It was a Wild Afternoon in Tooting, and worth it

The games:
A beautiful sunny Tooting morning.....,
.....and guess what time the really cold rain started yesterday? 

Yes, exactly as we started the games. 

Nevertheless, adults were seen and heard up trees, and a 2-year old was soon playing hug-tag (come next time to find out how to play that game..). That brave family deserves our respect!

There will be a next time, with the monthly Tooting Field Days starting on Sunday April 19th - we will share all the details soon. 
Many thanks to Rachel and Dan from fanSHEN Theatre...brrrr.

The Project Wild Thing film:
It was great to see this - the film covers many current opportunities and challenges in getting us all outdoors more, through the storyline of our hero having a few months to become 'Marketing Manager for Nature'. Why? What's the product? What are young people's perceptions? Who wants to be involved? Who can advise and help? The result became the 'Project Wild Thing' group, with good resources for all here.

Meeting local groups: 
A nice extra outcome of the afternoon was meeting Anthony & Kirsty, trustees from The Woodfield Project. The project is restoring a building, and making new relationships, and offering new outdoor-oriented courses right by Tooting Common.
It's really valuable for TTT to meet local allies, so we can work together on these important objectives which are good for Tooting people and the whole neighbourhood.

Courses are being developed with Fabiola from Groundwork London.
She gave us a hand-made poster of some of the local events being offered in April and May.

We'll put it up at the Community Garden, Fabiola. Really great topics, and we'll keep in close touch and promote these events.
For more detailed information, contact her here. 

Thanks again to the supporters for this event: The Wandsworth Council Eco-Fund, Mushkil Aasaan, and the Friends of Streatham Cemetery.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 When we got tired, we stopped at one of Tooting’s brilliant restaurants or cafes and refueled on egg kothu or samosas or 

coffee while we pored over a map to see where we hadn’t tried yet. 

We stumbled on places and met people 

we wouldn’t normally. 

Maybe because it was August and 

everyone else was away, it felt a bit like a holiday, exploring a place without the pressure of needing to be in a 

certain place at a particular time.

Green living & games: a second theme for our St George's Open Day Stand

A theme we'll be looking at with our stand in the hospital at St George's all day on Nov 15th is green living, with games and activities to explore home and personal sustainability. Living green is a practical response at family and community level to global climate change.

Professor Chris Rapley's play / lecture called 2071 'explores the future of life on earth and climate change' this week at the Royal Court Theatre. Some of us from TTT saw the play today, and one of the conclusions is simple and powerful:

1. Global population will probably stabilise - say at c9.5 billion
2. That population will need energy
3. That energy must be carbon-free for us to have a successful future

Blunt words.
Getting rid of 'carbon' in energy and production is not the only key to being sustainable and happy...but it's a core step. TTT have found the practical focus on everyday carbon reduction has been successful in the series of Carbon Conversations meetings we've offered locally since 2011. To see a recent run through of our 2014 series in six blog posts, click here - and we will be happy to talk about the meetings with visitors on Saturday.

What about games?

We know playing games is a simple (and sophisticated) way of understanding a new subject or rehearsing larger-scale challenges.

 
In Carbon Conversations, there are a lot of games - for example on our choices in managing home energy, and on travel options, and on 'where is the carbon in the food we use?'


Come along on Saturday and we guarantee you will enjoy our games for all ages: Giant Green Living Jenga, Food Mapping, Food Footprints, and making a Drinks Carton Wallet.

We've been making these wallets in Tooting since 2010 (last seen at the 2014 Foodival, where dozens were hidden around Tooting, each with a local chilli pepper and an invitation inside...).


Like to see a step-by step guide to make 
them at home?
1 First squash your carton, with a concertina fold in each side:
2 Fold into three and then....
  ...well, come along on Saturday and find out! 


We look forward to seeing you all day on Saturday 15th at St George's, and all ages are welcome to come and play.