Did you know we have a mini op shop here at ACC - it is just in the doorway inside the front garden .. and it is open whenever we are eg. Monday to Friday 9am-3.30pm. Lots of bargains with most things just a $1 or $2. You can pay by cash or EFTPOS in the office.

Pop in and have a look next time you are passing by!

Gosh … wasn’t Sunday hot! And stormy! I hope everyone is managing to look after themselves through this heatwave.

If you need tips and advice both Darebin and Yarra Council have done lots of work thinking about heatwave planning and have some excellent resources on their websites. If you need a hand give us a call on Monday or Tuesday - we are more than happy to think about and action practical ways that we could help you if we can.

It was lovely to catch up with people throughout the last week - we had people dropping past to say hello, people calling and emailing and had a great start back on Wednesday for Playgroup and then on Friday with Community Lunch. Daniel also started up his music lessons and some of our other music and dance programs were back up and running too.

This week Clare will be starting up her Artful Painting and Drawing classes - so book in if you are keen. CWA has their meeting on Monday night at 7.30pm at the Gleeson Centre in Darebin Parklands (end of Separation Street). Such a great group to join if you like hanging out with action oriented women and being a part of cooking, craft or community/social justice activities. And Yoyo is back from celebrating Chinese New Year with her family in China (lucky thing) … so we’ll be excited that her mum Juliette will have the milkbar back open - just in time for a sneaky icy pole or two … (we missed her over summer) … and Yoyo of course will be starting up her violin lessons for the year.

In the office we’ve got one more week of planning and organising - wrangling the garden back into shape, increasing publicity for new programs and events, and finishing off tidying the Community Shed after our major reorganise at the end of last year.

Then next week we’ll be fully launching into things for 2025. Which will be great!

I hope you can take it easy the next day or two in the heat. Don’t forget to check in with your neighbours, friends and family to make sure they are okay too. And hopefully we’ll see you soon.

Also … don’t stop reading here … please check out the articles below about Toy Library and a possible new Playgroup for nonnas and nonnos … we have such great things on and such a super generous and connected community around us!

Cheers

Leanne

Did you know that Alphington Community Centre began as a support service for mums and families? Started by a group of mums it originally ran out of Alphington Primary School and offered serviced like a babysitting club and a toy library - the latter of which still runs today.

In our Toy Library you will find some of the fabulous old puzzles and wooden toys from the 1980s, along with a whole host of newer toys that are suitable for children from 3 months through to primary school.

Our Toy Library costs $45 a year +GST to join - and you can borrow multiple toys every week of school term (that’s 40 weeks a year). Our Toy Library is fully online - so you can book your toys from the convenience of your loungeroom at home, and then pop past on a Tuesday afternoon or a Wednesday morning (when Playgroup is on) to return and collect your toys.

We look forward to welcoming new families to our Toy Library this year - and catching up with our exist Toy Library families as they pop in over the coming weeks.

Join our Toy Library here.

Hello to all the nonnas e nonnos out there!

Did you know that 5.5% of fathers and 4.5% of mothers of residents in Alphington were born in Italy. And … 2.4% of Alphinton households speak Italian at home.

Local new nonna Lorena (who is also on our committee here at ACC) is interested in establishing an Italian Language Playgroup - for nonnas and nonnos and/or parents and carers who speak Italian. It would be on a Monday - we have some flexibility for the timing depending on who might like to come along.

If this is something that your family might like to be a part of please click here to express your interest.

Community led programs are always the best! Thanks Lorena for suggesting this idea. We look forward to hearing from other locals who might be keen.

Hi all

After a restful January for us (and a productive one we hope for the the amazing volunteers who ran Project Stationery from ACC over the last 5 weeks) we are back in the office from tomorrow (Tuesday).

And we are looking forward to seeing you.

We have an action packed agenda coming up for the first half of 2025 - which is all outlined in our new brochure. We will have it available to collect at ACC and at the Library, or you can check it out here.

We have a new cooking and lunch program on Mondays this year - Garden to Plate, where we will use seasonal food to cook a meal and sit down together to eat it. Come along to learn some new recipes and have a great meal. It is free but bookings are required as spots are limited.

We are also proposing a new night time dinner on Thursdays called The Supper Club. If you are a mum at home sick of cooking or any other carer who needs a break, if you live alone and would like some regular company for dinner or you are new to the neighbourhood this could be ideal for you! Come along weekly. We hope those attending will not just enjoy a nourishing meal but also the opportunity to make new local connections/friendships. Book in here.

For those of you interested in living more sustainably, we have some super workshops on in second term, including Sewing Machine Repair, Overlocker Repair and Clothes Mending. These workshops are partly funded by Yarra City Council’s Climate Emergency team. And they complement our new Thrift Seekers Op Shop Tours (we are hosting one a term this year thanks to some funding from our lovely friends at the Community Bank on Queens Parade). Our first one is coming up soon on Saturday 8 March at 10am when we’ll be heading to Abbotsford - it should be lots of fun! You can book into all these programs here.

This semester we also have the Alphington Show coming up - on Saturday 29 March. So … start baking your bread, nourishing your garden, making your jam and crafting your heart out. We look forward to seeing all your entries … we’ll have the paperwork for the Show - with all the official categories etc. - out in the next week or so (we hope).

We have a couple of spots left in our Book Clubs that will start up in February - 1 spot in our 2nd Monday evening, 2 spots on Tuesday evening and 3 spots on Thursday evening - if you are keen share books with others. You could even join up with a friend …

It is going to be a busy few weeks getting everything up and running but we are really looking forward to seeing you again. Our first Community Lunch starts up this Friday - come along to catch up - craft, gardening and community shed activities from 10am, and lunch is at 12pm.

See you soon.

Leanne