Transition Kentish Town News and Events September 2025

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Transition Kentish Town News
and Events September 2025

“As Summer shifts to Autumn / And change is coming clear /

We are dancing with the seasons / We are turning with the year”.

Welcome to Transition Kentish Town’s Autumn Newsletter. With news of TKT events you can join to celebrate the Autumn Equinox next weekend, and to prepare for a winter of cosier homes, lower energy bills and reduced carbon footprints with RetrofitKT. Find out how to get involved with NW5 Fruit Pickers, and help bring in this year’s bumper harvest of apples and pears on neglected local fruit trees. Share a big thank you to the watering and weeding teams who kept our TKT Community Gardens going through the summer droughts, and ways to make all of our gardens more sustainable and resilient - so they can continue to support local pollinators and lift local spirits in seasons to come. Plus an update on Kentish Town Connects and a reminder to comment on Camden’s Climate Action Plan.

If you feel we’re facing a new wave of climate disinformation and fightback from fossil fuel industry vested interests and opportunistic politicians, you are not alone. All designed to defund the development of clean renewable energy generation. And to confuse and discourage practical climate action by individuals, governments and communities.

See our final newsletter item for suggestions on ways to stay hopeful and engaged. And help with keeping in touch with positive news about all the carbon cutting / environmental repair action that's happening both here and world wide. Read on to find out more about all of this.

Events

Transition Kentish Town Nature Connections

Hampstead Heath Autumn Equinox Nature Ramble

Sunday 21st September 2025 10.30am – 12.30pm

Celebrate the Autumn Equinox with the TKT Nature Connections team, and Hampstead Heath ecologist, and climate and Nature activist, Jeff Waage, as we explore seasonal changes around Parliament Hill Fields and Hampstead Heath.

At a time of darker evenings and colder mornings; of migrating birds; seed saving and distribution; and winter residents preparing for the cold dark months ahead.

Hear about ways to support both Nature and ourselves as global heating and climate breakdown disrupt the rhythms and continuity of Nature’s season. And enjoy connecting with Nature through poetry and nature writing readings from the TKT Nature Connections team. And in a simple gratitude ceremony, to thank the Heath’s trees for all they have shared with us over Spring and Summer, and wish them well as they prepare for Autumn’s great casting off of leaves.

Free but please book via Eventbrite.
The walk starts and ends at the Bandstand next to the Parliament Hill Fields Heath Cafe. Buses 88, 214 and C11 all stop close by on Highgate Road NW5. And the Gospel Oak Mildmay and Barking line Overground Station is just a short walk away on Gordon House Road NW5.

Please arrive at 10.20am for the 10.30am start. Sturdy footwear and all weather clothing advised. If you need more information, contact Pomme Edwards at [email protected].

Kentish Town Veg Box Autumn Equinox Celebration

Sunday 21^st September 12.00 – 3.0pm
Location: To be announced (stay tuned for updates)

Enjoy the fruits of the season in a cozy community Autumn Equinox Celebration. Enjoy the turning of the seasons with a day of apple pressing, mulling & a conker tournament - a perfect way to embrace the bounty of autumn!

Includes:

• Apple Pressing: Bring along your apples (or help press ours!) and learn how to make fresh, delicious apple juice.

• Mulled Apple Juice: Warm up with a selection of spiced, mulled apple drinks - perfect for welcoming the autumn chill.

• Conker Tournament: Bring a conker and some string for our conker tournament.

This event is open to all! Whether you’re bringing apples to press or just coming to enjoy the fun, we’d love to see you there. More Information: Further event details, including the location and schedule, will be shared soon. Keep an eye out for updates via email, social media or via the website: www.vegbox.org.uk/events/.

Retrofit Kentish Town AGM and Autumn planning session

Tuesday 23rd September 7.00 - 8.30pm at the Kentish Town Community Centre

Retrofit Kentish Town became a co-operative just over a year ago, and will be holding their AGM on Tuesday 23rd September 2025, at Kentish Town Community Centre, Busby Place, London NW5 2SP.

The meeting is open to members and non-members: everyone is welcome so please come along to find out more about retrofitting your home.

RetrofitKT invite you to join them to review progress so far and help plan the RKT Autumn programme. And to meet Amy Lightfoot, who will be planning further community engagement.

Retrofit is a great way to adapt our homes to the effects of climate change and help reduce the causes of climate change - whilst at the same time reducing our energy bills and helping the transition to a fairer green economy. By working together on retrofit, our community can be effective in tackling these challenges.

You can find out more at RKT’s website: retrofitkentishtown.org. Please join up as a member here. The £5 membership fee will help support our work.

TKT News and Opportunities to get Involved

NW5 Fruit Pickers is busy harvesting fruit from trees in local streets and gardens around our area. So that Nature's abundance is not wasted and the harvest is shared more fairly. It’s a great way to come together to reduce waste and cut carbon and food miles by harvesting, sharing and enjoying our local fruit harvests. Crisp and juicy apples and pears just now, after the purple and golden plums earlier in the summer.

Do you know of local fruit trees on streets where fruit isn’t being harvested? Or do you have a fruit tree in your garden you’d like help harvesting and are happy to share? Let NW5 Fruit Pickers know about them and they’ll arrange a suitable time to pick surplus fruit and distribute it to food banks, charities and community projects.

Can you help distribute harvested fruit? Help from cargo bike riders and car drivers is especially welcome just now to deliver harvested fruit to community kitchens, food banks and other local distribution/ sharing points.

Want to get involved? This is a fun, worthwhile and sociable project, where more pickers / harvesters and distributors are always welcome. Picks are led by experienced fruit harvesters with no tree climbing required! Sign up and bring your friends & family.

To find out more and get involved contact [email protected]

TKT Community Gardens

A big thank you to our watering teams over a demanding summer, who kept the gardens outside Kentish Town Fire Station and at Kentish Town Thames Link Station looking good during major summer droughts. Over the Autumn / Winter season we'll be reviewing ways to make our Community Gardens even more sustainable and resilient. Take a look at the switch we've already made to gravel garden beds at Thames Link Platform 1 Cottage Garden, to improve water retention during future seasonal droughts.

Want to learn more and get involved? Please contact Ian Grant at [email protected].

Kentish Town Civic Action Arts Lab and Community Events Hub

Remember when 2 Prince of Wales Road NW5 was a Community Law Centre (and before that one of Kentish Town’s lost cinemas?)

Now it’s changed yet again to become a new Civic Action Arts Lab and community events hub, facilitated by Kentish Town Connects, a Camden Council initiative to support eco-activist community groups, and local creatives and well-being and inclusion projects in Kentish Town.

Kentish Town Connects hosts themed local walks, meetings and events to bring groups together. It also offers an events and meetings space at the new community arts hub at 2 Prince of Wales Road. And over the summer it secured a £5K budget to support shared local climate action initiatives around Kentish Town, and to increase engagement in climate action and community inclusion action in our local communities.

TKT has joined the KTC network, along with many other local groups, and looks forward to helping shape and support the action. Contact to learn more and get involved: [email protected].

AND Don't miss out on your chance to comment on the Draft Camden Climate Action Plan - closing date for comments - 23rd September. Give your views at:
Camden Climate Action Plan 2026 -2030 - We Are Camden - Citizen Space.

It's important that we support Camden in keeping its climate action promises, and in telling them where they need to be bolder in safeguarding the future of our local communities.

And finally - a few ideas for Staying Positive in Dark Times

Sometimes it can feel like its not only the season that’s getting darker. Mainstream news suddenly seems full of stories about the push back by vested interests and political idealogues against the positive industry scale progress we were starting to see on reducing climate and environmental breakdown. Before this, we knew times were tough, but we could see progress and feel hope. And it's important not to let go of that, because so much good progress continues to be made. So here are a few suggestions on ways to stay connected with community and climate activism.

Find your own climate and community action niche – anything from signing online petitions and writing to your local Council and Government to support them in keeping to their carbon cutting promises; or supporting the growth of a fairer shares ‘doughnut economy’, by swapping and sharing more and shopping less; reducing carbon emissions by retrofitting your home or supporting community energy installation project - or just putting on a sweater instead of turning on the heat! Or by helping care for a local community garden and getting closer to Nature with our Nature Connections project. And by continuing to enjoy a plant based diet despite the mainstream media now telling us is no longer fashionable!

These may seem like drops in the ocean, but they all add up - and together, we are the river that brings change sweeping in. Or you could enjoy the sociability and skills sharing of joining, or volunteering with, a local climate action project, like Power Up North London, Kentish Town Veg Box or TKT Retrofit.

Fed up with bad news but want to stay informed?

Boost your wellbeing and get help staying active and engaged by subscribing to the free weekly e-newsletter from ‘Positive News’, “the magazine for good journalism, about the good things that are happening”. It arrives every Saturday with stories of social and environmental progress; quality, independent reporting with a focus on solutions. You can also pay to receive a digital quarterly magazine, with a additional carbon neutral print version option.

Positive News is a co-operative owned by 1,500 reader investors worldwide and any profits are reinvested in their journalism and mission. They rely on their supporters, not advertisers or a wealthy proprietor. And they aim to lead by example in creating a more balanced, responsible media. Check it out at Positive News magazine.

Join The Guardian Newspaper's Climate Assembly on Tuesday 16th September. More details ->

We’ll be back later in the Autumn with more TKT news of local events and climate and community projects you can get involved in right here in Kentish Town.

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