This week is Neighbourhood House Week, a great week to stop and reflect on all the fabulous things we do, and remember why we do them!

At ACC we hope to contribute to creating and supporting a strong and connected community … and along the way we want to:

• Enable individuals to live well, and lead healthy, active, creative and sustainable lives

• Nurture community connections, and

• Action a fairer society for all.

Our program of events and activities all contribute to achieving this overarching goal (our vision) and these objectives.

For example, our Arty Gardening program encourages participants to live more sustainably, be creative and get outdoors and do some physical activity through gardening. It ticks lots of boxes!

Our Ukulele Group enables people to live well by learning new skills and doing something they love, encourages creativity through music and enables participants to make friends with fellow musicians.

Our food collection for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre is all about playing a part in actioning a fairer society for all.

And we run our weekly morning teas to nurture community connections between locals. We also sell the Friends of Baucau coffee to nurture community connections - at the organisational level - connecting ACC with the Friends of Baucau. And … by selling the coffee via Juliet at the milkbar we are also creating a meaningful three-way partnership/community connection and supporting her small and valued local business along the way. Wins all round right!

This week to celebrate neighbourhood house week we thought you might like to join us for morning tea on Friday. If you are around please come along from 11.30am for a cuppa, some cake and a chat. We’d love to see you!

What a great workshop. We had 8 adults and 2 children join in our Saturday morning workshop and everyone left with new skills and knowledge … and a gorgeous worm tower ready to put into their home garden.

Thanks Clare for sharing your skills. Thanks everyone involved in the Garden State Festival -we were delighted to be part of it. And thanks neighbourhood friends for coming along!

You may have noticed the beautiful flyer in your letterbox from the Plant Society! But just in case you have missed it there are some for you to pick up in our seed library.

The Plant Society and Yarra City Council are running an inaugural Garden State Festival to celebrate gardening as an art form and to explore the vital role plants play in the art of living this weekend.

Garden State celebrates the intersection between plants, art, architecture, craft, design, food, ideas, music, performance, elevating what it means to be a modern gardener.

The festival has so much to offer. From landscaping workshops to building a table top garden with artist Bec Orpin. As well as our own Worm Tower 101 Workshop here at the ACC!

Check out the program here.

And join our Worm Tower workshop here for just $15 on Saturday 30th from 10am- 12pm. There are a couple of spots left.

Tickets are now on sale. Click here.

Hi Leanne here. Well term one is drawing to a close, and we’ll be taking leave for two weeks from this coming Friday. We will be back on Tuesday 26 April.

We hope you have a happy Easter and a lovely break.

And … If you are keen on a road trip along the lines of a four hour drive to Western Victoria, and a fun community event - I’ll see you at the Cavendish Redgum Festival on the last weekend of the holidays. My sister Merryn helps organise this festival in her tiny country town on the western side of the Grampians, and I am helping out with the catering for the Friday opening event and will also be assisting with the nature craft activities for kids (a specialty of mine as you all know from our events) on Saturday. There’ll also be tethered hot air balloon rides, bus tours to see magnificent trees, music, food and a dog jumping competition … fun!

Click here to find out more about the Cavendish Redgum Festival.