Coming up on Sunday 5 May, the CWA high tea is back at Alphington Bowls Club.

Email cwaofalphington@gmail.com to book your spot or table. Tickets cost $60.

A fabulous way to catch up with family and friends (an early Mothers Day afternoon tea perhaps?) and help our local CWA friends fundraise for all the wonderful causes they support.

This year the guest speaker is Kashif Hayat from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.

As you probably know, supporting people seeking asylum in Australia is also a cause dear to our heart - ACC is an official donation point for the ASRC (you can drop supermarket items off with us anytime - our cupboard is always open).

Thanks everyone who has come along for the renovation ride this term. It has been an exciting and some days rocky road! But … plaster is going in and the veranda in the backyard is being built … and it is all good. We’re looking forward to a much improved space emerging!

We’re hopeful that by the time we return from the school holidays in 2+ weeks we’ll be functional again.

And be able to host an opening up party - look out for the details.

As you probably are aware, the renovations will enable us to run more activities at once, and we already have the U3A thinking of running another program here, a new guitar teacher keen to start lessons in term 2 and our Japanese Playgroup friends are returning (after thinking last year that they weren’t). If you run a small business and need a venue, or have a great idea for a program that you’d like to see in the local community- we’d really love to hear from you.

Just email info@alphington.org.au or call our office on 9499 7227.

Happy Easter everyone, we’ll be closing the office on Wednesday this week, and will officially restart programming from Monday 15 April, but in the meantime we will be in and out these holidays to keep an eye on the renovation and bed down the planning for next term.

Hi Leanne here. Last week I was at the NHVic conference in Creswick. This is an annual conference that is run by our peak body , Neighbourhood Houses Victoria, that enables the 400+ houses across Victoria to come together to learn and discuss and have a fun time!

I started the first day with this amazing sunrise over the RACV golf course … not too shabby hey?

There was a moving smoking ceremony to kick things off.

And lots of fabulous presenters including Leigh Sales … and lots of the houses gave presentations about interesting programs and NHVic gave sector updates on all the things that are currently impacting on houses. All of which I forgot to take photos of …. but then there was a 70s themed gala ball … see below!

I did a presentation this year on placemaking - 30 things that we have done at ACC to make our house have more of a community presence - including all the changes outside and inside, and then I talked about lots of the interactive community arts projects we have run. It was lovely to be able to share ideas with colleagues.

And to illustrate how participatory public art works we made a miniature gallery - portraits of the people who came to my presentation. It turned out great and i have sent it home with the NHVic staff. Hopefully they put it up in their offices as a memory of the conference.

Anyway, it was a super event! There are so many really committed and amazing and kind people in our sector and it is just fabulous to have these opportunities to connect up and learn and support each other.

Hi Leanne here.

It has been a less dramatic week this week … but there has been lots of progress in our building works.

Materials such as cladding, insulation and plasterboard are onsite. And the electrician has been through and put all the cabling in.

I did my bit and ordered the kitchen! Hooray. Now I need to buy an induction stove top, a new oven etc. I’ll do this Monday or Tuesday.

The inspection for the new building frame outside is complete and the steelwork and lintels are going in inside.

There is going to be a big push this coming week with 4 builders back onsite. So things might visibly speed up again with the rest of the framing in, and perhaps some plastering?

We’re prioritising getting the foyer, office and new toy library room completed asap so that we can start organising and utilising those spaces. And this will also free up room 3, where our office currently is, and enable us to have some options for our programming.

On Friday afternoons we always enjoy our access all abilities art group. It run by Clare and supported by Corrado and Hazel, our wonderful volunteers. We have a super mix of people attending to work on mixed media group and individual projects each week.

Here is one of the latest group pieces, made from paper. It is up on the wall in the Community Shed.