Join us at the London National Park City Fair on 21st July to co-create a Greener, Healthier and Wilder London!

We're thrilled to be invited to contribute to the London National Park City Fair on Saturday July 21st 11:00 - 5:00 - all the details here.

The purpose of the Fair is to celebrate's London's potential to be Greener, Healthier and Wilder.
Two dozen stands & an A-Z of short talks will show how that potential can be an imagined & achieved right now.


Our stand focuses on our partnership projects and facilitation since 2015 with CARAS the Tooting charity who work with refugees and asylum-seekers: all about social sustainability in the community.

We'll be sharing our thoughtful, creative and fun Signs of Welcome making workshop - come and join in: any ages, any languages welcome and you can take your signs home to brighten up your neighbourhood.

We'll share 5 short case studies that explore our work in partnership with CARAS beneficiaries, and explore options with stand visitors who are interested to get involved as volunteers.
You can read the case studies here.

There's also a more formal description of the history and impact of the partnership since 2015 - read it here.

Finally on sharing learning, there's an article on our Stay With Love pallet-benches on the London National Park City website in the Making a Difference section here.

We'll have a prize draw to attract a lucky winner plus family or friends to Tooting for a Taste of Tooting experience! You'll enjoy our diverse food culture, try recipes from CARAS participants and cook on an open fire on the Tooting Community Garden. Here's a copy of the prize draw details: you have to come along to the Fair to enter!

Please join in the fun of the Fair and meet us at the stand - we look forward to seeing you and we're proud to be contributing alongside so many fascinating London groups.

All welcome to join in locally with our next five creative & thoughtful 'Signs of Welcome' workshops

Our Signs of Welcome series of ten local workshops is continuing now over the next two weeks.
Click here to read about the first five events and what we experienced together with our project partner CARAS.

We created these participatory workshops to provide a vivid, simple and accessible opportunity to imagine how to welcome people new to the community and then make decorative signs to take away. 
The workshops are for all ages and are free, fun, thoughtful and creative. 

Each workshop runs in a great local venue which offers the space for all comers to join in. Thank you to all the venues for partnering with us and supporting the project.

Signs of Welcome workshops in diverse places!

The remaining workshops (all details on the TTT Events Calendar here on the blog):

> Paradise Co-operative Garden, Earlsfield
   Sat 9th June, 10:00-12:00
 
> St Mary Magdalene Church, Trinity Road, Tooting
   Weds 13th June, 4:00-5:30
 
> Sprout Community Arts, Furzedown
   Fri 15th June, 4:00-5:30 

> The Migration Museum, Vauxhall
   Thurs 21st June, 6:00pm-7:45pm 
   Part of a drop-in evening of events at the Museum, 
   all celebrating Refugee Week

 












As we've run the events, new features have emerged. 
Recently we offered the workshop at a Family Visit Day in Wandsworth Prison. With four walls surrounding participants, the signs they created became a way to imagine new welcomes and relationships. One adult's sign simply stated 'Kids Matter'. A family created a sign together, a graphic recording of a live and positive conversation between themselves.

Our introductory script has developed. 
Now we're also saying "you can create signs to put up in the city spaces where you live - signs that don't just label places or limit us ('keep off the grass' or 'no ball games'). They're about welcoming people and what we value when we get together"

All welcome, all ages can join in 

and each workshop is different!

 Many thanks for funding support from ThriveLDN, an initiative by the Mayor Of London.

The simple invitations of our 'Signs of Welcome' workshops have brought vivid, compelling and complex results. More to come, please join in!

It's TTT's tenth anniversary, and we're facilitating ten free, fun, thoughtful and creative 'Signs of Welcome' workshops locally, along with our partner CARAS. We're in diverse venues that are themselves welcoming and interesting spaces to visit: cafes, shops, local enterprises.

We're half way through - five workshops completed since March and five more in the next few weeks.  

All welcome! 
See the TTT events calendar for all the dates and details. 


The NEXT 'Signs' workshop is in the wonderful surroundings of the Wandsworth Oasis shop at Amen Corner on Friday 1st June from 4:00-5:30. 
That's at 234-250 Mitcham Rd, Tooting SW17 9NT.
Have you ever done a creative workshop in a shop? Was it as amazing a place as the Amen Corner Oasis shop? You'll have time to browse....and it's half term, so all the family can join.

We have lots of 'Signs' in many languages - all responding to this open question: "What would you like to say to welcome people who are new to the community?"

They've been fascinating sessions which everyone seems to appreciate. Expressing ourselves, meeting others, making it visual and being creative by 'thinking with our hands' is a very powerful mix.

A brilliant and valuable extra is that young people from the CARAS youth club have been joining in to gain volunteering experience co-facilitating a creative community session. 

There's been inspiring communication across the cakes and mint tea on the cafe tables. Young people who are refugees and asylum-seekers have enjoyed friendly venues they may not have considered visiting, and met many local people they would not otherwise have encountered.  

Throughout there's been interwoven threads of self-expression plus a two-way invitation to ask questions and share experiences.

We have a vivid record of the sessions in the shape of the Signs themselves. They'll be included in a local exhibition during Refugee Week, June 18th-24th: details to come. The materials for the Signs are re-purposed from publicity boards from the wonderful Work and Play Scrapstore. We had one of our workshops there, and met this Japanese architect who joined in (with a translation on the back):

These workshops are part of our partnership with CARAS throughout 2018 - the partnership purpose throughout the year will be to facilitate events which draw refugees and asylum-seekers and the local community closer together. For more about the year's projects, please click here, and there are lots of pictures on our TTT Facebook pages. 

Many thanks to the partnership funder ThriveLDN, an initiative by the Mayor Of London .

'Signs of Welcome' free, creative, hands-on & local workshops from March to June 2018

In March we started our run of 'Signs of Welcome' creative workshops, and between now and June we're offering more public hands-on events with local project partners. 

In the workshops you'll explore your responses 

to this open question: 

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

You'll imagine what message you would like to say to refugees, asylum-seekers or others new to the community.

You'll design and create signs to express your message.

You can take them home or loan them to us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June.

The next two events are in the Easter holidays:

Date:  Wednesday 11th April  
Venue: Tartine Artinasal
9 Upper Tooting Road, Tooting Bec, SW17 7TS 
Timings: 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm

Date:  Friday 13th April 

Venue: Home Community Cafe

St Andrew's Earlsfield, Garratt Lane SW18 4SR

Timings: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm

What to expect: 

• All welcome to join us for a free, facilitated and fun crafts workshop using re-purposed materials – we’ll provide everything you need 
• Design and create your own messages of welcome to people new to the community
• Adults and children will all enjoy the workshop 
• No need to book
• We’ve included weekends and afternoons after school to allow children and families to take part together 
• Take the signs home, or leave them with us for exhibition during Refugee Week in June 2018
• Workshop run by Transition Town Tooting and CARAS (the Tooting charity serving refugees and asylum-seekers)

Thanks to our local partner the Work and Play Scrapstore in Tooting, the signs will always be made using materials saved from going to waste. 









Write your signs in any language!
Design a message using both sides of your sign!


Many thanks to all the local partners hosting free Signs of Welcome workshops, including:

• Fridays March 10th & 23rd. The Sound Lounge, Wimbledon
• Wednesday April 11th. Tartine Artinasal, Tooting Bec
• Friday April 13th. Home Community Cafe, Earlsfield
• Friday June 1st. Wandsworth Oasis shop, Amen Corner
• Saturday June 9th. Paradise Co-operative, Earlsfield
• Friday June 15th. Sprout Community Arts, Furzedown

We'll share the details of each workshop closer to the time. 

 

This project is a strand of the 2018 Welcoming Signs partnership between TTT and CARAS and local venues and other supporters. The purpose throughout the year will be to facilitate events which draw refugees & asylum-seekers closer together with the local community.

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.

A party marking the end of our Gardens of Refuge project year with asylum-seekers and refugees. Plus 'Signs of Welcome': to be continued in 2018.

It's the end of the project year for our partnership with the CARAS team and the refugees and asylum-seekers they serve.

Of course we are going to do more all together in 2018, and we're planning that now.

Yesterday was the end-of-year CARAS Saturday Youth Club party, enjoyed by over 50 young people and volunteers. 

It was a high-energy afternoon with continuous home-made food to keep us going.

 Alongside the ping pong and games:

• we did more carpentry on the big pallet-table we're making for the Tooting Community garden
• we made lots of Christmas baubles as gifts
• we made over 20 macramé knotted hanging planters, using offcuts of T shirts as the strings. We were thrilled to have Tooting spider plants and tradescantia from Share Community garden.
• we finished the party with a gift game of choice and chance from the roll of the dice to select, give, and swap presents

The youth club is always a wonderful few hours when lots is offered and appreciated - all at the same time. 

So we're sharing photos mixed together, like the day itself. Its impact and welcome always feels much more than the sum of all the separate activities spread over 3 or 4 hours.

Signs of Welcome workshop

Late in November we had the opportunity to facilitate a workshop at the Museum Of London. CARAS is included in the fascinating exhibition called The City is Ours. It's on until 2nd January and all ages would enjoy the mix of imagination, facts and ideas about living in complex diverse city like London. It's well worth visiting!

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

Gardens of Refuge project. April '17 update on vertical strawberries and a watery ceiling mural

We're continuing to facilitate workshops as part of the Gardens of Refuge project with refugees and asylum-seekers who use the local services of CARAS in Tooting.

This is the project for which our partnership won funding from Aviva - via the public voting so many people joined last autumn.

The emphasis of Gardens of Refuge is on creating therapeutic experiences where participants feel happy and safe to explore imaginative activities together.

We're working alongide the CARAS team and volunteers with two groups:

• with the Saturday Youth Club (mostly unaccompanied teenagers) 
• and with Family Activity Days (adults and children in half terms and school holidays)

Here's the story from Gardens of Refuge in March and April:

'Gardens of Refuge' project wins 2017 funding from the Aviva Community Fund

We are thrilled that Gardens of Refuge, the 2017 project working with Tooting refugees and asylum-seekers, has been awarded funding by Aviva. The project application was made by the local charity CARAS (Community Action for Refugees and Asylum-Seekers) and TTT are the partners along with The Grange respite centre in Norfolk.

Thank you for all your votes and support! 

Here's our vision for the Gardens of Refuge project: please click here to read

This funding award lets us look forward to a fascinating 2017, developing and delivering the new project and building on our learning and experience from our previous project together.  

We want to do some things that we know work well, and also some new things.


Plus we'll invite ideas (and resources) from the many well-wishers who voted for Gardens of Refuge last November.

A new feature that will add value is the new CARAS Youth Council. This governance group will help provide a voice for project beneficiaries in the youth club.
We'll also be working with other members of the CARAS community.

We all expect to learn and benefit. One of our first reactions, apart from joy at the award and making the project real, is that this award gives profile and visibility to the fact that refugees' lives matter, and that they have much to contribute in our shared communities.

We'll post more information on project plans as they develop.
Yes, we all worked hard to get to this stage, so it's great to have the affirmation from the Aviva Fund judges.
It took us a while to be sure on announcement day: students of communication will be interested that Aviva made the 'Project Winner' info available online and by twitter...and it was 24 hours before CARAS received a direct email saying 'You've won!'. By then we'd taken the public messages at face value and trusted that it was all true.

And there are some extra surprises - such as a reception at Parliament in late January where all the funded projects can meet each other and their constituency MPs.

We've worked since early 2015 with CARAS - that was on the 'Rooting in Tooting' project, supported by the Royal Horticultural Society's 'Greening Grey Britain' campaign and by Sir Walter St John's Educational Charity - more info here. That project brought new volunteers to CARAS & TTT; we're really delighted with that.

Thanks again for all your interest and support - 

this is a very motivating start to the New Year!

Team London's International Volunteering Conference, December 5th at London's City Hall

Egle, Jenny and Chuck were honoured to be able to present our shared experience from the joint CARAS + TTT 'Rooting in Tooting' project at this free conference yesterday. It was run by Team London to celebrate the end of London's tenure as International City of Volunteering for 2016. Over 300 people attended.

We tried to tell the story visually with pictures of participants and activities over 2015 and 2016. Here's a snapshot of our presentation:

You can look at the slides in the normal way by clicking here on the conference website. Our session was shared with Alkisti Macrynikola from Ethelon, an NGO in Greece who also work with refugees.

We emphasised the project benefits for the young people, for CARAS, for the community, and for TTT. A graphic facilitator captured the day's learning and stories, and Rooting in Tooting features in the top right of the image:

We're glad that some of the key points have come through - including achieving a 'Sense of Belonging' with the young people from the CARAS Youth Club. You can see the graphic full size by clicking here.
There's a lot of detail to explore!

The main hall - wow!

It was inspiring and too much to summarise in a few sentences - have a look at all the session presentations by clicking here. (Scroll right to the bottom of the page). One debate was whether 'volunteering' could be called 'social action' to make it sound more focused or more attractive to a different audience -'to be continued!'

London's City Hall is a great venue, and the whole event was very welcoming. Thank you for inviting us!

Tower Bridge, Chuck & Egle

The garden at Potter's Fields

TTT 2016 Gardening Celebration tonight!

Tonight is the TTT 2016 Gardening Celebration - plus we're looking forward to exciting things in 2017. The event is at The Selkirk near Tooting Broadway from 7:00 pm.

To celebrate the celebration:
here are five current growing, gardening and sustainability events and ideas to follow up even if you can't make it tonight:

1 TTT attended the bi-annual Wildlife Gardening Forum last week at the Natural History Museum. This is always an amazing and cross-cutting event with around 100 participants - private gardeners, schools, local authorities, biodiversity and growing charities, researchers, enterprises.

The theme this time was learning from European experience in Germany, Belgium, Austria the Netherlands, Ireland (oh, and Scotland).
Why learn from Europe? Click on the photo...




We learned a German word - schwammstadt  - meaning 'sponge city'. A sponge city is redesigned to be responsive and adaptive to climate change impact and allow for more natural rainfall retention, reducing runoff. (See the event on December 8th in para 4 below).
Anyone can attend the Forum; it's a great day when you can meet experts and work out what ideas you can use yourself. And all the presentations appear for free on the WLGF website in due course.

2 TTT joined Capital Growth's 'Roots to Growth' workshop.
We looked at the experience and potential of farming as an enterprise within London.

There's tons of good info on the Capital Growth site - all these reports are free downloads.


While the pleasure and impact of growing together is not only about saving money and managing our budgets, what do you think is the annual value of the crops grown by 2000 London gardens linked to Capital Growth? Include crops for sharing, not only veg which are sold, so you can include Tooting Community Garden's pumpkins in the calculation. Have a guess - the answer is at the end of this blog.
We could take up the challenge of recording our crops - see the Harvest-ometer from Sustain.  
This kind of data is very valuable in order to be able to make our case for more growing in London!
TTT's friend Mark at Vertical Veg has documented the equivalent value of what he grows - click here to read about it.

Gardens of Refuge: yes we are through to the finals of the Aviva Community Fund!

Brilliant success at the voting stage: Aviva Community Fund has just confirmed that we're through to the finals for the Gardens of Refuge project! 

 

We now do some further application steps by December 7th, and then there's judging and then the results are announced January 10th '17.

Great news & thanks for all the support!

 

To see the project description, click here: https://goo.gl/y6b66Y

First feedback after voting closed Friday 18th on Gardens of Refuge via Aviva Community Fund

We're proud to share where we reached when voting closed yesterday on the Gardens of Refuge campaign with CARAS.   
Over 600 people supported the project online.
We believe we came THIRD, with over 6200 votes. 
WHICH IS WONDERFUL!

Our formal ranking will be confirmed on 22nd Nov by Aviva & we'll communicate wider after then. 

If we're in the top 4 in our project category, we go through to the next round - to a more familiar bid process.

By the way votes went from 3400 on Weds morning to 6200 by lunchtime yesterday!

Thanks for your votes, patience and energy in this period of repeated messages and nudges in every medium possible, dominating the TTT airwaves.



Normal service can soon be resumed on communicating the rest of TTT's rolling projects.

Every vote really did count!