We are coming up to school holidays, which start at the end of this week - but we have a packed agenda before then. In addition to all the regular things we have:

• Preserves Group - Tuesday at 1pm. We’ll be cooking some tomato chutney and finishing off our lemons if you are keen to come along.

• Movie Club 🍿 - Tuesday 6pm we’ll be meeting at Westgarth Cinema to see Touch. It looks like a fabulous film and anyone can join our movie club!

• Meet The Candidates - Wednesday at 7pm to meet the local ward candidates for the Darebin Council election. Find out more here.

• Alphington Arts - Thursday 7.30pm. We have life drawing coming up. Clare has organised a model.

Last week we had a great time with our impromptu ‘Lemon Cleaner DIY’ workshop and a lovely visit from our neighbourhood house colleagues on Wednesday. We also had Jill Post, who is the Greens candidate for Yarra pop in for lunch on Friday. It is always great to share what we do.

For more information on all of these things check out the posts and photos below.

Term 4 starts on Monday 7 October - and we look forward to seeing you then.

I hope you have a lovely week.

Leanne

Last week we had our last session of Crunch for the term. It has been such a fabulous new program, and it has engaged a different cohort of locals - it is always nice to make new friends! Crunch will be back next term for another 6 weeks, starting Thursday 24 October.

Speaking of art, did you go to Art for All this weekend? I went along and saw so many people I knew - what a great event hey? We are so lucky to have so many fabulous parents in our community who run community events like Art for All and the Alphington PS Fete.

On Friday we were joined for lunch by our local State MP, Kat Theophanous. She came past to check out the renovations that were primarily funded by two State Government grants (with a bit of our own savings in there to top it up). She was very impressed with all the changes we made, and we also had a great chat about neighbourhood house funding, and how the State Government could continue to support us into the future.

This week Julie Johnston who runs the North East Neighbourhood House Network is taking some of our colleagues on a bus tour of all the Darebin neighbourhood houses … so we will be looking forward to them popping in on Wednesday for morning tea. I will be showing off all the changes we have made recently and talking about the programs we run here to meet our local community need, and also talking about the way we try to present ourselves in the community to build community engagement and establish a sense of place.

Speaking of which, have you seen the new ‘vases’ on the fence - a little celebration of spring for you to enjoy next time you pass by.

Coming up this week our Lemon Cleaner DIY mini-workshop on Thursday morning at 11am. $10. Clare will show you how to make your own environmentally friendly lemon based cleaner … and explore some other ideas for keeping your house fresh and environmentally friendly using things from the home garden. It will be low key and lovely! Find out more and book in here.

Also, click on the links below to find out more about our VCE Exam Help sessions that will run on Saturday afternoons in October. We are also offering a Meet The Candidates session or the upcoming Darebin Council elections.

Also, check out the learn to bowl opportunity sent through from Anne and the Alphington Bowls Club. Coming up this weekend.

Finally … our next Alphington Arts session is coming up next week - on Thursday 19 September at 7.30pm. We are going to be doing life drawing with a model this time - so it should be super fun! If you are interested in joining in you still can here. We have this session, and two more coming up next term.

I hope you have a great week and look forward to seeing you soon!

Leanne

Well … a busy latter half of the week for exciting visitors …

On Thursday we had Kerry McGrath who is the General Manager of Community Strengthening at Yarra Council come past for a mini tour and chat. She is currently visiting all the houses in Yarra - which is so great because each one is so different. It was lovely to talk to you Kerry.

We really appreciate the investment that Yarra Council makes in neighbourhood houses - both financially and collegiately (so many nice people there that we work alongside to deliver shared services for our local community).

Then on Friday Keir Paterson from NHVic (our peak body) joined us for lunch … before a mix of our participants joined in a formal focus group with him and some masters students from Melbourne Uni.

NHVic is putting together a report looking into what makes people first come to neighbourhood houses - and then stay engaged. They are thinking about things like placemaking (if houses look interesting from the street does that encourage people to come inside) along with programs, events, social connection etc. etc.

As you possibly know, we have done lots of placemaking things at ACC - from changing our fences and office location so you can see we are ’home’, to all our lovely dinky signs, murals, mosaics, metal sculptures and yarn bombing in our gorgeous garden … and then there is the table tennis table, the mini golf green … also the interactive art on our fence and the book and seed exchanges. All these things make us a memorable location in the neighbourhood and encourage our community to casually interact with us … creating a feeling of friendliness and connection - before people even walk in the door!

Anyway … it is super for our locals to have the opportunity to feed into these sorts of statewide discussions. Thanks NHVic for approaching us to be part of it all!

Apart from this excitement we had a relatively quiet week with both Kalimna and I being sick … aagh. It seems we are not alone, it’s like an endless roundabout of illness at the minute isn’t it?

Anyway … onto cheerier subjects … this week we have some great things on including:

• Adult Exercise on Tuesday at 11am - it’s not too late to join in … call us if you are keen! We can do 3 weeks instead of 4. Only $15 a session - small group (you’ll get lots of love!)

• Community Playgroup on Wednesday from 10am-12pm. $5 weekly. It well attended and friendly.

• Crunch on Thursday from 12.30-2pm. We’re getting arty this week. $15 for lunch and creativity. Book in on our website (on the enrol page …)

• Our Community Morning on Friday from 10am-12pm, followed by Community Lunch at 12pm, gold coin donation if you can.

Also … put the opening night for our Winter Arts Exhibition in your diaries, Friday 16 August, 5-7pm. Come along and admire local art! We’ve heaps of entries already which is super!

We’ll have drinks and finger food - $5 a head donation. And … we’ll be officially opening our new spaces. How exciting.

Have a great week. See you soon (we hope).

Leanne

Are you a local artist? Come and join in our annual Winter Arts Exhibition on the weekend of 16-18 August.

You can find out all the details and book in here.

The event includes our Opening Night from 5-7pm on Friday 16 August where our whole community is invited to come along and appreciate the local talent! We’ll have drinks and finger food. It’ll be fun.

Then on Saturday and Sunday the exhibition will also be open from 10am-4pm for anyone to drop in.

We hope to see you there!

Coming up on the weekend … don’t forget! A great Mothers Day experience. Yummy food supporting a fabulous group of women who do so much for our local community.