What combines creativity, community participation, charity, fun, repurposing waste, wellbeing, inclusion & shopping for good?

Jellybrella does! (now we know...)
On the Bank Holiday weekend and all next week: combine your love of creativity and fun with shopping in a good cause.

Visit the super new Wandsworth Oasis shop at 61 Balham High Rd & admire windows full of Jellybrella creations. 

The Jellybrellas were created last week by local adults with sight loss from Thomas Pocklington Trust Balham Resource Centre nearby: these two photos are from that workshop.















Thanks so much to Gill the Balham Oasis shop manager for all the support collecting customers' umbrellas since February and saying 'yes, have the window!' as a wonderful opportunity to share the joy of Jellybrella! Thanks also to Michelle the manager at Oasis Trinity Road and Joy in Oasis Mitcham Lane.

Make your own Jellybrella on Saturday May 11th at our free public workshop at Sprout Community Arts - all the details at tinyurl.com/y6t9pb9o

What will your Jellybrella be like? 

We can't wait to find out!

 

Jellybrella creative workshop takes off on May 11th

We're thrilled to be running the Jellybrella creative workshop in a fortnight as part of Wandsworth Arts Fringe.
Free and for all ages: all welcome to join us!

We're holding the Jellybrella workshop from 10:00 to 4:00 on Saturday May 11 in Furzedown at Sprout Community Arts.
Bring an umbrella or two if you can - perhaps you can re-make a neglected one or celebrate your favourite loved brolly.

We'll get straight into making led by Nikki and Chuck, and at intervals our storyteller David will move us with tales of lost & found umbrellas & living with less waste. He'll be helping us be imaginative and thoughtful about the links between being artists for the day and taking care of the health and wellbeing of our neighbours, community and city.
We'll finish with a parade right outside Sprout - and if it rains, there's no problem as we'll have Jellybrellas.

To  book workshop places - don't hesitate to bring the family - please visit Transition Town Tooting & Jellybrella event pages on Facebook here and send us a message.

A bucket of donated brollies  - each of them waiting to be transformed by you into a Jellybrella.
Come on May 11th to our creative workshop and find out the difference!




 

We're very grateful to Wandsworth Grants Fund and the Wandsworth Arts Fringe team for supporting Jellybrella.
That's all the May 11th workshop details; please read on for more of what we have learned so far while doing the Jellybrella project.

Donate and transform your old or broken umbrellas into a Jellybrella!

Our Jellybrella participatory arts project reuses waste to celebrate creativity, diversity and sustainability. The main event is a free family day on May 11th at Sprout Community Arts in Furzedown, offered as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe. More info here.

Donated at TTT's ACE

The raw materials we're using are all saved from scrap, and the key thing we need is lots of umbrellas! 
Maybe some of the lost umbrellas of Tooting which gather wasted and folorn in corners of pubs and cafes?
Maybe an old or broken brolly of yours? 
Maybe one you find in the road?
You can donate in many ways to the Jellybrella project: your golfing or fishing brollies, pretty parasols, or classic old school British black rolled-up umbrellas.

Where to donate a brolly in March & April:

• Bring to the Tooting Community Garden any Sunday between 11:00 & 1:00. We're at 5 North Drive SW16 1RN
• Bring to any other TTT meeting - for example the Open Monthly Meeting on Tues 12th. Details on TTT events calendar.
• Leave them for us at the Work & Play Scrapstore
• Leave them for us at any of 3 Wandsworth Oasis charity shops - at Amen Corner, at 40-42 Trinity Road or at 127 Mitcham Lane
• Leave them for us at the South London Makerspace in Herne Hill

Funding awarded for 2018 'Welcoming Signs' partnership with CARAS. Plus: new creative community workshops running March-May.

We're planning the fourth year of TTT's partnership with CARAS the Tooting charity working with refugee and asylum-seekers. 
 
We're thrilled that the partnership has been awarded funding for 2018 from Team London and Thrive LDN's ‘Young London Inspired’ fund: "improving the lives and mental health of young Londoners by helping them to volunteer".

So, in 2018 one of our main focus areas will be enabling young people from CARAS to volunteer in the community. That means working with young people to imagine and design what they could contribute locally and what benefit that would have, as well as carrying out the voluntary time.

The whole 2018 young people's partnership is called 'Welcoming Signs'. Many elements of our CARAS project involved community benefit and relationships in the past: for example these pallet-benches made with the CARAS Youth Club with welcoming invitations written in many languages had starring roles at TTT's Tooting Twirl in July 2017:

 












We're fortunate and grateful that several local partner organisations in Tootings have been 'reaching in' to CARAS, seeking and offering voluntary projects. 
We'll share more very soon on the range of activities we're exploring. 

Plus we'll continue to work through 2018 with other age groups served by CARAS: families, the women's group, adults.

The first community events with young people from CARAS included as contributors are starting in the next few weeks: on March 16th and 23rd we're facilitating Signs of Welcome workshops across the border in Wimbledon, at The Sound Lounge pop-up venue. 
It's the same event run two times. 
Six other local venues have agreed to offer more Signs of Welcome sessions between March and May as project partners. 
The materials from the 'Signs' will always be re-purposed, saved from going to waste. Thanks to another partner, the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting for your support!

 

The details: Signs of Welcome creative workshops this March

“What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?”

Dates: Friday 16^th March & Friday 23^rd March

Venue: The Sound Lounge, 8 The Broadway, Wimbledon SW19 1RE

Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm

What to expect: (download the flier here)

o   All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need

o   Create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community. You can write in any language!

o   Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018

o   Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop

o   We’ve chosen afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together

Tooting friends are welcome to come over to Wimbledon to enjoy the first workshops and the familiar faces at The Sound Lounge.








Please contact Charles by email here if you have any queries. Up-to-date news on the workshops will be on TTT's facebook page & shared by twitter.

Come to our Annual Celebratory Extravaganza Friday 28th April

On Friday 28th April we are hosting our  

Annual Celebratory Extravaganza!

Everyone is welcome to join us at:   

Derinton Community Centre
101a/b Derinton Road
Tooting, SW17 8HZ

From 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm

If you’re on our mailing list, like or follow our Facebook or Twitter accounts, have been to any of our events, or are just interested to find out what we do in Tooting – come along. And share with your friends!

Celebrating and sharing at TTT's 2016 ACE

We will be celebrating all of the past year's achievements and the partnerships that have developed to help deliver those projects.

We will also be signposting the exciting projects we have planned for the future and inviting people to get involved in their own way.

It’s a place to meet other local people who share our goals:

Making Change in How We Live, Where We Live, 

in Light of Climate Change.

What to expect:

• TTT sustenance: a.k.a tea, cake, samosas, Turkish bread & hummus
• Energy and participation: a Tooting-themed quiz & more
• A celebration of past successes
• Information about TTT’s projects
• Sharing ideas you might have to improve our neighbourhood
• Looking ahead and an invitation to get involved
• Conversations with friends new and old
• A TTT goody bag
• Please note: so we can open the door and celebrate with our whole community and all the local people and partners who support us, the celebration will be alcohol free

Eleanor writes about last year's ACE: 

"I attended for the first time last year and it was a fantastic event. The presentation of the successes really opened my eyes to what can be achieved when like-minded people get together on a common theme and don’t give up. 
Even though I was already involved and getting the regular newsletter, there were lots of activities going on under the radar that were ready to shared by the enthusiastic people leading the charge. All of the activities presented together showed an incredible achievement.

The activities included things like: workshops inspiring beginner gardeners, carbon conversations, helping to create a neighbourhood plan, running a community garden, sustainable art projects and restart parties.

The main theme that stood out to me on the night was partnerships. It was clear that it wasn’t just TTT working on their own. The strength comes from the partnerships that TTT has developed and nurtured. These partnerships were not all with other environmental themed groups either. They cross a variety of sections of society and combine the interests of both parties to create amazing results.

Last year's event inspired me to get involved in more TTT projects.
I hope I have inspired you to come along and see what is going on."

See you there on Friday 28th!

Facebook invitation to share: https://goo.gl/lviVH1