All welcome at The Tooting Twirl! This Sunday 16th July, 12noon - 4pm

4 days to go to Tooting's Pop-Up Village Green comes to life at the Bus Turning Circle, Longmead Road.

We'd love for everyone in Tooting to come along to the Tooting Twirl on Sunday to celebrate all the cultures of our town, make a grey space green and have a good dose of fun by opening a highway to games, music and food!

What's happening when?

12noon - 1pm: Come join in building the Village Green - hang some bunting, place some benches... give the Bus Turning Circle a beating heart!
1pm - 2pm: Twirling Street Games and a sharing picnic
2pm: Parade around the Bus Turning Circle in your Twirly best!
3pm - 4pm: Meet, mingle and relax on the pop-up village green

Do you do social media?

Please do tweet, Facebook and share on the day #TootingTwirl

We'll also be joined by the Tooting Bec and Broadway Neighbourhood Plan...

What is it about Tooting that you love? What might you want to change? What do you think we don't have that we need? What stories or places from the past do you cherish? The Tooting Twirl is the perfect place to collectively imagine what good change might look like for our town.

Would you like to take part? It'll take all of us to make the town green... 

Bring a colourful potted plant for the Giant Twirly Flowerbed or plant up a wheelbarrow to turn this grey space green...



Make something Twirly to wear in the 'What's your Twirl?' parade...


Bring a skipping rope or a street game you'd be happy to share...







Decorate your wheels to cycle in the 'What's your Twirl?' parade...





Bring a sharing picnic and a blanket...

All images: Rachel Miller

Jeni, Lucy and Rich - Co-Twirlers from TTT!

Urban Heat Research Report Published

Today the Policy Studies Institute publish their research report Urban Heat: Developing the role of community groups in local climate resilience. It's a readable, accessible and expert report.

TTT are proud to have been able to contribute to this valuable piece of work, hosting and facilitating community conversations, mainly in 2015, about the increasing risks posed by localised heat in cities - including neighbourhoods like Tooting - in our warming climate.

Cold weather challenges are much better recognised by most of us, including health and social care professionals, in terms of individuals' vulnerability. So it was useful to be part of research showing that urban overheating is a significant risk, and we can take action to reduce its impact.

We commenced the project in a cold spell in winter two years ago, when the priorities seemed very different. It was hard to visualise that later the same summer we would hold a workshop near Tooting Broadway on the hottest day of 2015. Very appropriate!

Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Urban Heat project examined the potential role of the local voluntary and community sector (VCS) in the development of local climate resilience.

In Tooting the research engaged with over a dozen relevant community organisations with diverse services and areas of focus: health care, social care, low-carbon living, community development. A number of local individuals were interviewed as well. Finally, a group of Wandsworth local authority and statutory organisations also explored the impact of Urban Heat.

To read our past TTT blog posts about the whole project since its inception, please click here.

Other partners in the Urban Heat research programme explored the same topic in Hackney and in West London, all co-facilitating alongside the Policy Studies Institute team.

Finally, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation funded a sister research project at the same time, about 'Climate Resilient Communities'. This was developed in the context of local flooding in the Scottish Borders, mostly rural, but much of the experience and lessons are relevant to all communities working proactively with practical climate challenges. We'll share that report when it is published.

3 current and vivid research projects about climate change and UK communities - Tooting included

In 2015 TTT helped facilitate a research project by the University of Westminster all about the impact of urban heatwaves - for the details please see past blog posts by clicking here on Urban Heat.

TTT worked with the researchers and with many local partners in Tooting: voluntary and community groups plus borough-level and statutory bodies.



The funder for this research project is The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and yesterday TTT took part in a workshop comparing the early research results of three JRF-funded projects.  
Each of them explores the links between climate change and UK communities and households. Each aims to give new information to local and national policy makers.
Participants included national bodies such as Public Health England & Defra, & the Cabinet Office, local authorities and universities.

An overall view? That there are synergies of relationships between all the topics outlined below..and that communities with local knowledge and energy have an opportunity to get involved and contribute.

Urban Heat 2nd October '15: our third Tooting workshop on community-led approaches to urban heatwaves

Today we hosted the third workshop in the Urban Heat research project. This is an 18-month research process into community-led responses to urban heatwaves, with a particular focus on the local impact on vulnerable people. The research is led by the Policy Studies Institute at the University of Westminster, with funding from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
For the details of the wider project, please see our short posts on the two previous workshops in June and July. TTT has been inviting and convening local groups to take part, and hosting the events.

Today's workshops saw diverse Tooting community organisations meet a group representing the strategic and borough-wide institutions who have a mandate to act on heatwaves alongside many other priorites.
This was not intended to be adversarial...! The purpose was to bring together key players who respond at different local and city 'levels' to heatwaves, all in the interest of local people's wellbeing and health.

The community groups summed up their ideas and proposals identified so far, and these were grouped into three themes:

• Bridging and making connections
• Communications and awareness
• Resources and infrastucture

Everyone present discussed each theme in detail - so we can all understand, anticipate and respond to the impact of urban heatwaves, together. There was a lot to talk about!
The research team will be summing up points made and actions proposed. This is 'action research' - it is up to us all locally to decide which of these ideas are most valuable and can be put into practice, while the researchers continue with the next steps of the project.
We'll keep you informed.

Represented today were: Age UK (Wandsworth), Be Enriched, Emergency Planning at St George's Hospital Trust, Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, Housing Strategy & Development at London Borough of Wandsworth, Neighbourhood Network SW17, Public Health at London Borough of Wandsworth, Thinking Works and Transition Town Tooting. Thank you all!

'Looking Out For Tooting' 11th April 2015

Last Saturday TTT hosted Looking Out For Tooting, a workshop designed to 'celebrate the people and groups that care for Tooting and its future'. 
Members of over 20 local Tooting organisations and groups took part.
See the list of participating groups here, and the invitation here.

We aimed to focus on four areas: 
1. to meet others and make connections
2. to discover and celebrate Tooting's diversity 
3. to inspire, challenge and encourage us all 
4. to share perspectives, and explore shared priorities for action

What did we achieve together?
By the end of three hours, we had explored Tooting's positive features and also its challenges, and begun the process of seeing if and how our own priorities are aligned with others..'so the sum could add up to more than the parts' as one participant said. So, we took an important first step together by acknowledging we can have greater impact together.

We identified several shared objectives, and we recognised that some of these are long-term projects. TTT designed 'LofT' exactly for this reason, to provide the space for projects of this scale to start their development. 

Shared ideas included:
> Whole neighbourhood planning to encourage 'good change' locally
> Community and school food growing and gardening
> Creating shared community spaces
> Creating a Green Way from Tooting all the way to Clapham Junction

Stained glass light shines on the Green Way group

What was the format of the workshop?
We began the workshop by sharing who was in the room, over 30 individuals representing a rich diversity of neighbourhood groups.
We talked about what makes us well and helps us thrive as humans - referencing the New Economics Foundation's 5 Ways to Wellbeing - a set of evidence-based actions which promote people's wellbeing. They are Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give.  
 

Before heading out into Tooting on four different guided group walks we thought about what we would look for as individuals and as a group - we were given individual or pair 'secret tasks' to undertake as we walked.
Details of the four walks we undertook are here, including reflections from each group. We did this on our return, along with much needed tea (thank you Martin!), Tooting samosas and scones bought direct from Devon by Lucy.

Finally we moved on to think about 'what next'.  
Each participant identified a key priority, and then we grouped around themes emerging from our own observations of the walks, and experience of Tooting

One theme in more detail:
There was a particular focus around local planning and a desire to identify and encourage 'good change' in Tooting. The group discussed creating a Neighbourhood Plan (see notes here).

We briefly mentioned current research, including the Royal Society for Public Health's 2015 report, Health on the High Street.


Participants' feedback on the workshop
Have a look at the summary workshop feedback here. That's a powerful list demonstrating tremendous energy to work together for the benefit of Tooting's people and environment.

Take part in our next Looking out for Tooting workshop
TTT will offer 'LofT' again, so we can build up further energy behind local organisations working together. 
Please get in touch if you would like to take part...all welcome.

Community Celebration at Parliament

It was great to attend Sadiq Khan's community group celebration at the Speaker's house at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday. These gatherings of the many different Tooting and Wandsworth community groups are a great opportunity to make contact and network. Just for example, connections ranged from meeting Sudha, Ramesh and Kanta of the Hindu Society in Garratt Lane who run a programme for senior citizens on Thursday lunchtimes to meeting Tooting tweeters Alice and Andrew, alias Tooting About; the evening was full of interesting chats.

We also got to wander around the amazing rooms steeped in hundreds of years of history, the walls adorned with pictures of the Speakers down the centuriues.  We heard a polished and witty presentation from current Speaker Jon Bercow and applauded some Sadiq-selected Community Heroes. Here's hoping that there is more collaboration and cross-fertilisation of all our area's local groups in 2015.