Rick's Cafe, Pooja and Spice Village not to mention the fabulous Brick Box for hosting the event. More details and photos on the Foodival pages soon.

Queuing for food, "Tooting Roots" in hand

"I've never seen it so packed round here"

Countdown to Foodival

2011-09-13T10:16:00.000+01:00

The Food Group are gearing up for Saturday's Foodival, this year taking place at Tooting Market, 21-23 Tooting High St. All donations of fruit and veg to be magically transformed by local restuaurants into special low food mile Tooting dishes are very welcome. There's a drop off at the Tooting Community Garden on Friday evening 4-7 pm and also a collection service. Please see the Foodival page for full details. We look forward to seeing you there!

To get involved, donate produce or ask a question please mail Giles

Foodival 2011

2011-09-09T15:17:00.001+01:00

More details on the Foodival Blog

A weekend spent getting ecologically deep

2011-08-08T22:31:00.002+01:00

I thought I’d take a few minutes to write a bit about a recent ecological/environmental conference I attended, which I found completely inspiring, energizing and life affirming. If you’ve not come across Green & Away, it’s Europe’s only tented conference centre, with everything in the open air or under canvas. Set in rolling fields outside Worcester, by the river Teme, I’d highly recommend it. I took part in the Resurgence summer camp, and as well as several great speakers and workshops, found the experience of living outdoors for 4 days (including taking open air showers!) really lovely. Satish Kumar, peace activist and ecological campaigner, ‘headlined’ and spoke of a trinity of ‘soil, soul and society’, which in essence I took to mean thinking of ecology as three inter-connected spheres which we must nurture as a whole if we're to find sustainable solutions to the challenges of climate change, inequality and the many other ills facing the world. I was particularly interested in the ‘soul’ aspect, and the importance of connecting with our inner landscapes whilst moving away from a constant outer focus, for example on material possessions.

Related to this I attended a workshop on creativity and deep ecology, which drew on Joanna Macy’s work (see Joannamacy.net). This involved making connections with fellow ‘work-shoppers’ in a way you might not normally do, writing, telling stories and drawing. I’ve not come across this approach before, but am keen to find out more (hopefully with TTT) – Joanna’s website sets out a goal: ‘to help people uncover and experience their innate connections with each other and with the systemic, self-healing powers in the web of life, so that they may be enlivened and motivated to play their part in creating a sustainable civilization’

Kirsty Schneeberger also inspired the conference with her talk on climate change and intergenerational equity. An amazingly self-assured and natural speaker, she spoke about how she came to attend the UN climate negotiations in Bonn as part of a youth delegation, where she presented her ‘how old will you be in 2050?’ campaign. I’d really recommend looking out for her at other events

Finally, I’d love to get a (small) tented structure like one of these up at the community garden – let’s see what might be possible!

Charlotte

News from a Tooting front room near you!

2011-07-22T14:47:00.003+01:00

Liz has been hosting a series of ‘Carbon Conversations’ meetings with neighbours in her front room:

Our latest 'CC' is now taking a break for the summer, so I thought I'd take the opportunity for a quick update on how it's gone so far, since we started meeting once a week. In mid June a group of intrepid Tooting dwellers ventured up the hill into Furzedown, and we began by discussing :

'why on earth are we even having a conversation about carbon anyway?'

And what do these 'tonnes' consist of, and what is 'carbon equivalent', and why should we bother when China builds a new coal power station every week? We all concluded that we did want to bother, and for me it felt good to be doing something positive.
We had some fun thinking about what we'd say to the current prime minister about climate change if we got the chance; things like 'don't wait for other countries, just take a lead', 'be proud of the UK’s Climate Act - do more to promote it' and 'tackling inequality will help with climate change and vice versa, don't forget the multiple benefits to society'.

With thoughts racing through my mind we went on our way to ponder for a week before the next session.
In the second session we imagined life in a draughty 1930s home and plotted a 6 year plan to save some serious amounts of energy, and 6 tonnes of carbon emissions to be precise. We separated into two groups to do our plotting and were surprised at the different approaches each group took - and that we all left the extremely high cost but huge financial benefit option of installing solar panels till last, favouring more woolly jumpers first!

The next session began with a mouth-watering description of life as a child in rural Greece from one of our participants, wow those tomatoes sound delicious!

We managed to make some pretty easy-to-remember rules for ourselves when buying food - 'Jane's rules':

meat is higher carbon than veg
the more ingredients the higher the carbon
producing the food takes way more carbon than packaging it
and refrigerated stuff can be high carbon even if it comes by road, not plane

The fourth session looked at transport: we stepped into the shoes of Sarah and Edward and their two daughters. It turned out that they could save a lot of carbon through changing their lifestyles, without spending any money, just doing things a bit differently.
Real food for thought there.

And so we break for the summer, I am busy thinking about the actions I can take and look forward to the next session in September. On a personal note, I've really enjoyed having the group come together and meet in my house. I've enjoyed hearing seven other people's points of views, and their way of dealing with some of the things I find challenging.

I am looking forward to hosting some more conversations in my front room again soon!!!

If you would like to join a local 'Carbon Conversations' group in September,
please email us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com All welcome!

Transition Conference Report - Charles

2011-07-16T18:43:00.012+01:00

Two of us have just been to the annual Transition Network Conference in Liverpool

Each of the 200-plus participants probably had a unique experience of the 3 days. Much of the time was offered in chunks of options...

Exciting choices, because most of the parallel sessions looked tempting…but you needed to select just one! What would you do: choose a very popular one with 40 people signed up, or go for a topic with a smaller group of 5? And would you prefer to be meeting the same people, or new ones?

My choices took me to sessions on social justice, on community renewable energy, on health in cities, on a long evening walk with a forester in local woods and fields, and on Kids in Transition.

In the Kids in Transition session I was moved by responses from adults and children to 2 connected questions:

Why does Transition need kids in order to flourish?

‘kids have the power to persuade people to change’, ‘kids are good at direct connection to their surroundings and to nature’, ’kids come up with new ideas’, ’kids know how to have fun’.

Why do kids need Transition in order to flourish?

‘so I can change my future’, ‘to give us some tools to make sense of a difficult world’, ‘to help us to make new friends’, ’so kids can get to grips with real things’, ‘to encourage a healthier lifestyle’.

Another choice: what would you do at meals…sit with ‘strangers’ you had not met before? That’s what I decided to do, and I loved hearing about Transition projects at different stages of development: in Paris or Sao Paulo, on an island in Denmark, in Switzerland, and in Liverpool itself.
So, you could make your own conference very personal…which I felt was exactly as it should be. ‘Transition’ has straightforward goals: building resilient communities in a post-carbon world - and it’s the diversity of routes to get there, and of local needs, that offers each of us as individuals the challenge to use our different skills. We've got some great things to do together in Tooting!
A fuller report on the conference, contributed by many participants, can be read at:
http://transitionculture.org/2011/07/15/full-round-up-of-materials-from-the-2011-transition-network-conference/

Transition Conference Report - Lucy

2011-07-15T11:56:00.003+01:00

‘The change in direction represented by the Transition movement is as profound as any intentional change experienced by a civilisation’.

I have been at the national Transition Town Conference in Liverpool for three days. An intense experience, characterised by almost constant conversation with 259 other ‘transitioners’ from all over the world and the UK. The conference was on the campus of Hope University near Chilwall Woods in the North East of the City.

The conference recognised that after 5 years of existence the Transition movement has a great deal to reflect on. The movement can begin to look back at the evidence of its impact with confidence. With initiatives across the world putting ‘transition’ principles successfully into action, responding quickly as communities pulling together has shown how resilience really counts. This has been especially so in the stark contexts of national crises such as New Zealand’s earthquake and Rio’s floods. When things are destabilised you have to be ready with new ways of doing things.

The structure of the conference reflected a desire to ‘deepen, mature and focus’ - looking at issues that were at the ‘edge’ of the movement’s experiences to date with an honesty around areas that are difficult such as ‘scaling up’ to the next stage after initial successes, running group processes and ‘resolving conflict’. Imagining a world beyond dependency on oil did not have to be a choice between ‘a roll in the mud eating mouldy potatoes and going nuclear’.

So said the ever cheery and constantly surprised Rob Hopkins (Co-Founder of movement) who opened the conference along with Peter Lipman (Chair of Transition Network). They cited the recent announcement by the World Economic Forum in Davos on the major threats to the plant as ‘Climate Change, the Extreme Price Volatility of Energy and the Fiscal Crises’. This was not acknowledged in 2006 when the movement started. This morning Rob closed the conference citing David Fleming’s new book Lean Logic: “The change in direction represented by the Transition movement is as profound as any intentional change experienced by a civilisation”. (He read that out twice)

The number of workshops had been kept to a manageable choice but it was still hard to choose. Creating local food systems, up date on local currencies, kids in transition (by Tooting’s own Charles Whitehead), social enterprises - turning transition friendly ideas into jobs, Renewable energy systems and Forests invading cities, the latest on Brazil turning the tide were just a few.

I had a busy time. I was running a workshop on Playing For Time, facilitated a theme group on the arts, oversaw a number of art installations by Ruth Ben Tovim and played a role in the overall travelling story of the conference (I wore a handsome red haversack on my back throughout). My workshop went well and served as a beginning for the Transition book I have been commissioned to write on transition and the arts. To create a different future for ourselves and our communities, first we have to imagine it and the role our imagination and however we understand the arts and our own creativity has a huge role to play in that. So scarey and exciting at the same time. I got a lot of really great practical ideas and much food for thought thanks to a great bunch of people who turned up.

There was also a fair amount focused on making groups work and on ‘inner transition’ recognising how demanding the work in transition can be emotionally at a very deep level. This proved a key theme of the conference and it brought home to me how important this was. We did a ‘group process’ yesterday with 260 people. We looked at how we facilitate groups, celebrate their achievements, discuss matters, agree and decide. Assumptions that get made, how people get excluded or made to feel included. There was a major emphasis on making this work and not taking anything for granted. What happens when you have to work with people you don’t get on with? We looked at what gave us courage and what made us vulnerable. It seemed that everyone shared similar feelings of frustration, insufficiency, over work along with empowering feelings of shared joy and achievement. I had sewn a large cloth onto which everyone at the end of this session pinned something they felt they had to offer as a strength to transition and something they felt they were challenged by. The results were beautiful and moving! Someone said that transition was like an alchemy of the self, turning what we have ourselves into gold.

I went to a workshop on inner transition run by Sophy Banks and Ben Yeger which looked at how we construct our own ‘bad’ and ‘good’ realities and how very hard it is to ‘hold the line’ on helping people look at ‘bad realities’. Inner resources need to be strong. It explained a lot about why people avoid wanting to confront global challenges. We also learned that something negative has 15 times the force of something positive on us, so we do have to work hard to create a positive sense of the future!!

Another workshop this morning looked at evaluation and how we measure the impacts of transition. How do you measure change, resilience, well being and a successful local living economy? Fascinating stuff. Apparently we respond more quickly to negative feedbacks so we have to work hard yet again to build up the positive.

Escaping from hot rooms on Sunday evening, I went on a tree walk with Robin (from Shaftesbury) from Trees for Transition in Childwall Woods where we saw Beech, Holm Oak, Birch, Lime, orchids, meadows and deep dark woods and gulleys with plants and flora. Robin hopping ahead with his enthusiasm and knowledge about how trees and woods can build environmental, social and economic good into the biosphere and the quality of our lives. As a forester he said he had to always be thinking 50-100 years ahead, NO point in planting a tree which will be in drought conditions in 50 years time. Very inspiring man, taking his passion and creating a whole new movement around transition with trees.

No doubt about it - we are part of a very powerful movement. Many people came from abroad, emphasising how far and fast the movement is growing in Brazil, Portugal, Spain and elsewhere. There were also a good number of London people and it would be great to get us all together again - even in South London where our numbers have really grown recently.

It felt a privilege to be part of this huge thing we call transition changing the way we can see and build a future we want to live in - becoming better connected as a species, not separated out. We are already doing wonderful things here in Tooting and it is inspiring to know we are connected up to such a hard working network of supportive colleagues and fellows. The support really is there for everyone. We can rely on one another.

The day we arrived there was an article in the Guardian asking if the Green movement had lost it’s way. WRONG QUESTION said Rob: “has a new, emergent culture which embraces resilience and localisation, equity and partnership, even scratched the surface of its potential? I think the answer is a resolute NO!‘ We’ve all had a taste of that this weekend. Here are Rob's own reflections on the weekend.

And here are some words from Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine, quoting Milton Friedman:

“Only a crisis—actual or perceived––produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. . . That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable”.

Go Tooting Go!

Lucy

Tooting Community Garden

2011-07-10T18:27:00.003+01:00

We have had an exciting few weeks at the Tooting Community Garden so here's a little update on recent activities. On 18th and 19th June we invited volunteers to come to the Big Dig. We certainly have some talented gardeners and knowledgeable people in Tooting. Sharing skills and knowledge was a feature of the weekend. We began by preparing the rectangular bed in the middle of the garden so we can grow some veggies. Although we are a bit late in the season we are confident we can grow some produce in time for the Tooting Foodival in September. A few weeks previously we had been prepared to dig by hand but the soil was so compact that when we were offered use of a rotivator (thanks to the lovely people at Share Community Garden!) we accepted. Following rotivation we marked out beds with concrete slabs we found in the garden. After preparing the soil a little more and adding some compost we were ready to plant.
Seeds and carefully nurtured seedlings were brought along by volunteers and now we have rows of veg in place. Theses include tomatoes, beans, courgette, rocket, kohl rabi, nasturtiums and leaf beet. This was the big job of the weekend but we also made three compost bins from disused pallets (thanks Wimbledon Wickes!), cleared space for a seating area, collected manure (thanks Dean City Farm!), set up water butts and raided nearby skips for bits and pieces (thanks unknown Tooting residents!) that we can put to good use and keep them away from landfill. Thanks to everyone who came along and made it such a fun and productive weekend.

Another inspiring event this month was the Open Meeting and Tour of the Garden on 5th July. All week we had been praying for rain as the garden had been looking dry and the night that it decided to come, and torrentially at that, was Tuesday 5th July! So, thanks to the Christian Education Centre on Tooting Bec Road we had a warm and dry place to discuss ideas for the garden. We ended with a tour of the garden spent mostly hiding under the huge oak in the corner. In the early part of the evening we handed out plans of the garden and, in small groups, we depicted our visions for the land and how we could use it. We had a multitude of ideas including a living willow tepee, permaculture, hammocks, plant and animal study, yoga, skills courses, espalier fruit, colourful signs, aromatic herbs and plants and a wetland area. All very exciting ideas! However, we did all agree that we need to tread carefully and before we do much more we should conduct an audit of the garden so we know exactly what we have and need to preserve. It is important that we work with the existing ecosystems that have developed in an area of land that has been untouched for a few years. It was also agreed that we can use this rich variety of flora and fauna to learn more about our natural surroundings. Thanks to everyone who came along and contributed to a very interesting evening.

If you would like to get involved or hear about the garden more regularly please email me at abigailcallen@gmail.com to join the email list. Please visit our Facebook page to see lots of photos (taster below!) and 'like' it to show your support. You can find it here.

Furzedown Low Carbon Zone

2011-07-02T08:09:00.016+01:00

Transition Town Tooting is a partner in promoting the "Furzedown Low Carbon Zone", a new project that will help achieve the goal of an energy efficient, resilient Furzedown. TTT has a stand at the Big Day Out and will co-host an inaugural meeting at the Furzedown Project, 91-93 Moyser Rd, SW16 6SJ on Monday 18th July, 7-9pm. Further information will be posted soon!

Recycle Week June 20-26th

2011-06-24T13:15:00.001+01:00

This has been Recycle Week and we were delighted to welcome Wandsworth Council's Recycling Team Sophie Chitty, at this week's TTT co-ordinating meeting. She writes about her visit here:

Fancy a Tooting Carbon Conversation?

2011-06-15T15:48:00.000+01:00

The next Carbon Conversation in Tooting starts next week on Monday 20th June. Organiser Liz Darley says: "It should be fun and you should learn some new things!!"

Carbon conversations are six meetings that explore how individuals and families can reduce their carbon footprint. Participants will find out how to make practical plans to reduce carbon consumption in areas such as home energy, travel, and food purchasing, as well as talking about their own personal visions and feelings on a low-carbon future in London. Find out more details about how to join the conversation here.

Tooting Community Garden

2011-06-12T10:55:00.043+01:00

The Tooting Community Garden is underway! We are now calling on volunteers to come and help turn our blank canvas into a beautiful, thriving garden.

The land has been generously donated by Naseem, owner of Mushkil Asaan on Upper Tooting Road. If you have gardening skills and advice that you would like to share we would love to hear from you but most importantly we need willing hands and enthusiasm so if you have no experience in the garden then please don't let this stop you coming along. If you would like to join the Tooting garden mailing list then please email Abby on abigailcallen@gmail.com. On the left is version 1 of a possible plan for the garden drawn by George.

What could you add to this? We need your help and ideas! Get in touch with TTT to get involved.

‘Seasonal Food and Seasonal Wellbeing’

2011-06-11T11:32:00.007+01:00

Our monthly ‘First Tuesday’ meeting on 7^th June met at Mushkil Aasaan - with many thanks for the use of the hall.

Belinda, Tim & Charles used games and discussion to explore some of the interrelated features of the food we buy and grow – its nutritional value, its availability locally-grown, its ‘carbon footprint’, its degree of government subsidy or supermarket ‘shelf shout’, and food’s relationship with our own wellbeing.

We shared some favourite seasonal recipes, local picnic locations, and ideas for outdoor cooking and eating. We looked at packaging and waste – and linked this to composting, and to the satisfaction of growing our own food.

Some of our discussions in more detail:
Ø Where is some of our favourite fruit grown, how does it reach our shops – and how to do we do the last step of getting fruit to our kitchens – for example by foot, or bike, or car? Which of those can we control ourselves?

Ø Which fruit would become scarce or very expensive in the case of the end of cheap oil, and which fruit would still be readily available at which times of year – whether grown locally, or in the UK, or further afield?

Ø What would the end of cheap oil do to our eating habits?

Ø Taking a ‘shopping basket’ of 12 food items such as chicken nuggets from Thailand, home-grown apples or Irish mature cheddar, we looked at the carbon footprint of each food’s production, processing, packaging, and distribution.

Ø This is a complex topic – we used a game from the ‘Carbon Conversations’ course and tried ranking these 12 foods, from lower to higher carbon footprint.

Ø As consumers, we realised we probably don’t know enough about the complex relationships between different foods and different processes!

Ø Sharing seasonal recipes took us from English asparagus to strawberries and cream. Some of us who thought ‘there’s nowhere to picnic in Tooting’ were shown others’ drawings of good locations.

Ø We looked at the positive aspects of appropriate food packaging (yes there are some!), and at the drawbacks of seeing packaging, or food waste, as part of a linear process that ends with dumping in landfill.

Ø We explored taking a cyclical holistic approach, where ‘waste’ becomes valued - whether at the community or the household level.

Ø Waste took us into household composting and a reminder of our Tooting Community Garden as a local way forward to get involved with local food growing (we will focus on the Garden in our next TTT ‘First Tuesday’ on July 5^th).

Ø We heard about two other community initiatives –

o Balham Country Market, to be held on Fridays from 2-4pm at Balham Baptist Church in Ramsden Rd, for members to sell home produced items directly to the public. Email balham.country.markets@gmail.com for more info.

o Jack Astbury is starting a local project in a hidden-away corner of Tooting: ‘an inner city space to create an organic small holding that grows food for a local community who in turn supports it through buying.’ It is early days, and we’ll keep in touch. Jack’s website is www.home-growers.co.uk

Ø Finally, we shared ideas for involving local experience in Tooting to support local wellbeing through seasonal food – for example having a swapping site online for gardeners with spare produce, or sharing skills for some of the useful jobs like building a compost box, or having an outdoor cooking skills plus picnic event.

BATCA Fun Day 2011

2011-05-23T16:07:00.000+01:00

TTT will again be participating in this year's BATCA Fun Day held as in previous years at the Gatton School and St Augustine's church opposite in Broadwater Rd, Tooting. More details to follow soon but here is the BATCA poster:

Tooting Trashcatchers Carnival Shortlisted for Award

2011-03-15T12:21:00.006Z

The Trashcatchers Carnival which took place last summer in Tooting is one of four finalists shortlisted for Climate Week's Best Event.

The Carnival was a vibrant and colourful event that used recycling as a metaphor to build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting. It aimed to create beauty from rubbish, using story, art, science and celebration to tap into the collective ingenuity of local residents. Characters, sculptures, musical instruments, dance, performance, costumes and floats were all created using discarded materials such as plastic bags, bottles and boxes.

Produced by Transition Town Tooting in partnership with Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts, the Carnival was one of the most significant community events to take place in the Borough of Wandsworth in 2010 and had the support and participation of numerous schools, community groups and local organisations.

The community of Port Adelaide in Australia have been so inspired by this event that Transition Town Tooting and Phakama will be working with their local transition, waste, education, arts and environmental groups (by skype, facebook and social media) to connect up the two communities through the 'Trashcatching' concept of public celebration.

Climate Week is a national occasion that offers an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change. It is supported by every part of society – from the Prime Minister to Paul McCartney, Vivienne Westwood to Manchester United, the CBI to Girlguiding UK. Its commercial partners are Tesco, Aviva, EDF Energy, Kellogg's and RBS.

"We are delighted to have been shortlisted for the Climate Week Best Event Award. The Trashcatchers Carnival was an inspirational project that enabled us to reimagine our relationship with our earth. We want to dedicate this to every single Trashcatchers Carnavalista and to the whole community of Tooting".
Fabio Santos. Director of Phakama
and Lucy Neal. Co-Chair of Transition Town Tooting

The winner will be selected by a judging panel which includes Lord Nicholas Stern, Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo, environmentalist Tony Juniper, author Ian McEwan and Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate advisor, Terry Tamminen. It will be announced on 21^st March at the official Climate Week launch event at Lancaster House in Central London where the keynote speaker is Chris Huhne MP, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change.

April 5th Food Event - Call for Tooting Photos!

2011-03-09T18:35:00.002Z

With Spring fast approaching TTTs Food Group have been busily preparing for the new growing season! to celebrate this the Food Group are having a community food and growing event on Tuesday the 5th of April at Mushkil Assann on Upper Tooting Road between 7 and 9pm. For the event we need lots and lots of photos of Tooting -both the space that's wasted as well as the space that is used in fantastic and innovative ways. If you'd like to submit some pics for the event, please email all JPEGS to colour_ride@hotmail.com.

More details to follow and see you on the day!

Ecobuild Trip

2011-03-08T12:01:00.000Z

This year's Ecobuild was bigger and better than ever before, mixing lots of high tech, next generation eco products with useful demonstrations and lectures from leading thinkers such as Richard Heinberg and Susan Greenfield.

Several members of TTT went along and were impressed by the range of innovative building products that were on show. Such as; insulation boards made out of straw, carpet tiles made from recycled carpets, a solar water heating system that works 24 hours a day, night or day, or OLED lighting that can revolutionise the way we think about colour, interior design and lighting in our homes and buildings.

It was all very exciting stuff, and gave us an insight as to what it could be like in our homes in the future. Malsara

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

2011-03-07T22:14:00.001Z

Have a go at your creating your own plan for the UK to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

Transition Town Tooting – along with lots of other local groups, businesses and NGOs – were invited to a consultation event last Friday run by DECC where they unveiled The 2050 Pathways Analysis. Described as ‘an online framework through which to consider some of the choices and trade-offs we will have to make over the next forty years. It is system-wide, covering all parts of the economy and all greenhouse gases emissions released in the UK. It is rooted in scientific and engineering realities, looking at what is thought to be physically and technically possible in each sector.’

Giles and Hilary shared some interesting, and heated, discussions as we joined groups thrashing out various options for our future. The tool allows you to test out scenarios relating to energy usage and production whilst seeing the immediate outcome of your actions on a graph of predicted CO2 emissions. There is also a huge amount of background information provided to all your ‘decisions’ if you take the time to investigate.

It’s a very good way of demonstrating how hard it is to balance the books between supply and demand under current modes of exponential growth. A startling example is that the most ambitious target you can select for future UK flights involves a doubling of current usage.

It also gives an insight into the areas the government is looking at and into current thinking around possibilities - looking at the parameters used is extraordinarily insightful and gives us clues for where we need to inform the government and policy better

It was also interesting in exploring areas people are willing to sacrifice to balance the power sheet - every one we saw was completely different. Some people favoured nuclear over biofuels and others who hated nuclear were willing to sacrifice food growing land in other countries to continue our Western gravy train.

You can create your own ideal pathway and can debate and compare with scenarios produced by a number of others including organisations as diverse as Friends of the Earth and the National Grid. The online tool is fascinating to experiment with – if occasionally frustrating – as there are limits on the range of options available to you. In addition to the assumption of growth we spotted the following, you may find others:

There is no account taken of the carbon footprint of any UK imports as these are not currently included within government targets.
Cost involved in the various options isn’t currently taken into account - some people questioned the bias this gave nuclear despite the infrastructure and decommissioning costs of reactors with only limited active life.

Perhaps unsurprisingly no account was taken of the long term availability of key raw materials such as oil, gas, coal or those used for generation of nuclear power. Maybe the recent Announcement by the UK Government of Emergency Plans to wean the UK off Oil will see them factored into a future version!

Brilliant Books!

2011-03-01T23:24:00.000Z

Jeni and Jane organised a great Book event this evening! Charlotte and Bruce told us about books they love, while Doug from My Back Pages, one of the only independent bookshops in south London, talked knowledgeably about writers and books with local connections, before setting us all a really hard quiz! The evening continued with "Speed-booking" - where we had one minute to impress our "dates" by explaining our love for a book we had brought along. Meanwhile Libby taught paper making from recycled shredded paper
(see a couple of dodgy first efforts above!). And don't forget World Book Night on Saturday! A full list of books discussed and recommended at this evening's event follows:

The Artist's Way - Julia Cameron (David)
Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science - Immanuel Kant
The Man Who Planted Trees - Jean Giono (Susan)
Liberation Therapy, The Initiatory Way to Peace - Sheik Ali N'Daw www.international-sufi-school.org
The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Jane)
A Sand Country Almanac and Sketches from Here and There - Aldo Leopold (Bruce)
To Have or To Be - Erich Fromm (Kim)
The Carbon Diaries 2015 - Saci Lloyd (Charles)
Out of Iran - Souson Azadi (Rose)
The Medieval Economy - M.M.Postan
Cradle to Cradle - William Mc Donough and Michael Braungart
No Destination - Autobiography of an Earth Pilgrim - Satish Kumar (Charlotte)
Local Food: How to make it happen in your local community - Tamzin Pinkerton and Rob Hopkins (Charlotte)
The Energy Glut - Ian Roberts (Jeni)
The Great Work - Our Way Into The Future - Thomas Berry (Bruce)

Rose has several copies of the "HDRA News" and "Hortus, A Gardening Journal" if anyone would like them. Please mail TTT.

Do we want a Biofuel Plant in Wandsworth?

2011-02-20T17:11:00.000Z

A local campaign to stop a 10MW biofuel energy plant being built as part of the proposed Battersea Power Station redevelopment is gaining momentum. Andrea Speranza of biofuelswatch gave some reasons why the plant will not be a good thing for Wandsworth residents. She told us that biofuel production:

Leads to an increase world food price rises.
Causes the release of more greenhouse gases through land conversion and chemical fertiliser use than fossil fuels.
Effects local air quality by burning vegetable oil which emits nitrogen oxides and small particulates linked to asthma, bronchitis and heart problems. (NB: In 2010, a similar sized biofuel power station was refused planning permission by London Borough of Ealing because it produced too much air pollution.)
Leads to people being thrown off their land and suffering human rights abuses in the Global South
Will mean heavier traffic in Wandsworth due to fuel tanker deliveries

What do Tooting residents think? Is this really what we want on our doorstep? You can express your opinion on the proposed biofuels plant to Wandsworth Council via planning application 2009/3575 or mail info@biofuelwatch.org.uk for more info. DT

Eco Build 2011

2011-02-17T09:45:00.001Z

With less than two weeks to go for this years Eco Build 2011, TTT are gearing up for a fascinating day out the event on 2^nd March.
If you are interested in learning about energy efficiency in buildings, understanding the benefits of the Feed in Tariff, seeing live demonstrations on solid wall refurbishment, modern glazing solutions, existing loft insulation and finding out about the latest technology in harnessing solar energy, energy efficient lighting, urban planting, bee keeping plus much much more, then come and sign up for your FREE pass at http://www.ecobuild.co.uk/index.html

Personally, I am looking forward to seeing the seminar on Freecycling and a complete interior makeover for £0.00 This could give me some solutions for my Victorian refurb.

The event runs from 1-3 March 2011. If you are interested in joining a group going for the event on the 2^nd March, we will be meeting at 10.00am by the ticket barriers at Tooting Bec Northern Line tube station. Please let us know by email if you would like to join us for this really inspiring event.

Hope to see you there - Malsara

Problem or Predicament?

2011-02-08T22:18:00.000Z

Another interesting and well-attended First Tuesday event this evening at Mushkil Aasaan in Tooting was spent watching Chris Martenson's UK Crash Course; a link to the youtube video is below for those of you who missed it. And there's more on Chris's website. One thing he explained was the difference between a problem (which can be solved) and a predicament (which can only be suffered).

Do we want to wait until peak oil driven Energy shortages,the fallacy of an ever growing Economy and a resource depleted and changing Environment crunch us? Or do we want to do something different? Do we want a future shaped by disaster or design? Needless to say there was plenty of discussion afterwards.

TTT's Giles star of Sunday Times article

2011-02-07T12:12:00.000Z

.... you can spot him up the ladder in the photo...

Carbon Conversations

2011-02-04T14:09:00.001Z

Is our future worth a conversation?

Would you like to reduce your carbon footprint?

Would you like to take some practical steps on climate change?

You are invited to take part in Carbon Conversations:

a course of meetings starting soon in Tooting

8-10 participants will meet as a group to explore climate change in a different way, focusing on values, feelings and lifestyle as well as kick-starting practical action to reduce carbon consumption in the home and community

Ø Each two-hour session is supported by facilitators to build on the experience and interests of the participants: you do not need to feel you are an ‘expert’ to take part

Ø Following a proven and well-designed structure, you will meet other people interested in creating a low-carbon future, and explorekey areas of your own carbon footprint including home energy, transport and travel, food, consumption and waste

Ø We will emphasise participation in the informal sessions – we won’t be giving lectures. You will share ideas, use the Carbon Conversations workbook, play some instructive and enjoyable games, identify tools and tips that will support you, and create personal plans that will reduce your carbon impact

Ø After the completion of the workshops you can choose to receive training on facilitating the course, and support other Carbon Conversations groups yourself

The course will be facilitated by members of Transition Town Tooting. Course materials and design have been developed by Cambridge Carbon Footprint

Meetings will take place on Monday evenings from 7-9pm. We will start the course of five meetings on Monday 28^th February 2011, continuing on March 7^th, March 14^th & March 21^st. The fifth meeting will be held on a date in May to be agreed with participants, getting together again after time taking action on individuals’ plans.

We will provide the facilitation and administration, and ask for a voluntary fee of £10 per person to cover the cost of the Carbon Conversations workbook

Easily accessible, in Tooting - to be confirmed

Please email Charles at cemwhitehead@btinternet.com to join, express an interest, or ask any questions, and we will be in contact

Carbon Conversations is one of the Guardian’s ‘Top 20 solutions to climate change’

Cold Water Swimming & Cycle Powered Cinema

2011-01-25T15:44:00.004Z

A few pictures from the recent UK Cold Water Swimming Championships where TTT ran a cycle powered cinema.

Walking: Mind How You Go

2011-01-18T21:05:00.077Z

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found was really going in." John Muir

A very interesting Walking event was held on Jan 11th at Mushkil Aasaan, led by Belinda & Lucy, and featuring a variety of words of wisdom from Battersea Arts Centre Producer Lynn Goh, local GP Tom Coffey and Susie Morrow of Wandsworth Cycling Campaign. Belinda recommended walking meditations such as those in this book, Lynn told us about a silent walking project she'd run, Tom talked about walking and health, (Walk4Life guided walks are a Wandsworth Council initiative), while Susie recommends The Energy Glut for a good read.

Several people had brought photos of five places on their own Tooting walks which we hope to develop into a walking map. Can you identify my inspirational Tooting places above?! Please send us your five photos. DT

Artistic Regeneration in Tooting

2011-01-12T12:06:00.000Z

After a really fantastic Mind How You Go Walking event last night (write-up coming shortly), which encouraged us to draw breath, take time, notice and listen to the sounds around and within, and of course in the wake of the epic Trashcatcher's Carnival of 2010, TTT's attention is drawn to further seeds of creative renewal in Tooting. Once packed with cinemas, but recently lacking any creative public space, Tooting has two exciting new artistic ventures taking flight this week.

Tooting Market Project to be found at Unit 32 in the market for the next 3 months launches on Friday 14th at 4.30 p.m. Local artists are joining forces with Tooting Market to regenerate some of the empty space into a thriving art gallery and studio between January & March 2011, creating an innovative “Heritage Wall” with the immediate community of stall holders and market users and facilitating the wider community in arts and heritage workshops. More on facebook here

Tooting Arts Club, meanwhile, launches on Saturday 15th with a party at Tooting Bec's revamped Wheatsheaf (promising a bill including both Sadiq Khan and Arthur Smith - a new double act?) and states its aim to "produce plays both old and new, in various venues in Tooting" which sounds great! A debut play "Invasion" will run at the Selkirk from 1st to 19th February.

What next? Not the return of Tooting cinema, surely? DT

Transition Town Tooting – a history in maps

2011-01-08T13:47:00.003Z

This piece was produced as a response to Rob Hopkins call for examples of Transition Towns using meaningful maps. It seemed a good moment to post it here as a taster for next Tuesday's Open Event where we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. See more info here.

Tooting is an amorphous area stretching between and beyond two tube stations – Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway. The road that runs between the two – the A24 – was originally a Roman road and is now a major arterial road leading from central London out towards the suburbs. At one point its position as a tram interchange made it a centre for cinema – we once had 5 cinemas and now have none! It carries 10 million cars a year in addition to several busy bus routes. One of our earliest TTT blog posts shows a map and satellite image of the area.

Transition Town Tooting (TTT) has developed a ‘tradition’ (if you can have one in such a short history!) of using maps as a focus for activity. This stems from the fact that, though there are ...numerous indoor and outdoor spaces used by local groups for social, education, faith, sports and other activities, there is no generally recognised physical hub available to the whole community. Tooting has numerous halls but no Town Hall, two indoor markets but no Market Square, much green space but little centrally that is openly accessible. Unsurprisingly the absence of shared public space is an issue which comes up regularly in our open discussions. In the absence of an obvious ‘public' space to gather, TTT has developed a peripatetic approach to several of its key activities, using maps as focus, publicity and guide.

The first of these – the first Tooting Earth Talk Walk – visited seven places of faith and worship and each stop on the walk a faith leader spoke followed by a representative of Transition Town Tooting. Much common ground emerged between Christian, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu teachings about man’s responsibility to care for the earth and its bounty. The Transition Town representatives gave personal perspectives about their involvement in the movement and their hopes and fears for the future of the earth. Sue Rentoul’s beautifully drawn map – served both as a notice of the event and a guide on the day.

Following this theme our second Foodival event involved the collection of locally grown produce which was distributed to and cooked up by seven local restaurants. A growing number of local people followed this map as the fold-up ‘table of plenty’ used to served the food Pied Pipered its way the high street.

We’ve also used maps as a focus of discussion at several open events. In March 2009 TTT joined in BATCA’s (the Balham and Tooting Community Association) Open Forum on the theme ‘Let’s make Tooting Better’. The event included a workshop facilitated by Paul Squires of the New Economics Foundation which focused on key themes for wellbeing emerging from NEF research – ‘ connect’, ‘be active’, ‘ take notice’, ‘keep learning’, ‘give’. A large map on the floor formed the focus for people’s ideas – more people friendly streets; more greenery and trees and (not surprisingly) lots of suggestions for shared community spaces....

In 2009/10 maps of Tooting took over our lives. On 29th June 2009 the TippingPoint Commission selected from 178 applications nationally the Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting as one of 4 projects to be funded in 2010. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, presented £20,000 to Project Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts to lead a year long project in Tooting alongside Transition Town Tooting to use art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of all the community to create a large scale promenade on 4^th July 2010. Using recycling as a metaphor its aim was to build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting and have a lot of fun in the process.

The long and tortuous process involved in seeking permission to peacefully process the carnival through the heart of Tooting’s community needs a chapter of its own. Suffice it to say many many hours were spent, both within TTT and in official organisations and agencies, poring over maps considering possible routes. Both access to public roads, and the Carnival’s final destination – a piece of public land used as a playing field – were problematic. Discussions which began in September 2009 continued until literally the 11^th hour on 2^nd July 2010 when access to a partially closed high street was eventually confirmed by the local police.

To cut a long story short – what started with our imaginations and a map (see this poster for the event) finally came alive on the day as over 800 Tooting carnivalistas found themselves in a brief but amazing shared space in the heart of their community.

MIND HOW YOU GO!

2010-12-23T11:31:00.004Z

MIND HOW YOU GO!

Tues Jan 11th 7-9pm. Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road.

TTT’s first step in 2011 will be a confident one.

We look at well-being and start with WALKING! Join us for an evening to celebrate this most human of activities and the manifold benefits it brings to our physical and mental well-being.

To celebrate our local area, we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. We would like you to try this activity out, and bring your 5 most relevant photographs along to on January 11^th.

Do you make time for yourself to slow down and nurture calmness?

Here is a creative opportunity to connect with yourself, the environment and others and increase your physical activity in a way that is good for your wellbeing!

By practising the art of stopping, we can enter the present moment and be nourished by the beauty and wonder of life in and around us.

Instructions for Photo Walk:

Go to the start of your chosen route. This doesn’t need to be anywhere special. It could be a route your walk daily, or one you do with the family, one that you’ve been meaning to try out. It could start at the side of a busy road, in a green space, inside a building.

Make sure you are safe from vehicles, unlikely to be bumped by passers-by.

Take a moment to close your eyes. Take in a breath, hold your breath and let it out, all for the count of 9 (3 in, 3 hold, 3 out). Do this 3 times.

Still with your eyes shut, draw your attention to the big sounds around you, focus on them, and listen to them. Do the same with the sounds immediately around you. Then try to listen to your internal sounds, heart- beating, cracks, rumbles etc.. Carefully open your eyes and readjust yourself. You are now ready to do your photo walk! Dwell mindfully on your steps by taking slow purposeful steps. Stop walking from time to time, simply breathe, listen, and relax.

Make this walk as long or as short as you like. As you walk, listen carefully to the sounds around you. Use your camera to focus on the sounds that draw your attention. Be selective with your shots. Try to capture things that illustrate this sound route.

At the end of the walk, we invite you to select 5 images that portray your experience and illustrate this particular route and bring them to us on Jan 11th as A6 prints on paper. We will create walking maps together on the night.

Join with others to hear about how central walking is to our communities and lives; our medical and spiritual health; our local history; Living Streets and how reducing carbon has many positive health benefits.

Confronting Change - London Transition at the South Bank Centre

2010-12-23T11:28:00.000Z

News from the Confronting Change event at the South Bank Centre last week organised by Transition Finsbury Park.

The event was a sell-out, and proved to be an inspirational coming together of London Transition initiatives, under the title “Confronting Change”. Polly Higgins, a barrister and author of ‘Eradicating Ecocide’ was the host - she recently returned from the COP16 negotiations at Cancun and talked about what had happened there- followed by presentations from Rob Hopkins and Michael Meacher MP. Read a great write up by Rob Hopkins on his blog here.

There was a fantastic outcome to the evening - Polly Higgins and a team of lawyers already working on a Transition Enabling Act! Find out more and have your input on the Transition Network site here.

Photos from the winter making and social

2010-12-23T11:06:00.000Z

We had a fantastic time at the winter making and social - we learnt make pomanders from oranges, juggling balls from socks, wallets from fruit juice cartons, decorations from discarded plastic and cards from scrap paper. We made a HUGE bowl of mincemeat which found its way into mince pies across Tooting. Some of us even learnt how to knit. Here are some lovely pics of the event...

Winter Social & Making Event

2010-12-05T19:03:00.000Z

On Tuesday 7^th Dec there will be an opportunity to catch up and socialise at the Winter Social & Making evening. Experts will be on hand to assist you in creating beautiful festive decorations and unique gifts from recycled materials. Learn how to make greetings cards (bring old cards or pictures), wallets & purses (bring tetrapak!), juggling balls (bring old socks!), pomanders, bags & flip-flops (bring an old pair of jeans) and mincemeat! You can even have a go at knitting!

Why trek round your local globalised shopping experience when you could make your own Christmas presents?! See above some of the fab potato printed bags, for example, fashioned under the guidance of Ken McCalla at this year's Foodival .

Bring food or drink to share – mulled wine and soft drinks will be provided at the Christian Education Centre, 21 Tooting Bec Rd. See you there!

Plastic – from Oil Well to Ocean – via Tooting

2010-11-03T17:52:00.001Z

This event, organised by Hilary, Sally and Nicola, looked at our relationship with the ubiquitous plastic. Starting with a look at the multitude of plastic items that one person touches in a single day (from the lining of a swimming pool to a humble biro), we looked at where plastic comes from, how we use (and misuse it!), what happens after we drop it into our Wandsworth bin or recycling bag, and how it ends up in our oceans.

We found out that most plastics are sourced from fossil fuels - oil and natural gas and how that cheap source of raw material will be threatened by the onset of peak oil. We considered how many everyday items are made from oil-based plastic.

We looked in particular at plastic packaging – our intrepid researcher headed out to take some pictures of particularly bad examples of packaging. Some items were wrapped in four layers of plastic on their arrival at the store. She also took a low packaging approach to her takeaway kebab by bringing her own reusable container and cutlery.

Nicola from Wastewatch – which raises awareness about recycling in local schools – explained the limits of plastic recycling in Wandsworth – being limited to plastic bottles. She explained the reasons for these limits and told us that the UK lagged behind many other countries in its levels of recycling.

We considered where much plastic ends up – with a short TED talk by Captain Charles Moore about plastic in the ocean which you can watch online here. Another good talk by Diana Cohen of the Plastic Pollution Consortium is here.

All kinds of initiatives are springing up across the world to address the issue of our overconsumption of plastic. Following the lead of Modbury which a plastic bag free town in 2007 traders in 80 mainly small towns round Britain have either introduced a voluntary ban or are considering one as a way to reduce landfill. Ireland banned free plastic bags in 2000 levying a 20p charge per bag. By 2007 this had raised £109 million in tax and plans were in place to double the levy to 40p per bag. Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger recently announced a plastic bag ban in the state of California.

In 2009 a poll of Londoners showed there was 90% support for a levy or ban across the city – although subsequent discussions between CEOs of 33 London councils failed to agree on a ban or tax.

We found out that 8 billion plastic bags are used in the UK each year – and the lucky winners of our ‘most wasteful packaging’ prize went away with a lovely reuseable silk sack. One entry was literally a package holding nothing.

Finally we talked about how we might reduce our wasteage of plastic in Tooting and came up with lots of ideas!

Refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle – especially the first three!
Make a film about plastic - how its used locally and the global issues – to raise awareness in Tooting
Lobby local businesses and residents for a plastic bag fee Tooting
Research low-cost sustainable take-away packaging which local businesses could use.
Co-ordinate a regular ‘protest’ return of excess packaging to local supermarkets

If you’d like to get involved in making any of these happen- or have other ideas - get in touch at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com.

Finally unfortunately we didn’t have time to watch this Futurestates film entitled Plastic Bag - struggling with its immortality, a discarded plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) ventures through the environmentally barren remains of America as it searches for its maker. Well worth a look!

2010-10-25T09:25:00.000+01:00

The impressive Incredible Edible Todmorden folks recently came down to Peckham to host a conference on sustainable food with several local groups, which made for a truly inspiring day. Topics ranged from issues with global food production systems from Tim Lang – a professor of food policy, to practical local responses and the importance of food for holistic health.

The Incredible Edible Todmorden project is, frankly, incredible – a group of people have come together to increase the amount of food growing in this fairly small Yorkshire town. We were delighted by picture after picture of food growing in the unlikeliest places – in front of the fire station, in old boats in school playgrounds, around the church, along the railway line, the edge of car parks and….well you get the idea!

Rosie Boycott, the Mayor’s food advisor then spoke about what Londoners can do through the Capital Growth Project. This is making grants available to create 2,012 community food growing spaces by 2012, so a great opportunity which Tooting could benefit from.

The Peckham Experiment, which I’d never heard of before, was another absolutely fascinating theme of the conference. Back in the 1930s a group of doctors decided to study what contributes to human health. They set up a community health centre which emphasised health for the whole family and provided a place to exercise, socialise and learn as well as to access more traditional health care (there’s some great old film footage which captures the amazing energy of the centre – with aerobics taking place alongside acrobatics, with diving in the background!). The Experiment also recognised the importance of good nutrition, and had a farm providing the centre with fresh, organic produce. Whilst the Pioneer Health Centre closed in 1950, the charity responsible for Experiment continues to exist, disseminating the findings and it’s also keen to promote the idea of a new centre or centres opening, which sounds like a hugely positive step to tackling a whole range of social issues.

Tooting Harvest Foodival 3

2010-09-16T12:55:00.000+01:00

TTT's 3rd Tooting Harvest Foodival takes place this weekend at Mushkil Aasaan in Upper Tooting Rd. If you are a grower, a cook or simply an eater there'll be something for you to enjoy, as local restaurants cook up dishes made from locally sourced ingredients. So nearly zero food miles! Any spare local produce will be gratefully received at Saturday's drop-off, then come back on Sunday to taste the culinary creations of Tooting's top chefs. Full details and info on how to get involved can be found on the Foodival site

Free Energy Training Day Sat 25th Sept

2010-08-08T23:28:00.001+01:00

In association with the Energy Saving Trust, Transition Town Tooting are organising a free Energy Auditing Day for homes and community buildings.

If you would like to be able to carry out a basic energy audit of any building then this course will show you some of the processes involved. It includes monitoring consumption and identifying the potential savings that could be made through the introduction of energy efficiency improvements.

Subjects covered will include the following:
• How to understand meter readings and bills
• What is involved in an energy audit
• How to identify and control of different types of heating
• Which types of heating are efficient and appropriate, depending on needs
• Specific issues relating to heat loss and insulation
• Opportunities for reducing consumption and increasing energy efficiency, including efficient lighting and controls
• The basics of some small scale renewable energy technologies
• How an auditing project could benefit your community and how Green Communities and other organisations can support your project

Space is limited so please book your place now by EMAILING

malsaraw@gmail.com

Venue: Christian Education Centre, 21 Tooting Bec Road, London, SW17 8BS; Sat 25th Sept. 10-4.30pm,

Lunch and refreshments will be provided; we just ask for a minimum contribution of £2 towards the hire of the hall.

Transition Town Tooting's Big Launch

2010-07-13T22:52:00.000+01:00

Last night we held TTT's official Big Launch party to celebrate the “Unleashing” of the group in Tooting. The Unleashing is intended to mark the point of step change for taking responsibility and looking at what we can do now to make a difference in how we live our lives.

A good turnout of people gathered at the Samaj Hall in Tooting Broadway to celebrate this turning point. The venue was decked out in colourful home made bunting, banners, photographs, old maps and a 3 metre high model of our Sankofa bird made entirely from recycled plastic bags!

At the start of the evening people were directed upstairs to the gallery to view photographs and posters of the many events that Transition Town Tooting has been involved with since the movement began over two years ago and which culminated in the Trashcatchers Carnival held on the 4th July.

The event began with a mini carnival procession led by artists and carnivalistas from the Trashcatchers Carnival, followed by an introduction and welcome from Lucy Neal, Co-chair of Transition Town Tooting. The audience then had the chance to see video clips from events organised by Transition Town Tooting over the last two years and hear from local residents, business people and community groups about what they liked and disliked about Tooting. It was very encouraging to hear that most people would change very little about Tooting!

The guest of honour, Rob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Network, then gave an enthralling presentation covering peak oil, climate change and the ideas underlying transition.

The Unleashing of Transition Town Tooting was symbolised by the cutting of a giant cake made in the shape of a Sankofa bird and people had the chance to join various action groups including Food, Buildings, Transport, Education, Arts and Energy which are scheduled to meet in the forthcoming months.

Food was provided by Ambala, a local Tooting restaurant, and drinks were donated by Ubuntu, a Tooting made cola, and Moor Organic Juice by James Grieve. All in all, it was a very successful evening and enjoyed by all those who attended.

More reports of the evening are here on Rob's transition blog and via City Bumpkin

TTT's Big Launch

2010-07-05T19:00:00.000+01:00

Hope you enjoyed the Trashcatchers' Carnival. Now why not come to Transition Town Tooting's Big Launch a week today? (Click on the invite below to enlarge) Help us unleash a new creative vision for Tooting!

Trashcatchers Stop The Traffic!

2010-07-04T23:17:00.003+01:00

Today's Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting was a great community event and we think a great success! ITV's London Tonight aired a minute and a half's footage at 6.30 this evening which you can view here. We rushed them some Carnival stills just in time to get the news deadline! Read the Full Press Release here and more pictures of today below ...

Trashcatchers' Carnival Is Nearly Here

2010-07-03T23:59:00.000+01:00

Sunday's Tooting Trashcatchers' Carnival is nearly upon us! So many people have been putting in so much effort to make Sunday's Carnival a success and we hope you will all be able to join in the fun! To ensure that you don't miss out, check the Carnival website for the latest details or click on the poster below:

Eve of the Trashcatchers Carnival

2010-07-03T19:05:00.000+01:00

Check out the last minute preparations for tomorrow's Carnival!
And hope to see you there! Full details on Carnival site

Podcast Interview with City Bumpkin

2010-07-01T13:20:00.000+01:00

Back in March David & Malsara Thorne were interviewed by Rachel Wheeley, the self-styled City Bumpkin on the subject of Transition Town Tooting. Release of the podcast was unavoidably delayed by the arrival of Rachel's new baby - congratulations to all involved!

As some of you will know Rachel does a regular blog she calls "Notes from an urban smallholding set on a hundred-and-sixtieth of an acre in Tooting, London". She's into all things sustainable and has loads of good recipes on the site too.

Go here to >>> LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW which contains some of the hopes and imaginings for this weekend's Trashcatchers' Carnival and beyond towards a more sustainable, resilient and community-centred Tooting. Or why not sign up for regular missives here on RACHEL'S BLOG

My 2010 Transition Network Conference

2010-06-28T19:51:00.000+01:00

I set off from Tooting early last Friday for a leisurely journey down to Newton Abbott and the 2010 Transition Network Conference. As the train left London, passing through the hills of Berkshire and Wiltshire, and into Devon along the Teign Estuary my expectations and anticipation increased, although tinged with a little apprehension of what to expect (as the Transition movement is still very new to me).

Seale Hayne agricultural college provided a lovely back-drop for the thinking, exploring, discussing, singing and dancing to come. Day 1 proper kicked off with a large welcoming meeting to open the conference and to set up open space sessions – a chance to pool hopes, concerns and ideas for discussion. I was impressed by how quickly a welcoming and respectful tone was set, with plenty of humour mixed in from Rob Hopkins, Peter Lipman and the team.

It’s difficult to capture the flavour of such a packed event, with everyone taking a personal path through the conference, but there were particular highlights and sobering moments which stand out.

My first session explored local food, pooling many ideas and experiences from around the country: from cooking groups to reskill and seasonal recipe exchanges, to sowing events and patchwork urban farms and orchards – much for TTT to learn from. Continuing this theme I joined a discussion with Paul Sousek, organic farmer and member of Transition Town North Cornwall, on how urban and rural Transition Towns could work together. The group concluded that ‘Transition Twinning’ could bring great opportunities for skills sharing, increasing awareness of food production and consumption and developing food supply links – something I think many will be keen to develop further.

However, there were also sobering notes, reminding us of why we were there and the challenges facing society. Nicole M Foss (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/ ) spoke on ‘Making sense of the financial crisis in the era of Peak Oil’, billed as how Peak Oil and the collapse of global Ponzie finance are a ‘perfect storm’ of converging phenomena that threaten to sink our age of prosperity through wealth destruction, social discontent and global conflict. The talk caused a huge reaction and much discussion throughout the remainder of the conference, not least because it personalised the workings and implications of the (to me) almost incomprehensible global financial system. Shaun Chamberlin has written an excellent summary on the Transition Network website (http://transitionculture.org/2010/06/14/my-conference-shaun-chamberlin-on-stoneleighs-peak-oilfinance-talk/). My mind was similarly overwhelmed by a screening of the Home Project (http://www.youtube.com/user/homeproject), a film of Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s soaring, majestic imagery of the earth from the air overlaid with a chilling narration on the state of the planet.

Phew! and a rapid round up of the best of the rest…. Nick Osborne led a fascinating interactive session on facilitating wider cultural and personal changes and communicating with people who may see the Transition movement as ‘too cuddly’. The session drew on Ken Wilbur’s ‘Integral Vision’ (http://integrallife.com/learn ), providing an insight into how understanding different world views can influence how effectively messages on Transition are communicated and projects taken forward.

Another key strand of the conference was the unveiling of a new way of understanding the Transition process. Rob Hopkins explained how as Transition becomes a broader, deeper and more complex model, the 12 Steps are becoming increasingly redundant. He presented a series of around 60 Transition ‘patterns’ or techniques in six broad stages (from where we start from, through ongoing and deepening, to scaling up beyond the community). These will allow groups to pick and choose techniques which suit the characteristics of their group and area. See the draft patterns so far at http://transitionculture.org/2010/06/03/transition-network-conference-2010-booklet-now-available/ . When fully worked up these will form the Transition Handbook 2 due to be published in 2011.

A final closing session (with song about scrambled eggs!) and shared lunch rounded off the 2010 conference and I left feeling I’d soaked up many new ideas, exchanged (my early) knowledge of TTT’s achievements, made new friends, and come away ready to contribute to TTT’s activities over the months to come (including the Carnival, Big Launch and Foodival!).

Charlotte - Transition Town Tooting

Carnival Factory Opens on the High Street: 11 - 6pm Every Day!

2010-06-23T07:38:00.004+01:00

Come and join us at The Trashcatchers' Carnival Factory at Broadway Studios, 28 Tooting High Street!

Drop by between 11am and 6pm for Carnival making. Make your own design or help with larger structures for the day. Please bring plastic bags - the more coloured the better, also coloured plastic bottle tops, jewellery and shiny silver foil. All clean please! Children under 16 should be accompanied by an adult.

For details about the Carnival day - how to get involved, what to make, bring and where to go see our Carnival site

ANNOUNCING TOOTING's 3rd HARVEST FOODIVAL September 19th 2010

2010-06-20T08:31:00.002+01:00

ANNOUNCING TOOTING's 3^rd HARVEST FOODIVAL

September 19^th 2010

September 19th sees the return of Transition Town Tooting’s Harvest Foodival for the third year running and I’m looking for people to pitch in and make this year’s event even better! 2009’s Foodival was a fantastic success and saw six restaurants cook up a feast with locally grown fruit and veg for local residents to try with a finale of children’s events and a cooking competion at Fircroft school. This year we’re looking for ideas to make the Foodival bigger and better and look at ways to get more people to come along and join the fun.

If you’d like to add some ideas or fancy volunteering your help and expertise for this year’s event, I'll be holding a special Foodival planning meeting after the unleashing of TTT so watch this space for details and help make 2010 the best Foodival yet! For more information and to get involved please email giles@cen.org.uk and you can see last year’s Foodival at http://www.tootingfoodival.blogspot.com/

Giles

ONLY ONE MONTH TO GO!

2010-06-06T22:57:00.002+01:00

The Trashcatchers' Carnival takes to the streets in 4 weeks' time. Lots happening to get ready between now and then. There are workshops in many of the schools building floats, costumes, musical instruments and head pieces. Artists will be travelling between Tooting's 15 schools on an almost daily basis. The South London Swimming Club have been creating the different elements of their Lido float - lacy waterfalls of blue shimmer, golden suns and shiny lettering. It really is completely amazing what can be created from some coloured plastic bags. There are Carnivalista workshops now happening each weekend - see right for details and email transitiontowntooting@gmail.com if you would like more information.

More soon on designs you can make for musical instruments and things to carry, wear, shake and make. Full details on our latest Trashcatchers leaflet and more on the Trashcatchers Blog.

Tuesday 1st June - Carnival Creation Event

2010-05-25T21:38:00.001+01:00

Come and take part in creating the Trashcatchers Carnival on Tuesday 1st June at Mushkil Aasaan, 222-222 Upper Tooting Road, 7-9pm. There will be loads of creative people giving advice and tips on how to make beautiful things from rubbish, including a bunting and a plastic cloth making workshops.

We will kick start the evening by showing a short film on the development of the Carnival and what has been happening so far. We will hear from various Carnivalistas and local groups talk about what they have been creating and what they plan to do for the Carnival. Followed by your chance to get involved in one of the creative workshops and make something for the Carnival. The evening will close with shared refreshments and showing what we have produced.

It’s going to be a fun evening, all are welcome, don’t worry if you haven’t got any creative skills, this is your opportunity to learn something new and be part of a great event taking place in your local community.

If you have access to any of the following please do bring it with you:
Scraps of fabric, old clothes etc, you don't need any more
Colourful plastic bags
Good cutting scissors
Cotton tape, thick ribbon or even ticking tape if you have any.

And do bring food to share as usual! Hope to see you there, Malsara

Govt & TTT Both Committing on Climate Change

2010-05-18T11:10:00.000+01:00

The government commits to 10:10:

The Government Signs-up to 10:10 from 10:10 on Vimeo.

while Tooting continues to commit to Carnival!

Walking in Flip-flops

2010-05-11T20:10:00.001+01:00

At the weekend the remarkable Steph Bradley dropped in on TTT as we checked out potential venues for our Unleashing in July. Steph, pictured above with Malsara, David & Lucy, has spent the last seven weeks walking from Transition HQ in Totnes, in, you guessed it, a pair of flip-flops! She intends to spend six months in total walking between as many of the country's transition initiatives as possible, checking out all the fantastic work that is being done. You can follow Steph's blog here. Her description of Tooting High Street really struck me:

"In its colourful High Road selling fruit and veg from all over the world and silks of every colour and decoration I hear every language from Greek, Polish, and all different Indian and Pakistani dialects. I haven’t had an experience like this since my time exploring the wonderful markets of Ceuta in northern Morocco in 1992."

It's funny, sometimes I forget that we live in quite an unusual and culturally diverse part of the UK and it's quite uplifting to note the impression it can make on a visitor. Good luck on your trip Steph. DT

A Canopy Under Which We Grow - TTT's Sara reflects on her recent travels

2010-04-30T15:30:00.001+01:00

TTT's Sara has been away from us since last year studying permaculture in Sweden and India. She has sent us some fascinating reflections on her experiences....

I have since the middle of October been living amongst poor farmers in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The reasons I'm here are many, and the things I've learned so far even more. It was difficult to believe, when the chaos that is India hit me in the face, that I'd be able to decipher anything and learn more than a few valuable lessons.
As a former resident of Tooting I started my journey with plenty of "ahaa"s, and one time I even met a man who used to live in my beloved borough. It was as far away from the hustle and bustle of London it could be, in an idyllic village with thatched coconut rooves and outdoor kitchens. It made me wonder how many people in Tooting and the rest of the world long to be back here, back home but are having to work and earn the remittance that outsizes aid money many times over...

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Sand, Trash, Events, Well-being etc

2010-04-27T20:05:00.000+01:00

Here we are greedily consuming the world's resources (thanks to the artists at Portugal's Fiesa festival for this great sand sculpture). Will our political parties do something about it? Attend the hustings and ask the local Tooting candidates before deciding where to mark your big X next Thursday. BATCA have organised hustings tomorrow at St Anselms Church from 8pm.

Thanks to Malsara and Garry for the Trashcatching workshop photos already posted on the Trashcatchers site. More to come.

Meanwhile again tomorrow (Weds 28th) meet other local people concerned about plans by Lambeth Council & Tescos to put a temporary ice rink on common land. Surely they can do better than this for our near neighbours in Streatham?

Don't forget we have a great First Tuesday Well-being Event "What's Good For The Climate Is Good For Health" coming up with Jenny Griffiths OBE, independent consultant and author of the Faculty of Public Health's publication Sustaining a Healthy Future on May 4th. All welcome, it's free and open to all - full details here