BATCA Community Heroes

BATCA Hero Hilary

It was a good night for TTT and our partners at last night's BATCA (Balham & Tooting Community Association) Community Heroes Awards.  Our Rooting in Tooting colleagues at CARAS (Community Action for Refugees & Asylum Seekers), won a Team Award, while Hilary Jennings ex-co-chair and key player in TTT since 2008 was a highly commended hero(ine).

Eleanor Brown, CARAS Youth Services Co-ordinator, with Hafsa and Waseem

We were happy that our nomination for the ever helpful Ilesh Patel at Miss U Stationers also resulted in a highly commended award.  

Hilary, delighted (and somewhat surprised!) with her award, reported that "it was a great evening with a real sense of warmth and pride in how this area is a place of community and diversity. A few people mentioned it being an example of how diverse community can live well together."

All the Community Award winners are listed in the BATCA press release - click here to read it.

Email us if you'd like to find out more about our Rooting in Tooting project and check out the newly launched CARAS website!  And don't forget tomorrow's Reduce Reuse Resparkle at Tooting Library!

Who's cooking up a feast for Foodival?

We are very pleased to be able to announce the restaurants who will be taking up the challenge of cooking up delicious taster dishes from all the food you're donating to Foodival.

Find out who those seven restaurants are over on the Foodival blog.

Fancy joining them in celebrating local produce?

• You can produce a dish from your own locally grown or foraged produce as part of the Top Tooting Cook competition. 
• Or pick up some produce from us by visiting Mushkil Aasaan from 4pm - 5pm on Saturday 13 September.

And if you have any food you'd like to donate, you can drop it off at our stand at the BATCA Community Fun Day or at Mushkil Aasaan during Foodcycle from 1pm - 4pm on Saturday 13 September.

Three weeks until Foodival!

It's just 3 weeks until the 7th annual Tooting Foodival! 

We're beavering away behind the scenes and we hope that your fruit and vegetables are growing well.  Thanks to everyone who has added their produce to the What's Growing in Tooting map.

Donate your fruit and veg on Saturday 13 Sep

If you have spare fruit, vegetables or herbs, you can donate them at two locations on Saturday 13th September from 1pm - 5pm:

• We'll be at the BATCA Community Fun Day on Broadwater Road, and at
• Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road.

Even if you only have two tomatoes or a sprig of rosemary, bring it along, so that we can offer delicious local food to many people on Sunday. Your donations will be delivered to local restaurants and to our Top Tooting Cook contestants, who will be cooking up a treat overnight, ready for the festival on Sunday 14th September at Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High Street (by Broadway Studios).

Join us at Samaj Hall on Sunday 14 Sep from 12 noon until 5pm.

There will be plenty to entertain you - some great musicians and entertainers, games, theatre, craft activities, local stalls, and of course some very tasty food with very low food miles from our local restaurants.

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's involved so far in getting the festival off the ground:

• Food donations - Tooting Community Garden, Abel & Cole, Bramford Community Garden, SHARE Community Garden and many more local growers, who will donate on Saturday.

• Restaurants - Pooja, Meza, Mis Bar Mcleczny, Ricks, Al Mirage, Fisher & Co and Mina's Grill.

• Entertainment - The Apple Cart by fanSHEN, Young Voices Choir, singers John Buckley, Dermot Jones and Vince Burke, magician Marc Kerstein, comedian Sam Quinn, the Slim Estrada Trio, Randolph Matthews, and the Bara Bara Band.

• Stalls - SMART, Furzedown Low Carbon Zone, Niamh’s Nutrition, Transition Town Tooting, Friends of Streatham Cemetery, Carbon Collaborations, Hilary’s Preserves, Transition Town Wandsworth, Tooting Community Garden and more

• Other partners - the Phantom Knitter of Wandsworth, Mushkil Aasaan, BATCA, Samaj Hall

And special thanks to the Wandsworth Eco Fund for the grant that goes towards running costs for the Foodival.  

If you'd like to get involved with Foodival, get in touch.  You can help by spreading the word, telling your friends, family and neighbours.  Or join in by donating food on the Saturday, or volunteering on the Sunday serving food or collecting food from restaurants.  There are still spaces if you'd like to enter the Top Tooting Cook competition and we will be running a final Meet & Make session to get ready for Foodival at Sprout Arts on 10th September.

Let the countdown begin!

BATCA Heroes Award for Gatton School & Tooting Community Garden

The Gatton School Community Garden project won a team award at the BATCA Community Heroes event held this evening at Jasmin's nightclub in Tooting. Congratulations to nominees Chuck and Deputy Head Hoosen Randaree pictured above with Head Teacher Rifat Batool and their awards. 
Many thanks to everyone involved, especially the children!

BATCA Fun Day 2011

TTT will again be participating in this year's BATCA Fun Day held as in previous years at the Gatton School and St Augustine's church opposite in Broadwater Rd, Tooting.  More details to follow soon but here is the BATCA poster:

BATCA Open Forum ‘Let’s Make Tooting Better’

TTT were delighted to join in BATCA’s (the Balham and Tooting Community Association) Open Forum on the theme ‘Let’s make Tooting Better’ on 17 March at St Augustine’s Hall. As Kate Allan of BATCA reports: 'The event drew a good crowd and generated a stream of ideas on improving Tooting. Both individuals and community organisations took part. A huge, colourful map of Tooting town centre on the hall floor helped focus ideas.

Cllr James Cousins, supported by Audrey Helps, Tooting Town Centre manager, gave a presentation on the ‘Tooting Together’ initiative to achieve cleaner streets, reduce clutter and litter, deal with fly tipping and eyesores, and attract new stores to Tooting. Lively questioning followed.

A workshop followed, where participants enthusiastically brainstormed ideas for improving Tooting. This was facilitated by Paul Squires of the New Economics Foundation and focused on key themes for wellbeing emerging from NEF research – ‘ connect’, ‘be active’, ‘ take notice’, ‘keep learning’, ‘give’. Lots of ideas emerged for realising these in Tooting – more people friendly streets; safe, easy places to meet; more greenery and trees; redevelop Tooting Market; facilities for the arts and learning; and many others.

The is was a stimulating evening that made clear how passionately people feel about Tooting , and gave lots of food for thought.  For more info about BATCA, email allanraallan@aol.com or phone 020 8870 1550.

What Might Trashcatching Look Like?

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

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!