Today some pictures of Mark from Pacific Australis placing beautiful natural stone paving in our front garden. We’re very excited that this is finally happening. Once Mark is done we’ll finish off the area next to the building with a pergola - thanks to a Federal Government Stronger Communities grant.

We’re hoping to make our front garden a more attractive and handy place for playgroup families and other users. Particularly in COVID times when being outdoors is safer than being indoors.

The pergola out the front of the shed has been fabulous, and we’re hoping our front garden will also be much more multipurpose when this work is complete. The final element we’ll be adding is a new cubby and sandpit - which has been ordered and should be arriving in a few weeks.

Masks are back! Please remember to wear yours when come along to ACC programs (unless you have an exemption). And please remember to use the QR code if you are onsite for more than 15 minutes. Thanks.

After COVID, and a year of not running the ever popular Alphington Open Studios weekend in the last week of November, the artists involved are keen to get going again this year (scheduled for 28-28 November for anyone who likes to diarise such things), but are also rethinking the event somewhat and contemplating new possibilities… and as such they are seeking new artists to join in.

So, if you are:

• a local practising artist (2D or 3D artist or photographer) with a studio in Alphington and would like to have your address on the map,

• a practising artist who lives nearby in surrounding suburbs who would be interested to joining in, or

• a local emerging artist keen to join in a group exhibition over the weekend,

please email us here. And someone from ACC or an artist already participating in the Alphington Open Studios weekend will be in touch. Be brave. How exciting!

Fred Colla was one of the artists exhibiting at ACC as part of the Alphington Open Studios weekend in 2019

One of the nicest things about the programs run at a neighbourhood house is that they typically emerge from the local community.

We love helping people in the neighbourhood incubate their workshop idea, share their hobby or even share their professional talent with their neighbours, and it’s rewarding to think that our house has helped many people kick off their small business.

Currently Matthew is running regular guitar lessons and Manu recently ran the Chai Tea Workshop, the first of many cultural cooking experiences she hopes to share. Louisa is sharing her talents through the Art in the Shed classes and even the sewing machine workshops run by Gordon this term were a recommendation from another local, Louise, who told us how great he was.

And, now is the time of the year we ask you to put your thinking caps on, as we embark on program planning for second semester.

If you have a workshop or short course you’d like to run yourself for the community please email or call us on 9499 7227 and talk to Leanne. If you have any recommendations for a great workshop or activity you’ve been part of elsewhere and can send us the contact details for who ran it please also let us know. Or any other ideas of things we should do … we’re fans of new ideas here at ACC!

We’ll be working on the program early June, with a plan to have our brochure out and ready for letterboxing by the time school holidays roll around.

We’re looking forward to your input.

Kalimna, Jenny and I went along to the NHVic lunch on Tuesday and came back with the Fiona Richardson Gender Equity Award for 2021, for Women in the Shed.

It has been a collective effort to get this program up and running, and we thank all the women in the community who suggested that we needed a dedicated women’s shed program and then joined in, and also Jen Dentoom who taught the program in its infancy. Her relaxed kindness and inclusive can-do attitude really set the tone.

We’re super pleased that it has been so popular in our community, and it is lovely to be recognised by our industry peak body.

We’re just a little neighbourhood house in the scheme of things and it’s great that we can get interesting programs like this off the ground and also get the story out.

We’ll be looking forward to welcoming more women to the program in terms 3 and 4. We now run it three days a week, with two tutors (Jen and Maylei).