Did you know you can hire our venue for kids birthday parties?

We have everything you need … a kitchen and plates and cups, tables and chairs, platters and a lovely flexible indoor/outdoor space with a cubby and sandpit. Just bring along your pass-the-parcel and some fairy bread and sausage rolls and you’re ready to go!

You can find all the details and available times on our website here.

Hooray! Hard rubbish collections begin in June.

Darebin’s hard rubbish collection is being rolled out area-by-area starting after the long weekend … moving south to north every two weeks.

You will receive a brochure in your letter box before your collection - it will include everything you need to know!

It is super important to note that Council can only actually recycle e-waste, mattresses, car tyres and scrap metal … so the rest (that isn’t collected by neighbours etc. as part of the joyful informal hard rubbish swap that inevitably happens!) goes to landfill.

BUT … this year there is someplace to take those great-for-someone-else things that don’t get redistributed before the truck comes by … Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes is once again setting up ReLove - the PreLoved Pop Up … a friendly recycling shop!

So if you have items that someone else might love - or if you just like to rifle through other people’s junk in a friendly shop environment (rather than - or perhaps in addition to - on the street), pop on down to the old Kmart Tyre and Auto at the back of the Plaza (should be a super venue) and check out what’s in stock.

And … it is ALL run by volunteers SO … to volunteer yourself just click here. And … if you want to find out more about these passionate and committed locals (and pick up bargains year round) you can join Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes on Facebook.

Hard rubbish season is THE BEST season!

Did you know we have a Toy Library at ACC? It has been around since the 1980s … so for lots of adults who grew up in the neighbourhood, it is how they first came to know us.

We have 400+ toys in this amazing community resource and after A LOT of work by Kalimna (she has worked on this tirelessly for hours on end) we now have it fully online.

We’d like to thank the Inner North Community Foundation for supporting this transition as part of their Covid recovery community investment commitment.

We’ve been taking baby steps for a bit trialling the system … and now we’re thinking we might be ready to run (or at least walk right across the room) …

So … Join up! Join up!

It cost $45 per year and you can borrow 4 toys at a time.

Then you can return them in two weeks, or renew your loan. And when you are ready reserve 4 more.

Note, bookings need to be made before 10am on Tuesday. This is when our long-standing friend Sarah comes in to fill the orders.

Families can then collect their toys between 1pm-4pm that afternoon (Tuesday) here at ACC.

And … if you have a sleeping bub in the car let us know (call the office on 9499 7227 if you can’t wave us down through the window) and if we can we’ll bring the toys out to you (our very own neighbourhoodly version of click and collect).

Toys in our library include baby play toys, games, trikes and bikes, puzzles, musical instruments, construction kits and loads of imaginative play items. And there are some super vintage items along the way (that have survived from back when it all began).

Check it out here.

Also … if something is a bit glitchy in our system please let us know … we’re definitely teething at the minute!

Also, also … if you are already a member contact us - Kalimna has already set you up in the system … and we’ll make sure your payments take into account the period we were out of action (note Kalimna is in Tuesday and Thursday).

Here are the photos as promised from our recent Yarra Neighbourhood House Network volunteer lunch.

Thanks to everyone who came along. We hope you had a great day!

Leanne here. When I went to Timor-Leste 🇹🇱 for work a couple of years ago one of the museums in Dili was an old Portuguese prison that was used by the Indonesians to hold dissidents. It had an exhibition called Chega!, named after the truth telling report that investigated and outlined the atrocities and deaths from the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste.

It was confronting - but very interesting to see how truth telling enables communities to move forward and onward with a shared understanding of the past that is openly acknowledged.

So I have been super interested in the glimpses that we have seen here in Victoria in our everyday media of the Yoorrook Justice Commission that has been set up under/alongside the First Peoples’ Assembly as part of our State’s commitment to implementing the Uluru Statement from the Heart (voice, truth, treaty).

Did you see the acknowledgements and apology of Shane Patton talking on behalf of the Victoria Police a month or so ago? And the accompanying apology by Daniel Andrews as Premier?

Here are two links you can read if you missed them:

• A news report from the ABC on Shane Patton at the Yoorrook Justice Commission

• A news report from the Shepparton News (because it won’t have a paywall and outlines the apology that Daniel Andrews made with some context).

The ongoing disproportionate structural discrimination that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face in Victoria today is also quite confronting isn’t it?