Did you know you can learn to play the harp at Alphington Community Centre? That’s pretty cool right?

Jane runs classes on a Wednesday evening and has a collection of small harps that participants use - they are very manageable in size and sound amazing!

When she first came along and gave us a demo a few years ago, I was interested to learn that the harp strings are just tuned to a scale, so if you’ve played piano etc. harp is actually very intuitive.

In any case, Jane’s classes are about group music making rather than complex harp playing … and so anyone who loves the sound of harps can join in. If you are keen to find out more give Jane a call on 0421 164 152.

In addition to Harp we have some other music making options at ACC in 2021. The Alphingtones Choir meet at ACC on Thursday evenings from 8pm if you keen on group singing. We offer Ukulele on Monday evenings. Book in on our website here. And then we have guitar lessons with Matthew (also on Thursday evenings) from 4-7pm. Contact him on 0435 265 756 if you’d like to find out more.

Our lovely friend Win having a go of one of Jane’s harps at community lunch

The Alphingtones are a long-standing local choir. It is likely that you have seen them performing at events such as the Wetlands Festival. They bring cheer with their voices to many local occasions, including our annual Christmas Carols (which we sadly couldn’t run this year)!

If you have a penchant for singing and you are thinking that joining a choir could be your thing, why not contact Kate here.

The Alphingtones choir meets on a Thursday night at ACC at 8pm. Weekly sessions cost $12.

Our new brochure is out. We’ve created a trimmed down version for semester 1 2021. You can read it here. It is jam packed with old favourites like playgroups and choir and new ideas including a range of short courses, workshops and events you can book in to.

• Women in the Shed is back on Monday (for beginners), Tuesday and Thursday for 6 weeks in Term 1 and 2.

• Our free Access All Abilities Bowls program run with Alphington Bowls Club is back for 6 weeks in term 1 and 2.

• Our new Drawing in the Shed short course will also run for 6 weeks in Term 1 and 2. Run by local artist Louisa, this is a low-cost opportunity for all members of the community to develop the observation and co-ordination skills necessary to make creative drawings in any style. It will cover contour drawing, creating creative compositions, drawing with perspective and more.

• In 2019 we had Gordon come along and run a sewing machine maintenance workshop. It was a fantastic morning and so we’ve rebooked him this year. On Saturday 1 May he will run a sewing machine maintenance workshop and then on Saturday 17 June he will run an overlocker maintenance workshop.

• Local Manu is keen to share her Indian cooking skills with us … starting with a chai tea making workshop (Sunday 9 May). $20. Book here.

• Our History Walk is back! Join local Anne and other history buffs for a stroll around South Alphington on Sunday 16 May from 2pm.

• And finally … Home maintenance 101. It’s a maintenance kind of year it seems … and on the weekend of 19 & 20 June we’re offering a two day workshop (only $50 with Learn Local funding) all about building home maintenance skills. How to unblock a drain, how to stop a cistern running, how to fix a hose leak, how to hang pictures and fix cracks in plaster. How to fix windows that stick … (depending how old your house is the list goes on and on right?).

Book in online today.

Matthew Roche has been providing accessible guitar lessons to students of all ages in Alphington for more than five years. And now he will be teaching lessons here at the Alphington Community Centre on Thursday afternoons.

Matthew’s lessons are fun and engaging, student-centred and based around students achieving their own short term and long term musical goals.

Matthew is a professional musician, guitarist and composer and has a Bachelor of Music (Hons) from Monash University. Check out his band Soft Power.

His rates are $30 per half hour; $60 per hour.

Contact Matthew on 0435 265 756 to find out more and book in for 2021.

At ACC we try to offer a wide range of opportunities for people to meet their neighbours, to make friends in the community, and to build, explore and share their skills and knowledge.

We run a number of activities that are self-led or run by a generous volunteer. These include Czech and Slovak Playgroup, Ukulele, Line Dancing and the like. For these programs we ask all attendees to contribute $5 per week (no matter how long the session lasts) to keep the lights on and the heater heating etc.

We also support a number of micro-businesses that provide services that fit in with our programming goals. Small business owners/sole traders running these programs set their own fees and we support them with low room hire rates (again $5 per attendee) and publicity. These programs include Jane’s Group Harp, Cat’s Lego Club and Matthew’s Guitar Lessons (about to start up).

Then we run a number of tutored programs, where we spread a small bucket of money that comes from Darebin Council and Yarra Council as widely as possible, prioritising community building and community need.

In the first half of 2021 we will fully subsidise Jill to run our very successful and long-standing AAA Bowls program (a partnership with Alphington Bowls Club) and Jenny to oversee our Friday community morning program that includes Community Craft, Gardening Group and Morning Tea on the Corner.

Then with the remaining program funding we will partially subsidising our tutored/supervised Community Shed sessions.

These programs will cost $5 per hour per participant (still a bargain) and we’ll need a minimum of 6 people booked in by the term for them to run.

Of course, we also tap into other funding where ever possible. We always have our eyes open and our ears to the ground … last year we partnered with MyTime to support our Peer Support Playgroup for example. And we get one-off grants from wonderful community support organisations such as Clifton Hill/North Fitzroy Community Bank who have previously provided funding for our Community Lunches and our Gardening Group … and this coming year will be supporting our History Group (more to come on this).

Our full program for 2021 will be out next week, and we’ll be featuring some of the new things on offer at ACC (and some old favourites as well) in our newsletter in coming weeks (with the links to book in).

We hope you can find something that you will enjoy being part of, and we look forward to seeing you onsite in the new year. Our programming will resume in the first week of February.