We will be hosting our AGM on Monday 23rd of October at 6:30pm here at Alphington Community Centre.

This year we’ll be combining our AGM with a dinner. We hope our volunteers and regular attendees can come along to help us celebrate the year - and get to know each other more!

Please let us know if you would like to attend for catering purposes. You can RSVP here.

Bakeshop Alphington has moved in with the Pav Queen (relocating from the market site) and they’re leaving some food periodically in our seed library for anyone who needs it! Help yourself.

Lovely to have such neighbourly neighbours in our community hey?

It’s back. We’ve got a new batch in stock. Pop past ACC or visit Juliet at the Wingrove Street Milkbar for your fix of beans 🫘 or ground coffee. $25. All the profits go to supporting our friends in Baucau, Timor-Leste to undertake projects they prioritise - including supporting a women’s shelter, permaculture courses, teaching scholarships etc.

How lovely are these little seed packs created by our gardeners on Friday!

They’re out in the seed library ready for neighbourhood planting … if you’re ready to start your spring garden pop past!

As we approach the end of term 2 we’re all looking forward to a break so that we can return refreshed and ready to roll for the second half of the year.

So, firstly this is a reminder that we’ll finish up this Friday 23 June and take a two week break - then see you all on Monday 10 July bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for term 3.

In this last week we’ll be working on the program for next semester.

We’ve had lots of people come and talk to us about new ideas which is just fabulous! We’ve had discussions about health, wellbeing and fitness classes, maternal/child health support, art classes, community art projects and more. So we’ll spend the week following these ideas up and seeing which ones we can get going.

And we’re also talking with our local artists from Alphington Open Studios about the dates for this year, and talking with the Music from the Wetlands committee about how we can best help out for that fabulous event (how EXCITING - it will be on again in late November, always such a wonderful day!).

We’re also super thrilled that our colleagues over in Richmond got a grant from Sustainability Victoria all about building a ‘repair’ culture. And they have invited us to be part of their workshop series. So we might have a bike repair workshop here, maybe Gordon back for Sewing Machine and Overlocker maintenance/repairs, and a session on how to repair a lamp … Sounds great hey (I’d love to know how to use a kit to rewire my lovely old standard lamp safely … ). Richmond are just in the process of working out what happens at which site!

We also have two students from The Academy of Mary Immaculate here this week, which will be just lovely. I am sure they will be very helpful in getting organised for the end of term. And also a great resource to tap into for programming ideas. Look out for them and make them feel welcome!

And finally I have included a photo from last week of the green tomato relish that our lovely preserves group made. The tomatoes came from Kalimna’s mum and dad who have a big garden - she brought in so many tomatoes that our cooks needed two sessions to get through them all. With donated glass jars and fabric and donated ingredients, our preserves group activities are not just about being productive and helping us fundraise whilst chatting and making community connections, but also about low food miles and recycling! It’s super isn’t it!