AGM 2014

Tomorrow evening we are holding TTT's annual general meeting (AGM) and 6th birthday party and everyone is welcome to attend.  We will vote for or against our beloved dear leaders, there will be a Tooting related quiz with great prizes, a bit of official business and a chance to hear about TTT's variety of ongoing projects as well as find out how to get involved with some exciting new ones.  Hopefully there will be at least samosas and cake too! 

 

We look forward to catching up with you at Mushkil Aasaan in the Upper Tooting Road from 7pm, Tuesday 29th April.

the heART of the libraries: videos from a community group project in Tooting Library

the heART of the libraries interactive project has been devised by artist Sam Haynes who has been piloting it with Wandsworth Libraries since the new year, and some of the results are can be seen in Tooting Library until the end of April.

Two of us from TTT have been involved - this is a creative and original project which is working with diverse local groups and new technology. It's all about new skills and 'social' sustainability linked with the accessible and welcoming community setting of local libraries.

For example, members of the South London Tamil Welfare Group took part in a short workshop where they learned to use iPads, coached by Chris Nash from the Wandsworth City Learning Centre.

Even though many participants had never touched an iPad before...

...very soon they were onto the next step, which was to make a short video of subjects in the Library itself, recording their own commentary alongside the images..

Now these videos are on view in Tooting Library by a very novel method - each video is accessible via a unique barcode which can be read by a smartphone or iPad with the Microsoft Tag application.

You'll find this on the App Store, or download to an android phone from http://gettag.mobi

Here is one of the barcodes from the set by this group.

If you download the app to your phone, you will be able to scan this barcode image as it's shown here on TTT's blog, in order to see one of the project videos.




If you go to Tooting Library in the next week, with the app installed on your phone, you can find the other barcodes throughout the libary, and see all the other videos too.
Sam's website: http://www.samhaynesart.blogspot.co.uk/

This technique has encouraged me to think about including this appoach in our Community Garden, Tooting Foodival or Gatton School projects. Children or adults could quickly share their own reponses to their experiences, and participate in fascinating new ways to communicate a story made of images, music or commentary in any language....and we can even design our own barcodes (seasonal vegetables?) to suit each project!  - Charles

 

Three practical local projects: do join us!

Furzedown Low Carbon Zone
We had a productive monthly planning meeting last week - please see the minutes and actions here. 
In outline we're at the stage of visiting local partners to explore sites where there is space and interest to be involved by 'hosting' renewable energy generation equipment - whatever technology is appropriate - and sharing in the benefits.
A second stage will be to engage with local people who can become involved as co-owners of a community generation scheme. The Furzedown Festival in June is a target for that, certainly for informal sharing of the project.
Next planning meetings are on 8th May and 3rd June in Furzedown...please come along if you would like to be involved at this stage. Details will be on the TTT Events Calendar on this blog. Contact us on this email link for any further information.

Eighth series of our 'Carbon Conversations' meetings
We are going to offer a free series of local Carbon Conversations from the 19th May to early July this year. Running on Monday evenings (with one Tuesday for luck), this will be a set of six participative meetings which enable individuals to discuss, understand and take control of their carbon footprint, and work out ways to reduce energy consumption and expenses.

It's a very engaging and practical set of meetings.....and even fun.
We'll cover home energy, food, travel and transport, and general consumption of 'stuff'.
All the details are in the flyer for this next series: please click here.
Please contact Charles at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com with any questions.

'Cleaner Air 4 Communities' Project
This project brings citizen science and local action to the challenge of measuring and advocating for clean air. The toolkit - click here to link to a pdf copy - describes some of the steps that can be taken by a community group.
Graham Petersen recently took part in air quality measurement at Clapham Junction, with the Battersea Society (there's a case study on this experience in the toolkit). There is some funding available to support this project, and Graham is investigating that, with a view to improving air quality in Tooting. Please use the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone contact email for more info.

All welcome to join in with these three projects. Please get in touch!