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The Great Green Gathering at KEC
On Saturday 26th January, we teamed up with Transition Town Kingston to bring you the Great Green Gathering! Above is just one of many photos from this really well attended event.
Thank you to everyone who came along to the event and contributed to such a positive discussion; we look forward to a year of activity and activism as an outcome of all the ideas and energy in the room. A full report will appear on a website near you soon, so keep an eye on our various websites and social media pages, and there will be a link to it in the next Kingston Environment News.
Really interesting ideas from MA Students in Sustainable Design from Kingston...
 We had a fantastic visit at the Kingston Environment Centre from the students at Kingston School of Art who are doing a MA in Sustainable Design.
They had a tour of our centre, engaged in really interesting conversation about national environmental issues and also discussed our work here at the centre.
We look forward to them hopefully getting involved with us here at KEC in the future!
Charnwood Community Clear Up in New Malden
Come along and join KEC and the local New Malden community for our community clear up event. The area we are aiming to clear is the patch of greenery behind KEC which also borders Nando's and Charnwood Close in New Malden and is in need of some much needed clearing, tidying and general maintenance.
If you would like to come and help out, that would be fantastic. If you need any more information, please see Facebook › or email henry@kingstoneco.org.uk ›.
Please do note the health and safety notices below if you are thinking of coming, we'd love to see as many people there as possible and all are welcome to attend!
When? Saturday 2nd February
Where? Meet at KEC
What time? We will aim to start at 10am and finish by 1pm, please do join us for soup in KEC afterwards!
Regulars at KEC
Stitch and Chat meets on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month from 7.00 to 9.00pm at Kingston Environment Centre. We are now in our 6th year, still knitting and crocheting for refugees and other good causes, our latest being "Craft a Neuron" › Beginner knitters and crocheters always welcome.
Kingston Green Radio is based at KEC - listen online at any time on the website or catch some of the highlights on Mixcloud › which is constantly updated with lots of environmental and local content. Find out more and listen › Recent KGR interviews feature:Dr. Tariq Shabbeer talking to Save The World Club founder Des Kay about the work of this Kingston Charity and the lows and highs of fundraising; and First Tuesday Special Guest Jo Wright talking about a magical Christmas Day Dinner › for 50 local care leavers, where 50 young people are invited to stunning location in the heart of Richmond borough to enjoy a scrumptious and magical Christmas Day Dinner.
Another recent KGR interview was with former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett, who has a new album out!
New Malden Garden Taskforce meets at KEC every Friday, 3.00pm - 4.00pm, to plan activities.
KUTLETS social and trading evenings take place at KEC. Exchange goods and services for the local currency Beaks. Find out more › or contact Simone ›
Volunteering drop-in sessions every Wednesday at Kingston Environment Centre, 10.00am to 2.00pm. Help with a variety of tasks, indoors and outdoors.
For other KEC events and meet-ups see the Events column on the right.
Follow KEC on Instagram here ›
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 TTK “Show the Love”
Sat 23 February, 11.00am - 4.00pm, Clarence Street, Kingston (outside Clarks).
This is TTK’s contribution to the national Climate Coalition “Show the Love” campaign https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/show-the-love/ will be a stall with a focus on planet- and climate- friendly eating.
Come along to meet us, learn more about local food projects, or to help on the day.
For more information about this, please contact Marilyn › and head here ›.
New Year, New Website
TTK has moved its website to one hosted by E-Voice, which is free to community groups and much simpler to edit and navigate than our previous one. We hope that you will find what you need on it and let us know if any of your favourite items from the old website have gone missing. On our part, we promise to keep it updated and useful, while also using it as an archive of our ten years of achievement, activity and photos (many more than we were able to share on our old website). By now our URL should be redirecting visitors to the new Home Page, but in case it doesn’t our back-up URL is https://e-voice.org.uk/ttkingston/ ›
See sections below and the Events column for updates on other ongoing TTK projects. Watch this space for TTK's 2019 plans - if you'd like to suggest a new project or event, or help plan and implement TTK activities over coming months please contact the TTK management team via the website or come along to one of our monthly management meetings on the last Tuesday of every month.
In between these newsletters, you can find current updates, interesting local events, new sources of funding, fascinating news snippets, encouraging ideas… on TTK’s Facebook page ›
Find out more about TTK ›
Find out more about the wider Transition Network ›
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Salmon Magazine
Feb Fiver Fest...
Following the launch of the printed Kingston Pounds last October a Fiver Fest was held across the borough. Local independent businesses were given the opportunity to promote special offers that were only available with five Kingston Pounds. This February another Fiver Fest will take place. To take advantage of these offers convert your Sterling to Kingston Pounds at Banquet Records in Eden Street or at the Post Office on Tolworth Boardway. Take a look at the Feb Fiver Fest listing on page 12 of Salmon magazine.
You can pick up your copy of the latest Salmon magazine from us here at KEC!
Here is a link to the online version of the magazine ›
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Win £100 worth of plants with SHEDx!
For a chance to win a £100 voucher from Court Farm Garden Centre, please fill out the SHEDx Green Audit survey at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/shedx-growingideas ›
SHEDx is a two year project by The Community Brain, designed to support community-led regeneration in Tolworth with creativity, imagination and your ideas. Their Green Audit is focused on mapping existing green assets and is supported by us here at the Kingston Environment Centre as well as the Greater London Authority and Kingston Council.
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Kingston Cycling Campaign's 'Kingston Vale Mini-Holland Route'
We've had success getting the council to implement a process for removing abandoned bikes which has freed-up dozens of bike stands for use and smartened up our streets. Members have been scrutinising highway scheme proposals to try to make sure improvements for cyclists and pedestrians are built-in. For example we are not convinced that the proposed one-way system for Kings Road, New Road and Tudor Road would solve the traffic problems near Richmond Park's Kingston Gate. We're keeping a close eye on the construction of the mini-Holland routes to minimise pedestrian/ cyclists shared use and conflicts at bus stops.
The photo on the right is the construction of the Kingston Vale mini-Holland route.
Kingston Cycling Campaign's next meeting is at 8pm on Tuesday 12th February at the Kingston Environment Centre.
Find out more about the Kingston Cycling Campaign:
Website: www.kingstoncycling.org.uk ›
Email: KingstonCycling@gmail.com ›
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Richmond and Kingston Greenpeace Greenwire
Monthly meetup!
Who are Richmond & Kingston Greenpeace?
We're a young, growing group who campaigns actively in Richmond & Kingston. Find out more about our friendly group by coming along to one of our monthly meet-ups on the 2nd Tuesday of each month at the Gazebo on Kingston riverside at 7.30pm.
Google 'Richmond & Kingston Greenpeace Greenwire' to see details of our upcoming activities.
For more information, email Ed Fuller ›
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Ham United Group
FILM SCREENING:
Living The Change 
The next Green Screen (environmental film screening) will take place on Sunday 10th March at 5.30pm in Ham Library Annexe. We will be showing the film “Living the Change” which explores inspiring community solutions for global problems. Entry is free.
Full details here ›
Slightly Further Afield, but this may also be of interest Concert for Conservation: Performers Against Plastic
This is taking place in Weybridge on
Saturday 23rd February at 7:30pm.
Find out more here ›
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Sowing and growing
Canbury Community Garden 
This month we said goodbye to two regular voluteers, Laura and Anna, who are moving away- we'll miss them! Broad beans, onions and garlic are beginning to grow, and we now have to improvise ways to keep our chickens away from the new shoots.
Our 2018 end-of-year count up of volunteer hours worked came to a rough total of 322.5 hours, and the total amount of produce harvested and recorded came to around 34.3 kilos, helped by bumper crops of runner beans, tomatoes and potatoes,. And our Chicken Collective had several dozen eggs. Well done, everyone! Once winter is over, we hope to run a few more regular gardening sessions and would welcome more volunteers, experts or novices, to help with spring planting and on-going tasks, especially if you live nearby in North Kingston. The reward is super-fresh vegetables later in the year. Currently our gardening sessions are at weekends, but if someone came along who wanted to run a session at another time we could arrange that. Find out more on Facebook ›
Hogsmill Community Garden
Thanks for all your support and hard work. We will be setting up a HCG committee next year and welcome interest from all - contact Julie › Opening times will be as usual over the winter, with tasks including ground preparation for hedging and raspberry canes, and levelling the ground and laying a platform for our work area.
The city turning streets into gardens
Paris has very little green space, so residents are planting gardens on pavements and small areas of public land to make the city greener. See more here ›
Kingston street trees
Street trees are beneficial to our neighbourhoods, softening the appearance of our roads, and providing a calmer environment to improve our mood and improve the desirability of properties. Yet in recent years many trees have been lost. According to the council’s tree survey there are 2300 empty street tree pits in the borough. Neighbouring boroughs (Merton, Richmond and Sutton) have 15 – 20,000 street trees to Kingston’s 10,000.
Kingston Edible Forest Garden (aka Kingston Permaculture Reserve) invites you to complete a survey to share your views on this issue › If you would like to put your street forward for some trees, please get together with your neighbours and let us know where you would like to plant them - we offer various kinds of support. Also, if you would like to volunteer as a potential RBK-approved planting volunteer supervisor contact us ›
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Thinking of switching to a plant focused diet?
Guardian Article: New plant-focused diet would 'transform' planets future, say scientists...
Planetary health diet’ would prevent millions of deaths a year and avoid climate change...
Read more here ›
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Friends of Manor Park
Making paths and looking after the birds in Manor Park
(The Friends of Manor Park Volunteer Morning)
 On Saturday 26th January the Friends of Manor Park ran its first Volunteer Morning of 2019.
The plan for the day was to create a path around the seasonal pond, install a bird feeding station and do some litter picking.
As the event also coincided with the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch Weekend, now in its 40th year, the Friends group also ran some kids activities, including a bird treasure-hunt, a bird food kitchen and a short talk on the wild birds that live in the park.
Over 40 volunteers turned up over the course of the morning to make this a very successful event.
Local residents can now enjoy a walk around our little pond, or take some food to the bird feeding station, which should add to a stroll in the park
Join the Friends Facebook group to keep up to date on events:
https://m.facebook.com/groups/218150358663325/ ›
Website:
https://ourmanorpark.org.uk ›
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Other things we liked this month!
Looking for a quieter, less polluted route?
'Walk it' is a fantastic website for planning your walks if you are looking to find a more direct route, or a quieter and less polluted walk...
If you want to find out more, you can visit their website and start to plan your walk here ›
Former Genesis Guitarist, Steve Hackett, has a new album out...
Steve Hackett, formerly of Genesis, has a new album out - At The Edge of Light!
He spoke to Kingston Green Radio's Henry Riley about the album and working with Genesis. The interview will soon be on KGR's Mixcloud...
You can listen here ›
The Plastic Pollution Guide
SLO active are a social enterprise dedicated to cleaning up our oceans. They have recently published a guide, titled Plastic Pollution: Single Use Plastic Impact on our Oceans
If you want to take a look at the guide, or the other work SLO Active are doing, you can do so here ›
New Malden Residents Association's Homebase Consultation Report
 Our good friends at the New Malden Residents Association have been looking into the Fairview Homes proposal for redevelopment of the Homebase site on Kingston Road with housing.
You can find out more specifically about the proposal, as well as the design and traffic and access implications in their report which is found on their website ›
Article: The Insect Apocalypse Is Here
Interesting New York Times article, what does it mean for the rest of life on Earth?
You can read it here ›
Tolworth Marks and Spencers!
 We were absolutely thrilled here at the Kingston Environment Centre to hear that M&S in Tolworth have now launched their Plastic-Free Fruit & Veg aisles!
It’s often very difficult to buy fruit and veg in supermarkets without being inundated with plastic packaging, and this is definitely a step in the right direction.
Also, as Sharon pointed out on our Twitter feed, ‘worth reminding people that little row of shops just before the Berrylands pub has a real greengrocers pretty much always plastic free and local’ – that is a fantastic point, many local, independent shops also do a brilliant range of fruit and veg plastic-free.
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Social Prescribing: Time To Talk Day
There are lots of events happening in Kingston to get people talking on and around 'Time To Talk Day' which is taking place on the 7th February.
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For volunteers and budding gardeners, training and job opportunity!
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Capital Growth
Get involved in Capital Growth training in 2019
Capital Growth are 'all hands on deck' pulling together their exciting new programme of workshops. Capital Growth have run training since 2009 and now work closely with hub & partners to bring more courses to more people. In 2019 they are focusing on:
 Urban food growing - cover things such as planning a site, principles of organic growing and soil life..
- Growing enterprise - targeted at growers who want to trade.
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- Getting children growing - helping with skills to run effective sessions in a garden environment and offer practical ideas to link food growing to the curriculum.
Grow for it! - from foraging to wild bees and permaculture, these sessions cover other topics related to food growing.
Growing Culture - this will focus on London's food growing heritage and how it contributes to the culture of families, communities and our city as part of a new Heritage Lottery funded project.
Dates for the Diary
The Big Dig › Sat 27 April 2019
Urban Harvest › September 2019
Find out more ›
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» Visit our websites: Transition Town Kingston › and Kingston Environment Centre ›
» If you have local environmental news or an event to share, please email the next editor.
» Come to one of our events or join in an activity...
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Berrylands Nature Reserve
Below are the photos from Saturday 19th of January's Duke of Edinburgh volunteer session. 
They picked a ton of litter (literally) and an entire trailer full of green waste to make room for planting along the shrub beds on the SW corner of Fishponds. 17 volunteers were there, plus a father and daughter who came to lend a hand.
Last Tuesday of every month (apart from public holidays) from 7.00pm to 9.00ish, Woody's riverside bar, Rams Passage, KT1 1HH
