Tuesday 1st June - Carnival Creation Event

Come and take part in creating the Trashcatchers Carnival on Tuesday 1st June at Mushkil Aasaan, 222-222 Upper Tooting Road, 7-9pm. There will be loads of creative people giving advice and tips on how to make beautiful things from rubbish, including a bunting and a plastic cloth making workshops.

We will kick start the evening by showing a short film on the development of the Carnival and what has been happening so far. We will hear from various Carnivalistas and local groups talk about what they have been creating and what they plan to do for the Carnival. Followed by your chance to get involved in one of the creative workshops and make something for the Carnival. The evening will close with shared refreshments and showing what we have produced.

It’s going to be a fun evening, all are welcome, don’t worry if you haven’t got any creative skills, this is your opportunity to learn something new and be part of a great event taking place in your local community.

If you have access to any of the following please do bring it with you:
Scraps of fabric, old clothes etc, you don't need any more
Colourful plastic bags
Good cutting scissors
Cotton tape, thick ribbon or even ticking tape if you have any.

And do bring food to share as usual!  Hope to see you there, Malsara

Govt & TTT Both Committing on Climate Change

The government commits to 10:10:

The Government Signs-up to 10:10 from 10:10 on Vimeo.

while Tooting continues to commit to Carnival!

Walking in Flip-flops

At the weekend the remarkable Steph Bradley dropped in on TTT as we checked out potential venues for our Unleashing in July.  Steph, pictured above with Malsara, David & Lucy, has spent the last seven weeks walking from Transition HQ in Totnes, in, you guessed it, a pair of flip-flops!  She intends to spend six months in total walking between as many of the country's transition initiatives as possible, checking out all the fantastic work that is being done.  You can follow Steph's blog here.  Her description of Tooting High Street really struck me:

"In its colourful High Road selling fruit and veg from all over the world and silks of every colour and decoration I hear every language from Greek, Polish, and all different Indian and Pakistani dialects. I haven’t had an experience like this since my time exploring the wonderful markets of Ceuta in northern Morocco in 1992."

It's funny, sometimes I forget that we live in quite an unusual and culturally diverse part of the UK and it's quite uplifting to note the impression it can make on a visitor.  Good luck on your trip Steph.  DT

A Canopy Under Which We Grow - TTT's Sara reflects on her recent travels

TTT's Sara has been away from us since last year studying permaculture in Sweden and India.  She has sent us some fascinating reflections on her experiences....

I have since the middle of October been living amongst poor farmers in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The reasons I'm here are many, and the things I've learned so far even more. It was difficult to believe, when the chaos that is India hit me in the face, that I'd be able to decipher anything and learn more than a few valuable lessons.
As a former resident of Tooting I started my journey with plenty of "ahaa"s, and one time I even met a man who used to live in my beloved borough. It was as far away from the hustle and bustle of London it could be, in an idyllic village with thatched coconut rooves and outdoor kitchens. It made me wonder how many people in Tooting and the rest of the world long to be back here, back home but are having to work and earn the remittance that outsizes aid money many times over...

Continue to read this post here

Sand, Trash, Events, Well-being etc

Here we are greedily consuming the world's resources (thanks to the artists at Portugal's Fiesa festival for this great sand sculpture).  Will our political parties do something about it?  Attend the hustings and ask the local Tooting candidates before deciding where to mark your big X next Thursday.  BATCA have organised hustings tomorrow at St Anselms Church from 8pm.

Thanks to Malsara and Garry for the Trashcatching workshop photos already posted on the Trashcatchers site.  More to come. 

Meanwhile again tomorrow (Weds 28th) meet other local people concerned about plans by Lambeth Council & Tescos to put a temporary ice rink on common land.  Surely they can do better than this for our near neighbours in Streatham?

Don't forget we have a great First Tuesday Well-being Event "What's Good For The Climate Is Good For Health" coming up with Jenny Griffiths OBE, independent consultant and author of the Faculty of Public Health's publication Sustaining a Healthy Future on May 4th.  All welcome, it's free and open to all - full details here

Kites & Carnivals

A great day was enjoyed by many just a mile down the road at the 12th Streatham Common Kite Day a few days back.  Check out the massive kites!  Some inspiration for the Trashcatchers' Carnival maybe?  

Meanwhile the next Carnival workshop awaits this Sunday at 11 (EMAIL us if you want to be part of the action - plenty of creative things to get involved in) followed by the Jam 'N Beets night at the Bedford co-hosted with TT Wandsworth. 

First Tuesday Food & Seed Swap

Tuesday's food and seed swap event attracted a good crowd and provoked a wide range of food growing discussion. Giles Read reviewed TTT's past Foodivals, talked about plans for Foodival 2010, showed a film and gave away a collection of tools refurbished by inmates at Wandsworth Prison.

The Tools Shed project takes broken tools collected at Neal's Nurseries, a garden centre opposite the prison, and elsewhere, which are then given a new lease of life and returned for use in schools and community gardens.  The project helps prisoners' rehabilitation and also teaches them new skills. 

We also heard about urban growing from Toni Scott of Food Up Front before thronging around the seed swap table to pick up some interesting new seeds to try out.  This correspondent has already planted Borletto and French beans courtesy of Springfields Hospital SHARE garden project.  Thanks to everyone who brought seeds and plants, to Bob Winter at Tools Shed for the tools, which were quickly snapped up, and to Peter at Neal's Nurseries for his discount offer.

The next "First Tuesday" on May 4th will be a Well-being Event with Jenny Griffiths as guest speaker.

SEED SWAP! - A Call For All Things Seedy!!

Just a quick reminder about next Tuesday's Food Event and Seed Swap.

After looking at last year's Foodival there'll be a short film on the "Story of Food" and how you can grow for this Autumn's festival.

To get everyone kick started there will be some FREE tools to give away and also a Seed Swap at the end of the night.

I'm bringing half a pack of carrots and half a packet of tomatoes as I've not got enough pots to use all the seeds - anyone got any radish seeds I could swap??

Any seeds you have, either full packs or just lone seeds would be ace for the swap - I just hope we don't wind up with a hundred packs of brussels sprouts.... ;)

Have an amazing Easter and see you there!

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.

TTT Food Grower's Event!

Bring your Seeds and Gardening Needs!

On April 6th TTT will be holding a Seed Swap and Food Growing event at Mushkil Aasaan from 7-9pm and the event needs YOU!

Do you have any spare packets of seed lying around from last year? Do you have any unloved gardening tools or would you like some for free?? Do you have any questions about urban growing or any tips to share?? If so, the TTT Food Grower's event definitely needs you!
There will  be a seed swapping stall with free gardening tools refurbished by inmates from Wandsworth Prison.  Alongside this will be tips on how to grow in urban environments and how to get garden equipment like plant pots from the dump (the ones I got last week were ace :)) there will also be details of how to get a special TTT 10% discount at local garden centres so don't miss out.

Bring a dish to share food and talk over your gardening successes and disasters with all of the TTT network and get inspired to grow some grub for this Autumn's Foodival.

See you there!

Susan's Eco Retrofit

Award-winning sustainable architect and TTT stalwart Susan Venner has been underatking an eco-retrofit of her Balham house for some time and you can visit it as part of the SuperHome Spring Openings on 28th March.  There's plenty of and varied insulation including an exterior cork wall plus solar water heating and a wood-burning stove.  It should be fascinating to snoop around ... ahem, under Susan's watchful guidance of course!  The opening is from 11 till 3 with half hour tours limited to 8 people at a time on the hour and half hour.  Book via Sustainable Energy Academy where Susan's home is listed as Cornford Grove, Balham.  

Also don't forget the BATCA Open Forum tonight at St Augustine's Church in Broadwater Rd between 7.30 and 9.30 pm.  The subject is "Let's Make Tooting Better" 

Also there's the Islam and Permaculture course next Sat 27th and the next First Tuesday on April 6th to look forward to, where the theme will be Food.  See our Events page for full details

Oscar Season continues ...

More good publicity but ... let's not forget our co-Champion Hilary!

Palme Verte Goes to "Mine"

Last night at Transition Town Tooting's inaugural First Tuesday event, a screening of the best in environmental short films, the coveted Palme Verte was awarded to Mine - story of a sacred mountain, a moving documentary by Survival about the Dongria Kondh tribe of the Niyamgiri Hills in India. The Dongria Kondh's whole way of life is threatened by the British company Vedanta Resources' plan to decapitate their scared mountain and mine its bauxite. Read the latest information on Survival's campaign for the Dongria or watch the film here.  Second place went to the Story of Stuff by the Tides Foundation.  It was powerful first to see the impact of the consumer world's craving for "stuff" and then to understand the very specific effects that craving can have on a people who live in a much more symbiotic way with the natural world.

A successful evening was capped by lively discussion and of course tasty food - thanks everyone who helped out.  Next month's First Tuesday on April 6th will focus on Food, with a seed swap and advice on what to plant this spring.  I can't wait!  DT 

First Tuesday Film Night

We start our series of First Tuesday events on Tuesday March 2nd with a film night, where we will show several short films with relevance to transition and environmental issues.  There’ll be time afterwards for a discussion and the award of the Tooting Palme Verte to the evening’s favourite film.  Bring food to share if you'd like.

Come and enjoy The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard, Rob Hopkins TED talk: Transition to a world without oil, Jo Brand’s Save Money & The Planet, and Survival’s Mine - story of a sacred mountain, plus some random special extras!   

 Tuesday 2^nd March - 7pm Start; Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Rd.

Our Green Champion

Lucy makes the front page as the Wandsworth Green Champion!  And below is the relevant part of the article on the Green Guardian pages.  Great publicity for Transition Town Tooting!  Well done Lucy!

Are we getting anywhere?

What a week!  Susan Venner (Venner Lucas Architects) and I collecting our Awards at this week's Wandsworth Green Champions Awards from the Mayor and Konstam's cook Oliver! Thanks to those that nominated us and many a cheer for our Tooting work to get a Transition initiative off the ground. We always talk about acting as a catalyst for imagining how we'll put our head, heart and hands to positive solutions to the challenges we face in building a low carbon society and holding these sparkly awards on Thursday night it felt as though it wasnt just talk: others also believe we are making a practical difference too. Hurrah!  Working hard day by day, week by week, you have to trust your instincts that you're getting somewhere so it's uplifting to be recognised - and that goes for the whole TTT team - in this way. No stopping us now.

Many a week in transition world has a roller coaster feel.  The last has been no exception. Monday was spent preparing for a gi-normous 'stake holder' meeting with representatives of Emergency services, Fire, Ambulance, Police, Transport for London, London Traffic Control, London Buses, Tooting Town Centre Management, our Carnival artists Emergency Exit Arts and a number of Wandsworth Council employees to discuss closure of Upper Tooting Road on Sunday July 4th for the Trashcatchers' Carnival.  Road  closure of any of London's main roads is a very complex business and traffic management plans have to be worked out with incredible care and precision, to divert buses, fire engines and ambulances. The first meeting made progress - we are not there yet, but hopefully more work, more plans, more meetings and we can get there. In a nutshell we're proposing that a community that has heavy traffic pass through it 24 hours a day for 365 days a year, is given the chance to celebrate itself, see itself, hear itself, know itself, renew and re-imagine itself for a few hours as a spectacular, inventive, creative, non polluting Carnival passes through.

Today we spent some time visiting shops and businesses along the High Road letting them know about the Carnival and asking if they had any trash we could start collecting...We met with positive responses and many smiles. It seems the Carnival gives pleasure to people simply imagining it. Fingers crossed the real thing will prove memorable and magical for all. Email Transition Town Tooting if you'd like to know about the Feb Carnival workshops being held Feb 27th/28th to design and build the Carnival story.

The Copenhagen Climate Change talks back in December were of course more than disappointing. But for me they made one thing crystal clear. It is on the ground, person by person, house by house, shop by shop, heart by heart where the real changes are made. It really really is down to us in local communities. As Gary Snyder the American poet says 'Find your place on the planet. Dig in and take responsibility from there.' How proud and glad I am that's Tooting for me!
LN

Easing The Transition

Coverage in today's Wandsworth Guardian of our recent Energy Talk with Jeremy Leggett & Rex Cassidy.  Good pic - we should sign that photographer up for the Carnival!

Brief highlights are now on our video channel

Talking Energy & Recycled Oil

TTT held a very interesting and well attended talk on Thursday with Solar Century's Jeremy Leggett and Rex Cassidy the Facilities Director at Springfields Hospital responsible for all St Georges Trust buildings. Some video excerpts will follow on our youtube channel.  

Jeremy reminded us that how human brains work is key and that we tend "to be blind to depletion of resources, expecting steady growth in supply to meet ever increasing demand."  Scary, but we obviously derive some comfort from being in a state of denial!  Meanwhile the UK government apparently has an equally scary attitude to the coming oil crunch telling Jeremy that "it would be risky to do a risk assessment" of the situation!  And the government's 2009 Wicks Report tells us "there's no crisis", assuming oil companies will just find more and more prehistoric fossilised algae and zoo plankton from 100s of millions of years ago (yes that's what oil is according to wikipedia anyway).  Thankfully Jeremy said solutions abound in renewable energy, the clean tech revolution and localised resilience, mobilising just as people did in the straightened times of 1930s and 40s.  A very Transition response we think.  Loads more info on Jeremy's site HERE.

Rex meanwhile explained the energy challenges of looking after 90 buildings used by 3,000 staff in the Tooting area.  Indeed it was the hospital staff who provided key impetus behind drafting the Trust's Carbon Management Plan, to which Rex introduced us.  There was time for questions and it was sobering to discover that the UK sits a paltry 25th out of the 27 EU countries in terms of renewable energy development with 1.3%.  The hospital redevelopment plans meanwhile do hope to include renewable energy generation.

Also last week we made an inspiring and enlightening visit to Uptown Oil near Waterloo who produce 100% recycled biodiesel from used vegetable oil. Wouldn't it be great if the Trashcatchers Carnival floats could be powered by used cooking oil from Tooting's myriad restaurants? We are looking into the possibility.  Uptown Oil told us they are constantly looking for more good supplies of used oil.  A significant number of London's taxis are already running on cleaner renewable biodiesel as was evidenced by the steady stream of them pulling up while we there.    DT

Volunteer Roles for Carnival

TTT is looking for several different people to assist over the next few months in the build up to Tooting's first ever Trashcatchers Carnival on July 4th. Could you help out with vital Fundraising or be the key Community Liaison person with all the local groups? Or perhaps you know all about Press & Publicity? Click on the respective links for more details of each role and how to apply.

Energy Specialist Jeremy Leggett in Tooting

Further to the successful talk held in September with Prof Tim Lang and NEF’s Andrew Simms, we are holding a 2nd talk in association with the Wandsworth Environment Forum this week. What will Tooting look when cheap oil runs out? And how can we make the transition? Come and hear from Energy Specialist and Director of Solar Century Jeremy Leggett, a leader in raising awareness about Peak Oil and the coming energy crunch, and also for a local insight Rex Cassidy, Director of Facilities and Patient Environment at Springfield Hospital, will tell us about the energy challenges faced by the hospital.

Thursday 28th January - 7.30 pm, Mushkil Aasaan, 220–222 Upper Tooting Road. PS: See Jeremy's article in Saturday's Guardian