– Pumpkin Parade, on Sunday 30 October, from 3.30 to 4.45pm, taking place by the cafe – see separate post.

– Autumn Plant Walk on Sunday 6 November, 2pm: Roy Vickery of the South London Botanical Institute is kindly leading an autumn plant walk on the Common for FOTC. We will meet at the junction of Cavendish and Fernlea Roads at 2pm.

– our next litter pick is on Sunday 13 November, starting at 11.00am at the cafe. As usual, please bring your own (sturdy) gloves, and if you have a litter picking stick, could you also bring that.

– Our AGM is on the afternoon of Sunday 13 November, at 2.30pm, at St Anselms Church Hall, Tooting Bec.  

FOTC’s annual Pumpkin Parade is on Sunday 30 October, from 3.30pm to 4.45pm, by the cafe on the Common. There will be competitions for best carved pumpkins (funniest, scariest, most artistic), and for home-made fancy dress. All proceeds will be donated to Royal Trinity Hospice.

Pumpkin-parade-poster-2022-1-1

Everyone very welcome!

A number of people post photos of the Common on the FoTC Facebook group, particularly of trees and plants.

We (FOTC) draw these together every few months and post them here. The most recent set of photos is here: 

FB posts Jan to Mar 2021

We hope these photos help celebrate the Common, particularly for people who aren’t often able to get out onto it.

Many thanks to all of the photographers, and particularly to Roy (Vickery) for his very informative posts, and for sharing his botanical expertise with us.  Many thanks also to Eamonn (Richardson) for drawing these photos together.

Some photos for previous months are:

FB posts Nov -Dec 2020

FOTC September-November 2020

FOTC, august-september2020

FOTC JULY-AUGUST 2020

FOTC-June-July-2020

FOTC-May/June2020

 FOTC April/May 2020

We hope this will provide a longer-term record of how the Common looks at different times.

Alongside circulating these photos, we also run regular photo competitions for the Common. (See separate blog post on this.)

Friends of Tooting Common are concerned at the volume of litter on the Common.  We consider that more could be done on litter collection, and have raised the issue with Enable and the Council. We also arrange our own volunteer litter picks (and will shortly be restarting them, which were suspended during lockdown). 

However, it is also very important that people take litter home with them, and certainly do not to leave it lying out on the Common.  Littering the Common is selfish, and spoils the Common – which is a really excellent greenspace, available to everybody – for everyone else.

There has been very considerable wear and damage to a number of parts of the Common as a result of heavy usage, particularly during summer 2020. These problems have been exacerbated recently by waterlogging, resulting in a number of large muddy areas. FOTC have raised these issues of concern with Enable (who manage the Common on the Council’s behalf), while recognising that these and other problems on the Common may not have easy short-term solutions.

There have been some general concerns about dog and puppy thefts in London, and also some reports recently of people acting suspiciously in some other greenspaces in Wandsworth – eg asking dog owners about their dogs, and/or taking photos of the dogs. There have been no reported incidents of concern on Tooting Common, which is re-assuring. However dog owners using Tooting Common may want to be generally aware of these reports, and to be vigilant to eg anyone asking questions about their dog(s).

Also, if you know of any actual theft, or see someone acting suspiciously, please report it to the police on 101, so that any incidents can be logged and acted on.