#createfoodival

There's a lot to share about all that's happening at the Tooting Foodival on 14th September, so we'll cover all of these in separate blog posts.

We hope you enjoy the info about our creative offer for adults and young people. All invited to our base in the large yard part way down Hereward Road.

Here's your invitation 

to a diverse 6 hours of creativity:

Our schedule:

11:00-12:30 We'll be micro-observing with Annie, Nikki & Chuck using magnifying glasses and a microscope, drawing and creating the first small worlds which we'll post on Instagram with the hashtag #createfoodival. We started with posting a first example today - have a look.
We can't wait to encourage visitors to be drawn to nature!
We'll continue these activities all day in parallel with the timed special sessions below.

12:30-1:30 We welcome May Webber from the UK national charity Butterfly Conservation
May will bring specimens of insects for us to explore with the help of her expertise and enthusiasm. With May and Nicola we'll draw and realise that what's good for insects in London is also good for people.
MAYBE we will be able to run moth-trapping locally on Friday night, and bring the catch in unharmed to observe and draw.

1:30-3:00 Nikki and Matt will be creating Microbrellas - our spin-off from this spring's Jellybrella project which created big jellyfish-sculptures using scrap umbrellas and linked sea life with ocean plastics.

Making beautiful detailed microbrellas also aims to highlight how minute nano-plastics in the oceans are as damaging pollution challenge as large-scale waste.


We may have a visit from Jasmine the Mermaid and her stop ocean plastics campaign!


3:00-4:30 Paul will lead us to create easy-to-use small home planters out of re-purposed materials. You can take these home and keep growing fresh food this autumn.

All day Think Outside will join us in the creative yard with excellent outdoor learning activities complementary to #createfoodival - thanks for joining us, Beata & Think Outside

We'll display what you make on this inspiring sea turtle table made by Jamie Pattinson - it's a wonderful object with a plastic waste message.

The #createfoodival facilitators look forward 

to seeing you on the 14th from 11:00 to 5:00. 

And there's all the rest 

of the Foodival to enjoy, too!

Growing Community across London - Part 2

Our previous blog post describes Growing Community Part 1 - and to recap in the last week of July our long-planned collaboration between Ravenstone School and Tooting Community Garden offered two interlinked local 'Growing Community in the Heart of the City' workshops as part of The Mayor of London's National Park City Festival

The common green thread running through both events was celebrating city growing and the outdoors, creating an environment which is good for ourselves, for the community and for nature.




Blog post Part 1 describes the Ravenstone School event on July 22.
Here we're sharing what we did together in the second of the two events, the Tooting Community Garden open day on July 28th.

The garden team of a dozen volunteers met early (no Sunday lie-ins) to put up signs, hang our TTT bunting, set up activities and then provide a warm welcome and an invitation to join in the day in any way people wished. We wanted to demonstrate that being outdoors together is accessible and enjoyable.

Over 80 people came along on a Sunday with an on-off forecast for rain. We decided to not put up gazebos, and we were all rewarded with a lovely afternoon.

The welcome table gave a focus for saying hello and having a chance to talk with visitors who either explored the garden, relaxed or joined one of our fun and practical activity workshops:

1. Creating vertical wall planters with Paul: sharing environmental, DIY, creativity and urban growing benefits.














2. Being guided by Sharon to select plants and re-purposed containers to take home - building growing skills and wellbeing.

3. Joining Jane's 'Drawn to Nature' drawing workshop: enjoying taking time to observe and be present, with wellbeing and drawing practice benefits.

4. Annie's creative workshops in the family zone: sharing benefits of creating together in unusual ways across generations or with people new to you and learning fun techniques to take home.

Feedback from visitors included:
'A lovely place, and lovely people' 'A lovely celebration of nature and community spirit' 'The day was beautiful, well thought-out and sustainable' 'A nice peaceful day and a great community feel' 'Loved the community feeling and how positive and welcoming everyone has been' 'What a lovely garden, and such friendly people. We'll be back'

Our own responses to the day?
It was very affirming for the Community Garden team to welcome so many people who enjoyed what we offered together. Sundays in the Garden are fun and informal, and it was a good challenge to do something different, facilitating an engaging and outward-looking day.
Plus, it was our 8th birthday as a garden project since being generously offered use of the land by Naseem Aboobaker.  

Many volunteers have opened the Garden space on over 400 Sundays. 

That's worth celebrating!

Thanks to all the volunteers: Amanda, Annie, Chuck, Deb, Jane, Kay, Keith, Paul, Ryan, Sharon & Tom. A big shout out to our new friends and qualified first aiders Alice & Charlie who joined us on the day to provide that cover - thankfully they had no cause to leap into action. Kudos to photographer Bryony Williams for images used here (plus more for another time) and to Kay and Chuck for other pictures in this blog.

Everyone is welcome to join us at the Community Garden every Sunday from 11:00 to 1:00 (sometimes later into the afternoon). No experience necessary and we share any updates or changes on our Tooting Community Garden Facebook and Instagram pages.

The annual Tooting Foodival - our twelfth! - is TTT's next big community event! It's taking place on Saturday 14th September and we hope to see you there - it's going to be great!

Jellybrella: TTT's invitation to be creative

A second set of photos of our Jellybrella creative workshop on May 11th. These  are all about the day as an invitation to be creative...welcoming people in new ways...and what participants thought about it.

All the background on this participative creative community sustainability project is in a past blog post - please click here It includes "what and why is a Jellybrella?" 

We asked for feedback and below there's a photo of two of the evaluation forms completed on May 11th (click here to enlarge):

We're proud that participants found the Jellybrella day welcoming and inviting.

Reaching parts we had not expected, David even wrote a very special Jellybrella song for one young girl who is a fan of Morrissey (think 'Jacky's Only Happy When She's Up On The Stage').

May 11th lyrics here

About 60 people came along on May 11th; over half were children. The participants were very diverse: half were english and half from many other places: several European and S Asian countries - and Mexico!




In our earlier adult workshops in March and April the balance was 2/3 of participants from countries other than the UK.
Lastly, everyone was from other countries in our February family workshop with CARAS refugee family participants. 65 took part in that workshop (2/3 were children).

A total of 140 people of all ages and cultures took part in our 5 Jellybrella workshops.

We're going to write up our collective reflections on the Jellybrella project, and we'll share our learning soon.

And we'll share our ideas for Jellybrella 2!

Making together to create a Jellybrella on Saturday

We were thrilled with the Jellybrella creative workshop on last Saturday May 11th which we facilitated at Sprout Arts in Furzedown as part of the Wandsworth Arts Fringe.
The weather was mostly kind and we did most of the day outdoors. Thanks for all the support and to Nikki, David, Jane & Chuck for facilitating.

Lots of people came and many of them worked together - parents and children, friends, siblings, grandparents and grandchildren - as well as others who created solo.
It was fascinating to experience the energy of all these different relationships expressed in making together. 

Do you work closely, or independently? Is there a plan or are you both developing the Jellybrella as you go along? Who's leading? What's the energy like - thoughtful, stimulated, quiet, noisy?
 

These photos celebrate making together - and we'll share some more sets of photos on other aspects: happiness, pride, fun, wellbeing, surprise, working with the re-purposed materials, the Jellybrella's message & story. 




Jellybrella has been fascinating and we have a lot to reflect on in terms of community participation and carrying off bold ideas.
We also have more to share on the adult workshops that led up to this public event on Saturday.
If you missed it, here's a link explaining the Jellybrella project which we've been working with throughout this spring: https://tinyurl.com/y6t9pb9o

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.

TTT's next series of Carbon Conversations is postponed until early 2019 - in time for New Year's resolutions!

We're postponing our new series of Carbon Conversations until the New Year.
Tonight's first session is cancelled, as are the following 5 meetings. The series of meetings needs a critical mass of local people to join in so we have rich and diverse discussions - we are nearly there but not quite for the series due to start this evening. So we will find new dates early in 2019 with that existing participant group, and encourage more people to sign up and join them. Let us know if you are interested!
Very early New Year's resolutions, anyone?
All the info on the six free meetings organised by TTT's Ben Cuddon in a recent blog post here. Just ignore the dates.

The facilitated workshops enable individuals to explore the areas of our lives where we can reduce our own carbon emissions: travel, food, domestic energy, consumption and waste.
During the six weekly sessions you'll discuss in a supportive atmosphere all the practicalities of making your own 'low-carbon lifestyle' changes. Making these changes is never one size fits all. 

A quote from a past participant:  

"The beauty of Carbon Conversations is the 

optimism, creativity and shared ideas" 

Local Stories of Sustainability Success - four vivid can-do examples of reducing carbon footprints and increasing wellbeing

We're hosting a new free event: Local Stories of Sustainability Success in the afternoon of Saturday 20th October, from 2:00 to 4:00 at the Mushkil Aasaan Hall, 220 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EW.

The event will illustrate vivid can-do stories by local people who have reduced their carbon footprints and increased their wellbeing 

Martin, Susan, Tanya & Dermot - clockwise from top left

• Martin Cobley and several hundred worms will demonstrate why he is the borough guru for how worm composting
• Susan Venner will share the steps to make a 19th century family house in Balham warm and cosy, emphasising how to tackle the high-impact things first. More detail on Susan's experience on the Superhome Database at https://tinyurl.com/y94mqnsb
• Dermot Jones will share his experience of switching to an electric vehicle. Dermot also tweets as @ElecticVanMan about the story of his first 4000 miles - and the myths and memes
• Tanya de Afonseca will share her own experience of reducing (refusing?) household plastics. Tanya's BYO Zero Waste Shop is in Tooting Market https://byo.london/

We'll discuss these inspiring examples of what can be done, share ideas, be energised, make some new resolutions & links.

For the 'Local Stories' flyer, please click here.

The session is designed for anyone who is interested in these lively local stories. You do not need to be an expert!
Please share with friends and colleagues who you think would appreciate the event.
Bring the family! We'll have a crafts table alongside for some making.

Thanks to the Zero Waste Shop for sharing this diagram of five core elements of zero waste.


We'll also introduce the next run of Carbon Conversations starting on Thursday November 1st. For details, click here. Please encourage friends to join in with this 13th series!

Gardens of Refuge project - February 2017 monthly update as we start with a Family Activity Day

After the long haul of communicating near and far for voting in the Aviva Community Fund last year, winning funding in January, and getting on with the planning for 2017...we've begun the project!

Our first session with the CARAS refugee and asylum-seekers has been a Family Activity Day on Valentine's Day..
It was a familiar mother-and-children event like many repeated all across Britain when it's half term, and that everyday normalness was exactly the point: creating a safe and friendly space for some fun and practical family time together as a community.
That's the purpose of Gardens of Refuge: to create with asylum-seekers and refugees a therapeutic sense of wellbeing and feeling at home, plus growing activities and meeting members of the wider local community.

Run by CARAS staff and volunteers, plus more from TTT, by 11:30 the church hall at All Saints Tooting was transformed with friendly faces and drop-in games and toys for all ages.

Egle from CARAS ran a 90-minute programme while lunch was being prepared:

• In a circle of chairs: welcome, introductions & ground rules for inclusion and safety.
• In a big burst of energy - playing 'fruit salad' to get us all interacting, adults and children alike.
• At 3 tables: looking at images from the Tooting Community Garden and saying which kind of activities individuals would like to try out this year- gardening, picnicking & cooking on a fire; garden crafts; and enjoying nature. Everyone had 5 votes to distribute using sticky stars...results to be shared.

• Continuing at the tables to decorate flower pots using stickers, feathers and pipe cleaners.

Carefully writing a plant label

• Transplanting growing pots of supermarket herbs (donated by Waitrose Balham). Each pot was divided into 5 or 6 smaller pots, so the roots of basil, parsley, coriander, and greek basil have room to grow on windowsills back at home, and so they could all be shared out between 45 people.