I’m looking forward to:

• More sunshine ☀️ - the weekend was pretty great!

• Our short courses starting (Women in the Shed with Maylei, Woodworking Projects with Dave and Drawing with Louisa are all kicking off this week).

• Arty Gardening on Friday … parents and kids, oldies and youngies … and anyone in between who enjoys creative outdoorsy activities is welcome to join Katrina in the garden and/or shed from 10.30am. This week we’ll be decorating and filling seed packets. Then why not stay for morning tea (at 11.30am with Kalimna).

• Our new play equipment arriving - finally. Lockdown delayed things a little, but we have a new cubby and sandpit now arriving (fingers crossed) on Wednesday. They’re going to be pretty gorgeous we think! Pop past later in the week for a play.

• Catching up with more of you! I did see lots of people last week and catch up on their news, but I was sick on Friday and missed seeing all our regular Friday friends. Hopefully this week!

Pods collected for nature play - in the garden on Wednesday (Playtime in the Garden) and Friday (Arty Gardening) mornings. There are activities on every weekday morning at ACC for young families.

Over the next two weeks we’ll be working hard to accurately document all our conversations and interactions (the numbers NOT the details!) along with how and when ACC is open, for whom, how many people are attending formal programs onsite and at other sites in the neighbourhood, and how many are using our more informal community services … like the book library, the seats out on the corner, the gardens, dropping food off for Andy to take to ASRC etc. etc.

All this information will be fed into a survey run by NHVic (our peak body) that will aggregate data across the State to provide the Victorian Government with a snapshot of how their $$ investment in the neighbourhood house sector is being used, the leverage they are getting from the investment and the direct and indirect value being generated at the grassroots community level by neighbourhood houses.

We’ll also get a report back providing us with a $$ value around our service provision. I’ll share it when it comes in.

It is quite interesting to understand how economists are starting to put a figure on our types of organisations (that deliver soft services which have traditionally been undervalued or completely non-valued externalities in economic terms).

I would note that as the model is still being developed, some of our service provision is still falling through the cracks … it’s easy enough to put a $$ figure on community lunch (in terms of the value of a meal provided) … harder to put a $$ figure on a conversation about local kinders and how the system works, for someone new to Australia, or to assign true value to the individual and community benefit from someone on our staff taking the time to listen and care about a local feeling down and/or lonely.

But anyway, it’s great that they’re trying. And we’ll be doing our best to accurately capture all the things that happen at, and that are associated with ACC over the next couple of weeks!

Hi all, we’ll be reopening today (Wednesday) and we’ll be working hard to get back on track.

Kalimna and I will be finalising the enrolments in our short courses (which were due to start this week - but will now start next week). If you are enrolled you will hear from us in the next few days to confirm all the details.

Note we DO still have some spots available if you are keen to join in a friendly, fun and creative community activity … like woodworking, collage or eco-dyeing. Make hay while the sun ☀️ shines! You can find out more and enrol here.

We look forward to being back on site and seeing you soon.

And I am looking forward to seeing what two weeks of rain and sunshine has meant for the garden … I’m guessing that our new raised beds will be bursting with edible goodness!

Unfortunately due to the latest lockdown we had to cancel our in-person launch of Gabe Freeman’s gorgeous collage collection in our street gallery … so we made a little video instead. You can watch it here.

But of course, if you live in the ‘hood you can take a stroll past anytime and check it out.

Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery is a 24/7 community arts initiative celebrating and sharing creativity in our local neighbourhood.

We’ve recently updated our inside furniture, including more flexible tables for our playgroups.

We run activities for young families every weekday at ACC, including a variety of playgroups, playtime in the garden, toy library and arty gardening. We also have Lego after school.

In addition we’ve bought some lovely new chairs for bigger people … which are used for ukulele, book clubs, AAA art, craft club, armchair theatre … and all the other things we run here.

Here’s a picture or two.