On Friday we were :

Admiring our new paving - thanks Mark and Mark from Pacific Australis Landscapes and Simon from Simon Ellis Landscape Architects for helping us make the most of our front garden space. It is well on the way to being transformed … and when the cubby and sandpit arrive, and the pergola is built it will be amazing!

Checking out the raised garden beds (our leafy 🥬 greens are flourishing). Next term we’ll have the expertise of Katrina from Buzz and Dig in our garden for three hours on a Friday morning. She’ll be here directing the traffic, running garden-based community activities and building up expertise in our Gardening Group (if you are keen to help out and learn about seasonal gardening come along).

Restocking our street book library. It’s packed to the rafters!

Painting. Barb loves painting orange phones! Krystal uses colour beautifully. Our Friday Community Art and Craft sessions are open for anyone to come along and follow their creative interests in a friendly environment.

Cooking. Those medlars that had been bletting for a month were finally turned into medlar jelly this week! And Preserves Group also embarked on a new multi-week project making indian lime pickles …

Medlar jelly - what a beautiful colour!

Restocking our free masks. We had some leftover from the lockdown last year (made by the lovely CWA ladies and others) and we’ve had them available through the last lockdown - for anyone in the community who needs one. There are lots of gorgeous fabrics to choose from!

Hi friends, well today (Thursday 10 June) really does feel like a day to stay in bed, or at least at home on the couch. What a wet and windy 24 hours we’ve had.

However, this post is to let you know that we will be reopening with programs commencing on Tuesday 15 June after the long weekend.

Please note that there are some new rules. A maximum of 10 people in an activity. And density limits are back to 1 person per 4 square metres. Also, everyone needs to wear masks inside. And … whether you’re onsite for 1 minute or 2 hours you now need to check in.

So just to be clear about specifics:

• Morning Tea on the Corner will restart on Friday 18 June

• Women in the Shed programs will restart from Tuesday 15 June (noting that Monday is a public holiday)

• Any playgroups that have over 10 people in them will NOT be able to restart until after the next rule changes

• Our Overlocker Maintenance Workshop will be able to go ahead on Saturday 19 June

• Our Home Maintenance 101 Workshop will be able to go ahead on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 June.

If you have any questions just give us a call on 9499 7227. We’re looking forward to seeing you all again soon!

Last year we made a little rhyming series of animated pictures (GIFS) with some funding from the Community Bank on Queens Parade … and then put them together with a voice over … and turned them into a poster that loads of locals collected from ACC on their daily neighbourhood walk.

It seems timely to pull them out again.

Here are the GIFS.

Here is the poster (we trust it is still gracing many a fridge or toilet door around the neighbourhood).

And here is the animation with voice overs if you’d like to watch it (it is pretty cute!).

This week was Education Week and we were thrilled to get a grant from the Victorian Department of Education to run a couple of podcasting workshops here at ACC to help mark the occasion. Alphington Primary School embraced this opportunity, and on Wednesday sent 12 grade 6 students along to have a crack at using our new equipment under the guidance of local podcaster and author Tony Wilson.

It was a super fun day and the students walked away having made two podcasts each. We’re looking forward to the next group coming on Friday (fingers and toes crossed).

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