Trashcatchers' Carnival Is Nearly Here

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:

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

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

ONLY ONE MONTH TO GO!

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

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

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!

Volunteer Roles for Carnival

TTT is looking for several different people to assist over the next few months in the build up to Tooting's first ever Trashcatchers Carnival on July 4th. Could you help out with vital Fundraising or be the key Community Liaison person with all the local groups? Or perhaps you know all about Press & Publicity? Click on the respective links for more details of each role and how to apply.

Trashcatching Workshops

Well done to everyone who was involved in last week's Trashcatching Workshops at Graveney School.  A short film of some of the action can be watched below! There will be more workshops over half term in February as we prepare for the big Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting on July 4th 2010. Any children or adults wishing to get involved, you can, it's free and we'd love to have you on board!

What Are Transition Towns? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and why families get involved

Kate Birch's article for Families South West magazine looks at Transition Towns including TTT and TTBrixton. Click the image below to read in full.

What Might Trashcatching Look Like?

A few excerpts from June's Trashcatching Procession at the BATCA Funday

Tooting Goes To Town!

A Tooting team travelled up to town last night to hear the final results for the TippingPoint Commission on the roof terraces of the National Theatre on The South Bank. Out of 178 applications nationally the Trashcatchers' Carnival in Tooting was one of 4 awards presented by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, pictured here with (standing on the right of the picture, Lucy Neal, Hilary Jennings, (co-Chairs TTT), Indrajit Patel (Chair of the Tooting Partnership Board/Tooting Business Network), Audrey Helps (Tooting Town Centre Manager), Deb Mullins (Emergency Exit Arts), Faye Mayer (Tooting Community Programme Co-ordinator for Tooting Schools), Fabio Santos (Project Phakama), Ines Tercio (Project Phakama) and to Ines' immediate Regis Gnaly (Project Phakama). Taking this picture was Mike Grenville who came up from Forest Row to represent the Transition Network, thankyou Mike.

The award is thrilling. It gives £20,000 to Project Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts to lead a year long project in Tooting to use art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of all the community to create a large scale promenade on the 2010 summer solstice - from Trash! Using recycling as a metaphor, (and as piloted at June 13th Funday) we can build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting and have a lot of fun in the process. We will post here soon national news about these prestigious awards, created by TippingPoint to encourage artists to introduce audiences to the imaginative thinking necessary to contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.

Yes, that's us! All would-be sewers, beaders, makers, designers, dancers, musicians, recyclers, cyclers, performers, costumiers, hairdressers, puppeteers and carnivalistas please step forward!

LN

Trashcatching Pics

Here are a few more photos of the Trashcatching and making at last weekend's BATCA funday. Thanks to local photographer Neila (neila@hotmail.co.uk) for these.

BATCA Midsummer Funday

This afternoon at the BATCA Midummer Funday, TTT helped Project Phakama, Emergency Exit Arts and a small army of Tooting kids turn TRASH into great CARNIVAL COSTUMES for a'Trashcatchers' Carnival procession!

There are grand plans for 2010 but in the meantime here is a selection of photos from today. We should be able to post some film up too shortly.

Imagine if you saved every bit of rubbish for a year what you could make at the end of it?!!! Hmm now there's an idea!