If you have appreciated knowing that you have a neighbourhood house (eg. us … or another of course because we’re all a big team ) here in the community for you over the last couple of crazy years, have enjoyed our newsletter, participated in our programs, appreciated knowing food relief is available, have engaged with our community art activities on the street in lockdown (such as the History Walks, the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery art on the fence, our Honestly letters, the Community Building Blocks, the Make Your Own Adventure map of Darebin Parklands etc. etc.) or if you have used our outdoor tables or played in our garden or come to our Christmas Market … you might like to talk us up in this survey … or even document a particular story or event (you can do this at the end).

The State Government is currently asking for feedback from Victorians on ‘living more locally and experiencing our neighbourhoods and communities in new and different ways’.

It is a great opportunity to share your lived experience of the community value of having neighbourhood houses in your local area, so that hopefully we can get more recognition (and perhaps even money to run more local programs tailored to specific neighbourhood needs into the future …).

Here’s the link. Thanks in advance!

Last year we floated the idea of a spoon carving course and loads of people expressed interest. This year we’re making it happen.

Maylei who teaches our Women in the Shed program has had a long standing interest in spoon carving and will be running a course here in our community shed on Saturday 12 March.

You can find out more and book in here.

The last few months have sped by and we’re now closing up shop for Christmas. We’re all taking a break from the office for the entire school holidays … we’ll be back on 31 January 2022 raring to go!

Coming up next year as part of our regular program we have:

• Ukulele on Monday evenings

• CWA on Mondays (monthly)

• Collage on Tuesday evenings (6 weeks per term)

• History Group on Tuesday evenings (monthly)

• Toy Library open on Wednesdays

• AAA Bowls on Wednesdays (6 weeks per term)

• Line dancing on Wednesdays

• Women in the Shed with Maylei on Thursdays (6 weeks per term)

• Choir Thursday evenings

• Arty Gardening on Fridays

• Morning Tea in the Garden on Fridays, and

• Observational Drawing with Louisa on Saturday afternoons (6 weeks per term).

Keen to join in? You can book (and pay) on our website now so you are ready to hit the ground running in 2022 …

And of course in amongst all this we have book clubs and playgroups, guitar lessons, ASRC food collections, counselling and … some weekend workshops and events (like the Alphington Show) that you should check out! You can find all the things in our program here.

We hope to see you in 2022.

Well that was fun! And exhausting!

Thanks to everyone that came along to the Alphington Open Studios opening on Friday night, our Christmas Makers Market on Saturday, and/or popped in to the Open Studios salon show at ACC right across the weekend. We had great weather and it was just fabulous to see such a cross-section of our community enjoying our facilities.

I will quickly add some pictures below … and include some more next week, with some detailed thankyous etc. then.

But don’t forget the studios are all open this coming weekend as well! Saturday and Sunday 11am-6pm. You can collect a map from ACC this week (or when our salon show opens again on Saturday morning). Isn’t it just great to collectively celebrate our lovely, creative, arty community … it warms the cockles of the heart!

Hi Leanne here.

Neighbourhood houses are pretty cool right? We’re so lucky to have these hyper-local organisations funded by State (and local) government embedded in our neighbourhoods!

I thank my foremothers (because neighbourhood houses were started by women to support women) for their vision every day I come to work.

In a formal sense most neighbourhood houses run like community kindergartens, with a local community-based board setting the strategic direction and employing an Executive Officer to manage and deliver day to day operations.

But importantly, neither the board nor the EO are left to flounder …

The State Government, who provide the base level funding to 500 neighbourhood houses across Victoria also fund ‘networkers’. Julie Johnston is ours. She supports the houses in the north east of Melbourne, from Fitzroy out to St Andrews.

And yesterday, when I headed out to Watsonia Neighbourhood House for the North East Neighbourhood House Network AGM (a mouthful I know), I was reminded of how important this role is.

Speaking from my experience, when you are running a house it is possible to feel a bit overwhelmed and isolated on occasion (HR, OHS, seeking grants, board reports and management, contract management, room hire, compliance and all the other 20 gazillion bits and bobs associated with our micro-business can all sit heavily sometimes) … but hooray! this is where Julie comes in.

Julie helps all new EOs get on their feet, understand the ins and outs of their role and meet their colleagues so they feel connected and have others to talk issues through with. She helps new board members understand their role, and helps them with recruitment of EOs when needed - providing helpful context around skill requirements and interviewing. In an ongoing sense she is always available with practical and strategic advice when problems arise for the board and the staff.

She encourages and builds a kind, open, trusting and collegiate approach across the network and creates learning and sharing opportunities across the houses.

In a tiny local organisation like ours, Julie helps us contextualise our work and also helps us embrace bigger picture issues so that collectively we are one.

For example, over the last couple of years she’s built a shared network neighbourhood house understanding, advocacy platform and response around family violence … and is now fostering collective action on reconciliation.

Having such networkers, and a formal mentoring structure supporting our micro-organisations is genius really! And an integral part of the long-standing success of neighbourhood houses I think.

Anyway … thanks so much Julie for all your mostly invisible but greatly appreciated hard work.