The next artist to feature in the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery is Stephen Armstrong, and you are bound to recognise the scenes in his works.

Over 3 years Stephen regularly documented the Alphington Paper Mills site as it was demolished, and painted over 200 works. Our fence will include a collection of these paintings along with paintings of familiar streetscapes and landscapes in our neighbourhood.

The originals of the works featured in the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery are all for sale. They range considerably in size and price (from $350 to $4000).

This year Stephen’s studio will be open as part of the Alphington Open Studios weekend (at the end of November). If would like to see more of his art in real life, keep an eye out for the details - coming soon!

In the meantime here’s a sneak peek of the works that will be on our fence. Pop past ACC on your next neighbourhood walk to see them in our street gallery. They’ll be up from Wednesday. And we’d like to once again thank Yarra Council for supporting this neighbourhood arts initiative.

Welcome back to Term 4. It’s likely going to be a tricky few months through to Christmas for us all … at ACC we’ll be trying to pay attention to the kind and caring local friends and supportive neighbourhood networks that we all have. Remember, if you need a hand (or an ear) we’re right here!

And at ACC (in a rerun on 2020 …ha!) we’re planning on restarting programming with outside activities.

We’ve hoping that we can get the pergola built in the front yard very soon (it is taking forever … but such is pandemic life) so that our playgroups can meet up comfortably outside in any weather.

When we can get together we’ll also look at restarting our Friday morning activities including gardening at 10am and morning tea on the corner at 11.30am.

In addition Kalimna is going to work on getting some of the toys from the toy library available to borrow online with a click and collect system. Which will be great for now and into the future I think.

She’ll also be reviewing our book clubs for next year. If you are keen to join one, now is a good time to let us know!

Lee is working on a fun new community art installation for Children’s Week at the end of October. She’s also finalising the Heritage Walks project with Anne from our History Group (there’s one more walk to come!) and is about to install new artworks in the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery (on the fence).

Jill will be looking at doing some community outreach on Wednesdays (we’ll keep you abreast of this project just as soon as we decide what this will look like!?!)

At the moment I am working on the Annual Report for the AGM on Monday 25 October (come along if you like! … it will probably be on zoom). It will be nice to temporarily step off the treadmill and celebrate all the things we’ve done in the past year.

And … that’s probably enough rambling. We’re looking forward to being increasingly back onsite and seeing you soon!

PS. Do you by any chance have a sturdy outdoor table unused at your house 🏡? Or know of somewhere to buy one or two? That could perhaps deliver? The ones on our corner have broken (not sure how that happened … I think someone may have stood on them because the legs broke and it’s hard to imagine how that came about with traditional table use …). In any case I think our community is missing them … especially now picnics are back.

I’m thinking about a couple of those metal and glass topped ones that are easy enough to move around (small round ones or bigger rectangular ones). Alternatively a really solid timber table. Xx

Hi all, as COVID becomes endemic and lots more prevalent in our lives, I personally feel very fortunate that everyone at my house is already eligible to get vaccinated.

My eldest child will join Clive and me and be fully vaxxed ✅ this week and I am very pleased this has happened before she has to return to school for the GAT (General Achievement Test) on 5 October.

The younger two have to wait 6 weeks at the minute between shots, so although they’ve had their first they won’t be fully vaccinated until the end of October … I am hoping that with Pfizer supplies for October confirmed and Moderna now available, the 6 week gap will drop back to 3 weeks so they can have full protection before they head back to school mid October.

We haven’t heard any official word, but I am expecting that our neighbourhood houses 🏘 will be part of the ‘vaccinated economy’. Expert guidance in whatever form it takes will be very welcome. We have so many vulnerable people here every day (whether older, or with a disability, or younger and ineligible) that I find the responsibility of decision-making about how to keep everyone as safe as possible now that we are at the poky stage where COVID is here, quite nerve-wracking all round.

All our staff have already had the jab. Kalimna and I had ours back in June I think it was … it feels like a lifetime ago now.

Anyway, it will be lovely to see you all again when we can get back on site regularly, and we’ll keep you up to date with any advice we get about the details and requirements for opening up.

Here’s me getting my second jab.

It’s school holidays again and we’re scaling back and taking a few days off work. So apologies that our news is a bit light on this week.

We’ll be back in deck on 4 October.

Some nice pics from our garden beds today.

We’re hoping to build up our gardening program over the coming year and make the most of our garden space.

If you enjoy gardening you might like to think about joining us on a Friday morning? We’d love to see you when we reopen.