Kentish Town Street Swaps on Friday November 28th
Street Swaps is a new TKT project that offers a fun and practical way to make better use of our planet’s finite resources; reduce pollution from over-consumption; and develop stronger mutual support in hard times. It’s here to help us build a stronger culture of swapping and sharing; and repairing and reusing, of everyday domestic and personal items in Kentish Town. And we’re running it with some support from Think & Do Camden and funding from the Camden Climate Fund.
We’re beginning Kentish Town Street Swaps with a big push to turn the Black Friday November 28th shopping bonanza into Green Friday: a one day celebration of swapping and sharing, that we hope will boost sharing and reuse in Kentish Town, plus launching a new swap and share, reuse and repair, information & activities hub in Kentish Town Library.
We do hope you and your Kentish Town neighbours, and local TRA, will want to be part of this. Perhaps you already have a local neighbourhood swaps system in your street or estate? If so, we’d love to hear about it, and talk about how we can support each other.
To find out more and get involved, please contact our TKT Street Swaps project manager Finley (who some of you may also know as p/t Nature & Rewilding Manager at Think & Do Camden) at Finley@thinkanddocamden.org.uk and at info@thinkanddocamden.org.uk.
Ways to help and get involved: publicity, preparation and set up
Whilst the main event isn’t happening till 28th November, publicity and engagement has started. Ways you can help and get involved are:
1) Forwarding this email and attached poster to friends, neighbours and anyone you think might like to get involved. It’s all quite self-explanatory.
2) Spreading the word to your neighbours through your local street or residents association WhatsApp group – and by chatting on the street about it.
3) Displaying a Street Swap poster on your TRA notice board or home window.
4) Joining our partnered door knocking sessions to help get people sorting things they’d like to swap, ready for the Big Street Swap day on Friday 28th November. If you can help for even half an hour it would be really helpful. It’s fun, sociable and info, flyers, door knocking partners and training all provided. Contact Talulla for details.
5) Feeling a bit shy? You can help by just putting flyers through local letterboxes.
Ways to help and get involved: on Street Swap Day Friday 28th November
1) Put out your Street Swap items at 8.30am and encourage your neighbours to as well – and get swapping on your street.
2) Join TKT volunteers just after 9.30am to help move good quality unswapped items from your street to a new Local Swap Stall in Kentish Town Library, alongside the Library of Things low cost borrowing centre there. A Veolia team will then scoop up anything that remains for recycling – so no mess is left behind on the street.
3) Help run the Swap Stall at the Library on its inaugural day. Sign up with Finley for just an hour or for longer.
4) Or just head to the Library to continue swapping, hear about ways to upcycle stuff to extend its useful life through safe DIY – and get information on local traders who can supply repair and reuse skills, services and materials. Want to set up your own future street swap events? We’ll have some ‘how to’ information on that, plus some warming food and drinks to share on this special day.
Why Black Friday? And why swap instead of swap?
Black Friday – the day after the US festival of Thanksgiving – was traditionally a national holiday spent watching football games and making trips to local stores to stock up on winter gear. But in recent years, big business and online commerce have turned it into a consumer feeding frenzy, that leaves many of us both poorer and with shiny new things we never knew we needed!
Which is why Transition Kentish Town (TKT) invites you to join us in reclaiming some real start of winter Thanksgiving Spirit (of celebrating local resources and sharing local skills; and neighbours supporting one another through winter and challenging times) in Kentish Town. Think swapping, not shopping. Sharing our DIY repair and upcycling skills through the new Kentish Town Library Swap & Share Hub. And supporting our local Kentish Town repair services traders – to get through tough times and enjoy something that’s new to you – without it costing us the Earth (in all senses of the word!)
Interested? See the posters above for how to join the action and become part of the local repair and reuse, swap and share, lifestyle in Kentish Town.
Hope we’ve inspired you to get involved! We’d love to hear your Swap and Share stories and ideas. And look forward to meeting up at the Big Street Swap on 28th November.
