Broken electrical and electronic items? Restart are back in Tooting!

Do you have an electrical or electronic item that needs fixing?

Something broken you don’t want to throw away?

Challenge the culture of built-in obsolescence and take back control of your electronic stuff....

The Restart Project, a London-based social enterprise that encourages and empowers people to use their electrical and electronics longer, are running regular “Restart Parties” in Tooting. Sounds interesting? Then come along to one of the events below:

Restart Parties
at Mushkil Aasaan, 220 - 222 Upper Tooting Road, SW17 7EW (next to Nandos) 2.30-5.30:

Saturday 25th April

Saturday 11th July

Saturday 26th Sept

Do note that Restart Parties are a community self-repair space where you take responsibility for your own gadgets and data, so please do not forget to take any back-ups beforehand, if relevant – and if possible arrive during the first two hours to allow time for fixing!

Read a great blog about one of our previous parties here.

We hope to make Restart Parties a regular feature in Tooting and are on the lookout for skilled local fixers. If you are interested come along and say hello - or email Hilary Jennings on transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

More info at Restart Project (http://therestartproject.org/) including details of regular skillshares.

'Looking Out For Tooting' 11th April 2015

Last Saturday TTT hosted Looking Out For Tooting, a workshop designed to 'celebrate the people and groups that care for Tooting and its future'. 
Members of over 20 local Tooting organisations and groups took part.
See the list of participating groups here, and the invitation here.

We aimed to focus on four areas: 
1. to meet others and make connections
2. to discover and celebrate Tooting's diversity 
3. to inspire, challenge and encourage us all 
4. to share perspectives, and explore shared priorities for action

What did we achieve together?
By the end of three hours, we had explored Tooting's positive features and also its challenges, and begun the process of seeing if and how our own priorities are aligned with others..'so the sum could add up to more than the parts' as one participant said. So, we took an important first step together by acknowledging we can have greater impact together.

We identified several shared objectives, and we recognised that some of these are long-term projects. TTT designed 'LofT' exactly for this reason, to provide the space for projects of this scale to start their development. 

Shared ideas included:
> Whole neighbourhood planning to encourage 'good change' locally
> Community and school food growing and gardening
> Creating shared community spaces
> Creating a Green Way from Tooting all the way to Clapham Junction

Stained glass light shines on the Green Way group

What was the format of the workshop?
We began the workshop by sharing who was in the room, over 30 individuals representing a rich diversity of neighbourhood groups.
We talked about what makes us well and helps us thrive as humans - referencing the New Economics Foundation's 5 Ways to Wellbeing - a set of evidence-based actions which promote people's wellbeing. They are Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give.  
 

Before heading out into Tooting on four different guided group walks we thought about what we would look for as individuals and as a group - we were given individual or pair 'secret tasks' to undertake as we walked.
Details of the four walks we undertook are here, including reflections from each group. We did this on our return, along with much needed tea (thank you Martin!), Tooting samosas and scones bought direct from Devon by Lucy.

Finally we moved on to think about 'what next'.  
Each participant identified a key priority, and then we grouped around themes emerging from our own observations of the walks, and experience of Tooting

One theme in more detail:
There was a particular focus around local planning and a desire to identify and encourage 'good change' in Tooting. The group discussed creating a Neighbourhood Plan (see notes here).

We briefly mentioned current research, including the Royal Society for Public Health's 2015 report, Health on the High Street.


Participants' feedback on the workshop
Have a look at the summary workshop feedback here. That's a powerful list demonstrating tremendous energy to work together for the benefit of Tooting's people and environment.

Take part in our next Looking out for Tooting workshop
TTT will offer 'LofT' again, so we can build up further energy behind local organisations working together. 
Please get in touch if you would like to take part...all welcome.

'The future is dappled in the present': green sky thinking now

This post is a round-up of eight imaginative projects and developments that are happening now, in Tooting and beyond. 
It's a selection of what we've spotted in the past month.

My title comes from Paul Allen of Zero Carbon Britain at the Centre for Alternative Technology, one of the contributors to Playing for Time (see below). Paul's natural-world image means that the opportunities for making a sustainable future are all around us...if we look.

We hope there is something here to catch your interest and inspire on the Bank Holiday. 
(Plus, in three posts from last week: there's our plastic bottle greenhouse to build in the garden 1200-1600 this Thursday and Friday, and then Restart and the first Tooting Field Day later in April.)

1  Playing for Time
Lucy Neal, who founded TTT in 2008, has been spending the past two years writing Playing for Time, her book about making art as if the world mattered.
Playing for Time joins the dots between key drivers of change in energy, finance, climate change, food and community resilience – and offers ‘recipes for action’ for readers to try.

It's a wonderful collection of how artists round the globe are at the same time imagining the future and working in the real world on what matters to us all.  

The book is not only for artists, and one of the points of the book is to encourage us to look out and across our silos of specialism. 
Dip into the 400 pages...you'll be hooked!

It's Lucy's book, and it's also a collaboration with sixty other contributors...so it's a great representation of the spirit of joint action, connecting with others and local solutions that we can share as 'Transition' values. And yes, there is quite a lot about Tooting in the book!

Playing for Time was published last week, and TTT blog readers can order the book from the publishers now, and get £5.00 off the price.
To order, enter this discount code: ONPFT2015 at Oberon Books.
Offer valid until 31 Dec 2015...but no need to wait until then.

2  Energy from the kinetic force of footsteps (or footballers) 
“My idea was a floor tile that would convert the kinetic energy from a footstep into electricity" says engineer Robert Kemball-Cook about his invention that provides off-grid power anywhere. It's expensive now - but "We are establishing a whole industry that never existed before.”  
Read about Pavegen here

'Make Time for Making' - Up cycling beads

This is a reminder that Weds 8th is the April Meet & Make!

Meet & Make is a monthly invitation to ''make time for making" in our busy lives.

On offer this month, at no cost, is the chance to sit and relax with the restorative craft of hand sewing, using beads. You can create adornments for clothes, like a patch that can be sewn on. They are also a sweet way to personalise a thank you note or greeting card with a keepsake.

I couldn't resist making a bee to represent the Bees Of Streatham Cemetery as my first go:

It's straight forward to create a design and once you have done a row or two you will be hooked!

Another option is to use beads to create designs straight onto clothes, something like this:

Tooting Field Days - Free Family fun - Starting Sunday 19 April

Tooting Field Days are local safaris based in and around Tooting; a chance to get outside and play, walk or make something. We can't promise lions and zebras but you might discover something you've never seen before, think something new or have a mini adventure!

Tooting Field Days will happen every month on a Sunday afternoon from April until September. The first Field Day is Sunday 19 April.

The theme for the April Field Day is "Natural Neighbours." Make a pine cone bird feeder, discover voices of Tooting past and do scavenger hunts in Streatham Cemetry. Drop in for part of the day or join us for the whole event.

2pm: Meet at Tooting Library (75 Mitcham Road, SW17 9PD) to make a pine cone bird feeder that you can hang in your garden or balcony to encourage more feathered friends to visit you. Materials provided.

3pm: Depart Tooting Library to do Tootingwalks 1, a specially-made audio walk packed full of music and the voices of local people, talking about Tooting past and present and Tooting’s love of food. MP3 players and maps provided.

3.45 - 5.30: Treasure Trails, Scavenger Hunts and honey tasting in Streatham Cemetery (enter through gate on Broadwater Road).

You can join us for the whole afternoon or drop in for just one section.

All activities are suitable (and fun) for children and adults.

Tooting Field Day is a collaboration between Transition Town Tooting and local arts organisation fanSHEN.

To book a (free) place or for more information, click here