Growing Community across London - Part 1...

130 people joined us for 2 events during London National Park City Festival Week!

Our 2 linked workshops, called Growing Community in the Heart of Wandsworth, invited people to come and get their hands dirty learning how to make vertical planters, potting on, creating leaf pressings and loads more. They also created a lasting echo in both locations, read on to find out more...

The first event was at Ravenstone Primary School on Monday 22nd July. What struck me most about this day was that we had way more young people than adults and all the young people wanted to get active.

The cloth planters were made using a staple gun, here's Kate and Chuck in action. 

These four friends knew exactly what they were doing making cloth planters 

These guys loved moving muck and making a wee home for their plants.

A big element of our day was to give a workshop on making vertical planters. Why? To show what can be made with largely waste materials - pallets, any cloth, cardboard tubes from carpet shops and homemade compost. Paul Wilson gave a fantastic session on the pallet planters, encouraging people young and old to get involved.

Paul in action taking through the endless possibilities of a pallet

All planted up and ready to go!

Grandpa/son tackle the drill

The day also inspired a diverse range of volunteers who not only helped deliver the event, but also had time to catch up, share experiences and enjoy the day. HUGE thank you to Miranda, Tara, Paul and Paul, Sarah, Mary, Peter, Claire and Claire and Veronica.

Big up the Volunteer Team!

We were planting for community, for ourselves and for nature. At Ravenstone, the vertical planters for community will be used in a brand new Wild Place for Nature. This project, led by parent volunteers and quite literally digging up the asphalt down to the subsoil to build up new planting areas and provide much needed connection to nature for the 400 children at the school, not to mention parents, teachers and staff.

Everyone got to take a plant home and, of course, all the planting was good for nature.

Feedback, child-style... do we really hate plants??

Both events for part of a London wide National Park City Festival with events happening over 9 days and the announcement by Mayor Sadiq Khan of London being the world's first National Park City. Many more Cities across the World have their eyes on London and are exploring what National Park City status means for them. For us, its about advocacy for green and blue spaces in celebration for all that they give us. Its also about feeling part of a much bigger ecological and social system across London whenever we come and garden at home, at Ravenstone or at Tooting Community Garden. Its a fantastic response to the Climate Crisis, embracing imagination, communities and wonder in making London healthier, greener and wilder.

Blog 2 will be all about the linked workshop at Tooting Community Garden, keep those eyes peeled!

Follow London National Park City Foundation HERE
And their website HERE
Check out the National Park City Festival Website HERE

Annual general meeting and celebrations

Here at Transition Town Tooting we love a chance to celebrate - and we don't mind a good birthday cake either!
Last month was our annual general meeting and party, the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past year, look forward to the future and celebrate the now.
We had feedback from some of our main events and projects of the last year and it was lovely to hear from some new faces.

The projects represented were: Foodival (Mal), Future Tooting (Eleanor), Restart/Sewstart (Jeni), Vegetanuary (Sharon), Tooting Twirl (Lucy & Richard), Carbon Conversations (Peter), Caras (Jeni & Egle), Outdoor Learning (Sharon), Tooting Community Garden (Christine) and Green Drinks (Richard).


This list shows the diversity of our community activities - some long standing partnerships, some one-off events - and of course covers just a snapshot of the many things TTT is involved with.

We then moved to the formal part of the evening - reports from the treasurer, secretary and co-chairs and the reelection of the officers. Your chief officers remain: Sharon Gray & Jeni Walker, co-chairs; Eleanor Glen, secretary; and David Thorne, treasurer. We look forward to hearing from you!




Time for a fun activity - we asked everyone present to write down some ideas for future TTT projects or wishes for Tooting on a 'cookie' and these will be stored in our TTT Cookie Jar to be enjoyed when we have a lull in our calendar - there was certainly plenty of food for thought.

A quiz followed, put together by David, which provoked much debate and brain-straining and then we rounded off the evening with a gorgeous chocolate cake to celebrate TTT's 10th birthday, some delicious snacks and many enjoyable conversations.
Huge thanks to everyone who came and contributed to a great evening. We look forward to seeing you at next year's party, or before then at any of our TT activities. Just email us on transitiontowntooting@gmail.com to find out how you can get involved.
Sharon

Moth Night on Friday 13th October - all welcome!

This Friday 13th October as a part of Pollinator Paths Wandsworth project, all invited to a Moth Recording Walk at Putney Heath. 

This is a fun mix of citizen science and being outdoors in the city. If you have never seen live moths close up, it's a great opportunity.

Timing? Meet 6:30 pm 

Start Location? Boyd Court, 101 Carslake Road, Putney SW15 3DD

Activity? We'll set live moth traps, go for a short evening walk and then return to the traps to see what moths hve been attracted to them. 

Then, those that wish to can return to the Green Man Pub nearby to continue the discussion.

Clothing? We'll be working and walking on the Heath at dusk, so wear appropriate shoes. You could bring a torch.

Who is this for? Anyone interested, including children of course. Have they seen live moths close up?

Organisers & info? Contact m.redmond@lsx.org.uk or info@putneycommunitygardens.org

We'll be guided by David Howden from London Natural History Society and hosted by Putney Community Garden representatives.

Moth Night is the annual national celebration of moth recording organised by Atropos and Butterfly Conservation, with local events aimed at raising awareness of moths among the general public.

Come and enjoy getting close to moths - and many of us are not aware that moths are significant pollinators. Time to change that!

Let’s learn more and help promote those great pollinators together.

More info about the the Pollinator Paths Wandsworth project - click here.

Growing together, Learning together, Working together: three years of Outdoor Learning in Gatton Primary School's own words

Early in May we held a delightful celebration of three years' shared experience of the outdoor learning project between Gatton Primary School and Tooting Community Garden. 
You can look at that blog report by clicking here. 

The sun shone on us all and lit the mosaic made at the school with every pupil involved. 
Among the natural images the tiles spell out the three phrases that are the title of this post.





What is outdoor learning? 'OL' covers many activities (not only gardening) and settings. OL offers opportunities for surprising and diverse impact on participants -not fixed or one-size-fits-all.

Have a look at this earlier TTT post on outdoor learning with younger children from Gatton School.
Also, click on OUTDOOR LEARNING in the Quick LInks at the top of this web page for stories from 3 years of the project.

We want to share Gatton School pupils' own words about their experience of the project. Young people from Year Six (10 & 11 years old) made confident and touching short speeches at the celebration, and you can read the texts here. 

Celebrating Community Outdoor Learning with Wandsworth's Mayor

This afternoon a formal celebration of three years of Community Outdoor Learning with Gatton School took place at the Tooting Community Garden, attended as guest of honour by the Mayor of Wandsworth, Councillor Nicola Nardelli, plus site owner Naseem Aboobaker of Mushkil Aasaan and Rifat Batool, Head at Gatton School. 
The celebration was joined by many of the children, staff and volunteers who have contributed to the development of the garden and the Outdoor Learning programme.

The Mosaic and Vertical Garden

The Mayor officially opened the vertical garden made by Year 6 children in recent weeks as well as unveiling the mosaic curated by artist Kirsteen Ritchie and made with the help of many of the children at school.  
Naseem expressed her thankfulness for the community connections made in the garden and a group of the children read out their own tributes and reflections on the garden projects.  
Rifat spoke about the educational value of the outdoor projects over the past three years.

A community collaboration

Mayor Nicola Nardelli & Naseem Aboobaker

The Mayor with Gatton School Year 6 children

We're very grateful to all who took part on a lovely day to celebrate this project.
More to follow ...

Bringing local cultures and faiths together with outdoor learning in Tooting Community Garden

We're proud to be helping with a new outdoor learning project in the Community Garden with Gatton Primary School and the Mosaic Jewish Primary School

Our Community Garden-based project with Gatton School has run for nearly three years. Gatton is a Muslim primary near Tooting Broadway - click here for lots of our earlier reports.

 

The Head at Gatton Scool, Rifat Batool, has always been keen to extend the project to capitalise on 'Garden' learning opportunities for building community links plus vivid SMSC education. 

 

SMSC is Social, Moral, Spiritual and Cultural development, which is linked strongly to schools' citizenship curriculum content.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rifat Batool has met an enthusiastic ally in Kate Baum, Head of the Mosaic Jewish Primary School. 

 

 

 

 

This is a first exciting step in bringing together two Wandsworth borough faith communities in a new way, and facilitating a new chapter of shared outdoor learning. Both schools are Ofsted 'Outstanding', and this creative experiment is an example to all.

 

After planning in the autumn, last week on a sunny day in Tooting a Year 1 group from Gatton were joined by children from the Mosaic Jewish School. The photos tell the story:

 

Examining pictures of the diverse school activities in the Garden since March 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorting garlic bulbs and separating the individual cloves. 

Which way up to plant them?

 

 

 

Measuring the plot and cutting string to mark the row.

 

 

 

 

Planting the garlic cloves.

Later in the summer we'll save some to cook dishes at both schools for the Tooting Foodival in September.

 Close encounters.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mosaic Jewish School is starting a school garden at their new location in Roehampton. TTT and Gatton School's facilitation experience - including growing and nature, awareness and teamworking games, building the rainwater harvesting classroom, the insect hotel and the bottle greenhouse - gave the visitors energy and plenty of ideas to add to their own garden and learning plans.

Children from both schools will continue be involved in joint plans. We can't wait to see what develops, and we'll share news on this blog.

 

Please get in touch with us at TTT if you would like to know more, or contribute to this project.

 

 

From the Local to the International - Journeys of imagination and generosity at the Transition Network International Conference

Back in September, Charles Whitehead wrote a preview piece about 8 of us from Tooting heading to the Transition Network International Conference at Seale Hayne, Newton Abbot. We went by caravan, car share and train arriving the day before, early afternoon and late at night.

You can read all about how we contributed to the conference in Charles' blogpost here. Following the conference, we were all excited to share our experience of it as it had so much energy to give! Please do click on the links in the highlighted words, if they are of interest. There is also a Storify of the Conference and a blog on the Transition Network site.

Tooting heads West!

Home away from Home, with cake!

After arriving, pitching our tents, siting and re-siting our caravan and finding our rooms, Jenny , Hilary and myself participated in the Transition Skills day, learning lots about Transition Thrive , designing a new economy in "REconomy" and how to "Become your own Developer" before the conference actually began.

Meanwhile, Lucy was running her own workshop on Creative Engagement, she writes...

"Once I'd recovered from the news that my main collaborator, Ruth Ben-Tovim (she of the Tooting Transition Shop from 2012), was sick and I would have to get on and run the day long Transition workshop on the arts and creating community on my own, I decided this Transition Conference (my 4th) was going to be about getting on and doing it with the resources I had to hand. I calmed myself by imagining the 14 strangers I was about to meet and wondering why they could be interested in learning about the craft of making things happen, and the art of creative participation. The knowledge they would all be doing this in a Transition context i.e. making the world we want to live in by modelling the changes in how we live where we live, immediately made me relax. I felt I could be myself and invite them to give all of themselves to the workshop, which they did! The day was astonishing for the rich diversity of their expertise, their generosity to give and gain from one another and the final artworks they created together. I was bowled over by how much creative ground we covered and my abiding faith in the central role our imaginations and creativity play in Transition. I have spent 3 years capturing this in the transition book in the arts, Playing for Time - making Art As If the World Mattered and it felt as if the book had in a sense, come home.

This feeling of generosity, sharing and common goals was echoed by Jenny's experience, she reflected later:

"It was inspiring and encouraging to meet other people from around the world who share a vision for a fairer, more community-led world. A focus on collaboration, partnerships and relationship building was a common theme. It's something we cherish in Transition Town Tooting and will continue to build in 2016. A Neighbourhood Plan, Foodival and our garden projects wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the generosity and energy of our partners and volunteers".

My experience during the Transition Thrive training was similarly applicable to our activity in Tooting and encouraged me to be active in looking after the wonderful volunteers and core group of Transition Town Tooting as well as offering the opportunity to participate to more people through Open Days and outreach.

Our Workshops: Outdoor Learning with Young People and Creative Facilitation with FanSHEN


Day 2 and the conference proper begins... Jenny, Charlie, Sharon and I hosted a workshop on Outdoor Learning with Young People. We shared our work in Outdoor Learning in 3 areas:

So what is outdoor learning?

For the past 2 1/2 years, TTT has been running outdoor learning classes with pupils from Gatton, a local primary school in the community garden. From weekly sessions with Reception and Year 1 classes, to 7-week projects with the Year 6 students, the classes encompass a huge range of cross-curriculum learning, developing new skills and vocabulary and allowing the children to fully interact with nature in the safe and beautiful environment of our garden.

But I still get asked regularly, what exactly is outdoor learning? So, here's a brief example of my class today, on a beautiful autumn morning with a lively Year 1 group...

After warm greetings and not-at-all-exaggerated reports on how much they had grown over the summer holidays, the children discussed the different seasons, today's weather and how the sunshine made them feel: happy, bright and a bit sweaty! We then looked at some of the plants we had been growing - a cherry tomato that I picked just before they arrived and a beetroot. They were very excited to discover that beetroot acts as a natural dye and took great delight in getting a red thumb. We also went to look at the green and yellow pumpkin that was growing in the vegetable beds.

Then we played an energetic game of seek and find, bringing back different numbers and colours of grasses, leaves, pinecones, sticks and acorns. The children learned that the squirrels love to eat acorns and hide them away so that they can eat them later in the winter; we found lots of buried acorns in the garden - sorry squirrels!

And then, while half the group help collect objects for the Big Draw, the other half used trowels (remembering the safety instructions I taught them last year) to dig up the old pea plants in their little veg bed. The plants went on the compost heap to be recycled in the garden. We all put our hands into the freshly dug soil to feel how it was drier on the top and damper underneath but was also loose like crumble mix. And the numerous worms that were unearthed during the process were all gently and kindly transported to the bush where rumour has it they were having a big worm party...

Finally, after making big shapes, small shapes and star shapes, the children exploded with an impressive "Acorns!" for their "word jump". Exit one group of happy, rosy-cheeked, energised children.
Sharon

 

Transition Network International Conference

You may know that TTT is part of a network of Transition Towns round the world - community groups of all shapes and sizes who are each taking local action on environmental and social sustainability. TTT's motto is Making Change in How We Live, Where We Live, in Light of Climate Change. That encourages a wide range of activities, and inspires us to want to get on with it alongside local partners who are 'transitioning' to establish a better future now.

The Transition Network is hosting its first international conference for 3 years: hundreds of people are booked in from dozens of countries this weekend in Devon. 
Nine of us from the TTT family are attending. It's only a week after the Foodival - there are still many great and tired memories to share, and now we are about to make new ones.


 
As I post this blog four of us are zooming down the road towing a cute caravan. 

The others are packing or looking for their train tickets...


Between us we've been invited to facilitate three workshops, and we're proud to be able to do that: 

• Tomorrow Lucy is co-facilitating a day workshop on 'The Art of Invitation: creative engagement for ourselves and our communities'. Details are here.
• On Saturday morning, Charles, Jenny, Richard and Sharon are hosting a workshop on 'Outdoor Learning with Young People'. Details here.
• On Saturday afternoon, Dan and Rachel from fanSHEN are offering a workshop on 'Creative Facilitation'. Details here.

We'll all attend other sessions and there will be a lot of interaction and chatting in the lunch queues.

It's very inspiring to me that 'Transition' includes TTT's local Tooting focus and the wide international network. 


In the last month we've been lucky to welcome visitors from 2 overseas Transition initiatives - Catherine and Leonard from Transition Albany in the Bay Area of California...
...and Caroline from Transition XL in Ixelles, Brussels. 
We've learned a lot from them all, and also shared the joys of Tooting. 

At the conference we're looking forward to sharing ideas that encourage us and make our community projects more effective. 

We'll let you know all about it. -Charles