Tooting Trashcatchers Carnival Shortlisted for Award

The Trashcatchers Carnival which took place last summer in Tooting is one of four finalists shortlisted for Climate Week's Best Event.

The Carnival was a vibrant and colourful event that used recycling as a metaphor to build a vision of a low-energy future for Tooting. It aimed to create beauty from rubbish, using story, art, science and celebration to tap into the collective ingenuity of local residents. Characters, sculptures, musical instruments, dance, performance, costumes and floats were all created using discarded materials such as plastic bags, bottles and boxes.

Produced by Transition Town Tooting in partnership with Phakama and Emergency Exit Arts, the Carnival was one of the most significant community events to take place in the Borough of Wandsworth in 2010 and had the support and participation of numerous schools, community groups and local organisations.

The community of Port Adelaide in Australia have been so inspired by this event that Transition Town Tooting and Phakama will be working with their local transition, waste, education, arts and environmental groups (by skype, facebook and social media) to connect up the two communities through the 'Trashcatching'  concept of public celebration. 

Climate Week is a national occasion that offers an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change. It is supported by every part of society – from the Prime Minister to Paul  McCartney, Vivienne Westwood to Manchester United, the CBI to Girlguiding UK. Its commercial partners are Tesco, Aviva, EDF  Energy, Kellogg's and RBS.
   

"We are delighted to have been shortlisted for the Climate Week Best Event Award. The Trashcatchers Carnival was an inspirational project that enabled us to reimagine our relationship with our earth. We want to dedicate this to every single Trashcatchers Carnavalista and to the whole community of Tooting".
Fabio Santos. Director of Phakama
and Lucy Neal. Co-Chair of Transition Town Tooting  

   

The winner will be selected by a judging panel which includes Lord Nicholas Stern,  Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo, environmentalist Tony Juniper, author Ian McEwan and Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate  advisor, Terry Tamminen. It will be announced on 21^st March at the official Climate Week launch  event at Lancaster House in Central London where the keynote speaker is Chris Huhne MP,  Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. 

April 5th Food Event - Call for Tooting Photos!

With Spring fast approaching TTTs Food Group have been busily preparing for the new growing season! to celebrate this the Food Group are having a community food and growing event on Tuesday the 5th of April at Mushkil Assann on Upper Tooting Road between 7 and 9pm. For the event we need lots and lots of photos of Tooting -both the space that's wasted as well as the space that is used in fantastic and innovative ways. If you'd like to submit some pics for the event, please email all JPEGS to colour_ride@hotmail.com.

More details to follow and see you on the day!

Ecobuild Trip

This year's Ecobuild was bigger and better than ever before, mixing lots of high tech, next generation eco products with useful demonstrations and lectures from leading thinkers such as Richard Heinberg and Susan Greenfield.

Several members of TTT went along and were impressed by the range of innovative building  products that were on show. Such as; insulation boards made out of straw, carpet tiles made from recycled carpets, a solar water heating system that works 24 hours a day, night or day, or OLED lighting that can revolutionise the way we think about colour, interior design and lighting in our homes and buildings.

It was all very exciting stuff, and gave us an insight as to what it could be like in our homes in the future.         Malsara

Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Have a go at your creating your own plan for the UK to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050.

Transition Town Tooting – along with lots of other local groups, businesses and NGOs – were invited to a consultation event last Friday run by DECC where they unveiled The 2050 Pathways Analysis.  Described as ‘an online framework through which to consider some of the choices and trade-offs we will have to make over the next forty years. It is system-wide, covering all parts of the economy and all greenhouse gases emissions released in the UK. It is rooted in scientific and engineering realities, looking at what is thought to be physically and technically possible in each sector.’

Giles and Hilary shared some interesting, and heated, discussions as we joined groups thrashing out various options for our future.  The tool allows you to test out scenarios relating to energy usage and production whilst seeing the immediate outcome of your actions on a graph of predicted CO2 emissions.  There is also a huge amount of background information provided to all your ‘decisions’ if you take the time to investigate. 

Brilliant Books!

Jeni and Jane organised a great Book event this evening!  Charlotte and Bruce told us about books they love, while Doug from My Back Pages, one of the only independent bookshops in south London, talked knowledgeably about writers and books with local connections, before setting us all a really hard quiz!  The evening continued with "Speed-booking" - where we had one minute to impress our "dates" by explaining our love for a book we had brought along.  Meanwhile Libby taught paper making from recycled shredded paper
(see a couple of dodgy first efforts above!).  And don't forget World Book Night on Saturday!  A full list of books discussed and recommended at this evening's event follows:

Do we want a Biofuel Plant in Wandsworth?

A local campaign to stop a 10MW biofuel energy plant being built as part of the proposed Battersea Power Station redevelopment is gaining momentum.  Andrea Speranza of biofuelswatch gave some reasons why the plant will not be a good thing for Wandsworth residents. She told us that biofuel production:

1. Leads to an increase world food price rises. 
2. Causes the release of more greenhouse gases through land conversion and chemical fertiliser use than fossil fuels.
3. Effects local air quality by burning vegetable oil which emits nitrogen oxides and small particulates linked to asthma, bronchitis and heart problems. (NB: In 2010, a similar sized biofuel power station was refused planning permission by London Borough of Ealing because it produced too much air pollution.)
4. Leads to people being thrown off their land and suffering human rights abuses in the Global South
5. Will mean heavier traffic in Wandsworth due to fuel tanker deliveries

What do Tooting residents think?  Is this really what we want on our doorstep? You can express your opinion on the proposed biofuels plant to Wandsworth Council via planning application 2009/3575 or mail info@biofuelwatch.org.uk for more info.  DT

Eco Build 2011

With less than two weeks to go for this years Eco Build 2011, TTT are gearing up for a fascinating day out the event on 2^nd March.

If you are interested in learning about energy efficiency in buildings, understanding the benefits of the Feed in Tariff, seeing live demonstrations on solid wall refurbishment, modern glazing solutions, existing loft insulation and finding out about the latest technology in harnessing solar energy, energy efficient lighting, urban planting, bee keeping plus much much more, then come and sign up for your FREE pass at http://www.ecobuild.co.uk/index.html


Personally, I am looking forward to seeing the seminar on Freecycling and a complete interior makeover for £0.00  This could give me some solutions for my Victorian refurb.

The event runs from 1-3 March 2011. If you are interested in joining a group going for the event on the 2^nd March, we will be meeting at 10.00am by the ticket barriers at Tooting Bec Northern Line tube station. Please let us know by email if you would like to join us for this really inspiring event.

Hope to see you there - Malsara

Problem or Predicament?

Another interesting and well-attended First Tuesday event this evening at Mushkil Aasaan in Tooting was spent watching Chris Martenson's UK Crash Course; a link to the youtube video is below for those of you who missed it.  And there's more on Chris's website.  One thing he explained was the difference between a problem (which can be solved) and a predicament (which can only be suffered).

Do we want to wait until peak oil driven Energy shortages,the fallacy of an ever growing Economy and a resource depleted and changing Environment crunch us?  Or do we want to do something different?  Do we want a future shaped by disaster or design? Needless to say there was plenty of discussion afterwards.

TTT's Giles star of Sunday Times article

.... you can spot him up the ladder in the photo...

Carbon Conversations

Is our future worth a conversation?

Would you like to reduce your carbon footprint?

Would you like to take some practical steps on climate change?

You are invited to take part in Carbon Conversations:

a course of meetings starting soon in Tooting

 

8-10 participants will meet as a group to explore climate change in a different way, focusing on values, feelings and lifestyle as well as kick-starting practical action to reduce carbon consumption in the home and community 

Ø  Each two-hour session is supported by facilitators to build on the experience and interests of the participants: you do not need to feel you are an ‘expert’ to take part 

Ø  Following a proven and well-designed structure, you will meet other people interested in creating a low-carbon future, and explorekey areas of your own carbon footprint including home energy, transport and travel, food, consumption and waste

Ø  We will emphasise participation in the informal sessions – we won’t be giving lectures. You will share ideas, use the Carbon Conversations workbook, play some instructive and enjoyable games, identify tools and tips that will support you, and create personal plans that will reduce your carbon impact

Ø  After the completion of the workshops you can choose to receive training on facilitating the course, and support other Carbon Conversations groups yourself

The course will be facilitated by members of Transition Town Tooting. Course materials and design have been developed by Cambridge Carbon Footprint

Meetings will take place on Monday evenings from 7-9pm. We will start the course of five meetings on Monday 28^th February 2011, continuing on March 7^th, March 14^th & March 21^st. The fifth meeting will be held on a date in May to be agreed with participants, getting together again after time taking action on individuals’ plans.  

We will provide the facilitation and administration, and ask for a voluntary fee of £10 per person to cover the cost of the Carbon Conversations workbook

Easily accessible, in Tooting - to be confirmed  

Please email Charles at cemwhitehead@btinternet.com to join, express an interest, or ask any questions, and we will be in contact

Carbon Conversations is one of the Guardian’s ‘Top 20 solutions to climate change’

Cold Water Swimming & Cycle Powered Cinema

A few pictures from the recent UK Cold Water Swimming Championships where TTT ran a cycle powered cinema.

Walking: Mind How You Go

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out I found was really going in."  John Muir

A very interesting Walking event was held on Jan 11th at Mushkil Aasaan, led by Belinda & Lucy, and featuring a variety of words of wisdom from Battersea Arts Centre Producer Lynn Goh, local GP Tom Coffey and Susie Morrow of Wandsworth Cycling Campaign.  Belinda recommended walking meditations such as those in this book, Lynn told us about a silent walking project she'd run, Tom talked about walking and health, (Walk4Life guided walks are a Wandsworth Council initiative), while Susie recommends The Energy Glut for a good read. 

Several people had brought photos of five places on their own Tooting walks which we hope to develop into a walking map.  Can you identify my inspirational Tooting places above?!  Please send us your five photos. DT

Artistic Regeneration in Tooting

After a really fantastic Mind How You Go Walking event last night (write-up coming shortly), which encouraged us to draw breath, take time, notice and listen to the sounds around and within, and of course in the wake of the epic Trashcatcher's Carnival of 2010, TTT's attention is drawn to further seeds of creative renewal in Tooting. Once packed with cinemas, but recently lacking any creative public space, Tooting has two exciting new artistic ventures taking flight this week.

Tooting Market Project to be found at Unit 32 in the market for the next 3 months launches on Friday 14th at 4.30 p.m.  Local artists are joining forces with Tooting Market to regenerate some of the empty space into a thriving art gallery and studio between January & March 2011, creating an innovative “Heritage Wall” with the immediate community of stall holders and market users and facilitating the wider community in arts and heritage workshops.  More on facebook here

Tooting Arts Club, meanwhile, launches on Saturday 15th with a party at Tooting Bec's revamped Wheatsheaf (promising a bill including both Sadiq Khan and Arthur Smith - a new double act?) and states its aim to "produce plays both old and new, in various venues in Tooting" which sounds great!  A debut play "Invasion" will run at the Selkirk from 1st to 19th February.

What next?  Not the return of Tooting cinema, surely?  DT

Transition Town Tooting – a history in maps

This piece was produced as a response to Rob Hopkins call for examples of Transition Towns using meaningful maps.  It seemed a good moment to post it here as a taster for next Tuesday's Open Event  where we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. See more info here.

Tooting is an amorphous area stretching between and beyond two tube stations – Tooting Bec and Tooting Broadway.  The road that runs between the two – the A24 – was originally a Roman road and is now a major arterial road leading from central London out towards the suburbs.  At one point its position as a tram interchange made it a centre for cinema – we once had 5 cinemas and now have none!  It carries 10 million cars a year in addition to several busy bus routes.  One of our earliest TTT blog posts shows a map and satellite image of the area.

Transition Town Tooting (TTT) has developed a ‘tradition’ (if you can have one in such a short history!) of using maps as a focus for activity.  This stems from the fact that, though there are ...

MIND HOW YOU GO!

MIND HOW YOU GO! 

Tues Jan 11th 7-9pm. Mushkil Aasaan, 220-222 Upper Tooting Road.

TTT’s first step in 2011 will be a confident one.  

We look at well-being and start with WALKING! Join us for an evening to celebrate this most human of activities and the manifold benefits it brings to our physical and mental well-being.

To celebrate our local area, we will create ‘mini walking maps’ that may develop into official Tooting Walking Maps. We would like you to try this activity out, and bring your 5 most relevant photographs along to on January 11^th.

Do you make time for yourself to slow down and nurture calmness? 

Here is a creative opportunity to connect with yourself, the environment and others and increase your physical activity in a way that is good for your wellbeing!

By practising the art of stopping, we can enter the present moment and be nourished by the beauty and wonder of life in and around us.

Instructions for Photo Walk:

Confronting Change - London Transition at the South Bank Centre

News from the Confronting Change event at the South Bank Centre last week organised by Transition Finsbury Park.  

The event was a sell-out, and proved to be an inspirational coming together of London Transition initiatives, under the title “Confronting Change”.  Polly Higgins, a barrister and author of ‘Eradicating Ecocide’ was the host - she recently returned from the COP16 negotiations at Cancun and talked about what had happened there- followed by presentations from Rob Hopkins and Michael Meacher MP.  Read a great write up by Rob Hopkins on his blog here. 

There was a fantastic outcome to the evening - Polly Higgins and a team of lawyers already working on a Transition Enabling Act!  Find out more and have your input on the Transition Network site here.

Photos from the winter making and social

We had a fantastic time at the winter making and social - we learnt make pomanders from oranges, juggling balls from socks, wallets from fruit juice cartons, decorations from discarded plastic and cards from scrap paper.  We made a HUGE bowl of mincemeat which found its way into mince pies across Tooting.  Some of us even learnt how to knit.  Here are some lovely pics of the event...

Winter Social & Making Event

On Tuesday 7^th Dec there will be an opportunity to catch up and socialise at the Winter Social & Making evening.  Experts will be on hand to assist you in creating beautiful festive decorations and unique gifts from recycled materials.  Learn how to make greetings cards (bring old cards or pictures), wallets & purses (bring tetrapak!), juggling balls (bring old socks!), pomanders, bags & flip-flops (bring an old pair of jeans) and mincemeat!  You can even have a go at knitting!  

Why trek round your local globalised shopping experience when you could make your own Christmas presents?!  See above some of the fab potato printed bags, for example, fashioned under the guidance of Ken McCalla at this year's Foodival . 

Bring food or drink to share – mulled wine and soft drinks will be provided at the Christian Education Centre, 21 Tooting Bec Rd. See you there!

Plastic – from Oil Well to Ocean – via Tooting

This event, organised by Hilary, Sally and Nicola, looked at our relationship with the ubiquitous plastic.  Starting with a look at the multitude of plastic items that one person touches in a single day (from the lining of a swimming pool to a humble biro), we looked at where plastic comes from, how we use (and misuse it!), what happens after we drop it into our Wandsworth bin or recycling bag, and how it ends up in our oceans.

                                                                                                                                   

We found out that most plastics are sourced from fossil fuels - oil and natural gas and how that cheap source of raw material will be threatened by the onset of peak oil.  We considered how many everyday items are made from oil-based plastic.

We looked in particular at plastic packaging – our intrepid researcher headed out to take some pictures of particularly bad examples of packaging.  Some items were wrapped in four layers of plastic on their arrival at the store.   She also took a low packaging approach to her takeaway kebab by bringing her own reusable container and cutlery.

Nicola from Wastewatch – which raises awareness about recycling in local schools – explained the limits of plastic recycling in Wandsworth – being limited to plastic bottles.  She explained the reasons for these limits and told us that the UK lagged behind many other countries in its levels of recycling. 

We considered where much plastic ends up – with a short TED talk by Captain Charles Moore about plastic in the ocean which you can watch online here.  Another good talk by Diana Cohen of the Plastic Pollution Consortium is here.

All kinds of initiatives are springing up across the world to address the issue of our overconsumption of plastic.  Following the lead of Modbury which a plastic bag free town in 2007 traders in 80 mainly small towns round Britain have either introduced a voluntary ban or are considering one as a way to reduce landfill.   Ireland banned free plastic bags in 2000 levying a 20p charge per bag.  By 2007 this had raised £109 million in tax and plans were in place to double the levy to 40p per bag.   Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger recently announced a plastic bag ban in the state of California.

In 2009 a poll of Londoners showed there was 90% support for a levy or ban across the city – although subsequent discussions between CEOs of 33 London councils failed to agree on a ban or tax.

We found out that 8 billion plastic bags are used in the UK each year – and the lucky winners of our ‘most wasteful packaging’ prize went away with a lovely reuseable silk sack.  One entry was literally a package holding nothing.

Finally we talked about how we might reduce our wasteage of plastic in Tooting and came up with lots of ideas! 

•          Refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle – especially the first three!
•          Make a film about plastic - how its used locally and the global issues – to raise awareness in Tooting
•          Lobby local businesses and residents for a plastic bag fee Tooting
•          Research low-cost sustainable take-away packaging which local businesses could use.
•          Co-ordinate a regular ‘protest’ return of excess packaging to local supermarkets

If you’d like to get involved in making any of these happen- or have other ideas - get in touch at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com.

Finally unfortunately we didn’t have time to watch this Futurestates film entitled Plastic Bag - struggling with its immortality, a discarded plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) ventures through the environmentally barren remains of America as it searches for its maker.  Well worth a look!

The impressive Incredible Edible Todmorden folks recently came down to Peckham to host a conference on sustainable food with several local groups, which made for a truly inspiring day. Topics ranged from issues with global food production systems from Tim Lang – a professor of food policy, to practical local responses and the importance of food for holistic health.

The Incredible Edible Todmorden project is, frankly, incredible – a group of people have come together to increase the amount of food growing in this fairly small Yorkshire town. We were delighted by picture after picture of food growing in the unlikeliest places – in front of the fire station, in old boats in school playgrounds, around the church, along the railway line, the edge of car parks and….well you get the idea!

Rosie Boycott, the Mayor’s food advisor then spoke about what Londoners can do through the Capital Growth Project. This is making grants available to create 2,012 community food growing spaces by 2012, so a great opportunity which Tooting could benefit from.

The Peckham Experiment, which I’d never heard of before, was another absolutely fascinating theme of the conference. Back in the 1930s a group of doctors decided to study what contributes to human health. They set up a community health centre which emphasised health for the whole family and provided a place to exercise, socialise and learn as well as to access more traditional health care (there’s some great old film footage which captures the amazing energy of the centre – with aerobics taking place alongside acrobatics, with diving in the background!). The Experiment also recognised the importance of good nutrition, and had a farm providing the centre with fresh, organic produce. Whilst the Pioneer Health Centre closed in 1950, the charity responsible for Experiment continues to exist, disseminating the findings and it’s also keen to promote the idea of a new centre or centres opening, which sounds like a hugely positive step to tackling a whole range of social issues.