We were recently the recipient of a placemaking grant from Darebin Council and I am personally pretty excited about this because it brings together my first professional job (urban planning) with my current role (community development).

Placemaking is both a process and a philosophy of urban design that capitalises on a local community's assets and potential. Placemaking involves deliberate interventions that enhance the urban experience at the pedestrian scale - to create public spaces that promote health, happiness, and well-being.

Exactly the sorts of lofty things we’re all seeking in these unsettling times right?

To understand what placemaking means in reality you could think about some of the physical changes we’ve made around ACC in the last few years … and how those changes impact on your perception of the space, your sense of belonging to it, and by extension to the organisation itself.

This new Council funded placemaking project that we’re embarking upon is a small scale portable venture - but not a solo undertaking. It is a collaboration with Darebin Libraries and also with Fairfield Bookshop.

And this week we (read Lee) got stuck into turning our idea into reality. By the end of next week phase one should be complete, and we hope to be ready to launch ‘it’ on the street … that street being Station Street in the first instance.

So keep your eyes peeled! We’ll keep you updated on the progress and we’ll provide more details soon.

Plywood, books and sticky notes … what will it all become?

This week the lowdown from a local whose 10 year caught COVID-19 - and is all better now! Collect your copy of this letter from the milkbar window before they all disappear.

Selling masks, wearing masks … giving away our posters! Practising smiling with my eyes.

Good morning. Leanne here.

What a week! I have been living and breathing all things masks, organising people to make more of them, selling them, testing different styles and whether I can ACTUALLY TALK in them without them falling down… trying to buy elastic!!*

It’s a whole new world isn’t it … the first day I wore one I felt quite claustrophobic, but each day I have been building up my tolerance and by Wednesday I wore one for quite a few hours without noticing too much - and walked the kilometre too and from work with one on without worrying about it.

And … at one point I actually forgot that I was wearing a mask … and I attempted to drink my coffee through it. Luckily I remembered at the last minute. Because it would have been a classic ‘Funniest Home Videos’ moment.

At ACC we have made (with the help of Alphington CWA and members of our Community Craft group) and distributed over 180 masks in the last few days. There are still some people who have contacted us whose orders we haven’t yet been able to fill - but rest assured we are attempting to help everyone out! We’ll be in contact as soon as we have stock available.

If you are having trouble accessing a mask at this stage don’t worry too much, remember you can wear a scarf over your face.

My husband, who is very sad not to be going skiing this year, has got out his synthetic skiing neckwarmer-tube-scarf-thing, and is pulling that up over his mouth and nose (I think he’s imagining that he’s on the lifts in the icy wind and snow at Falls instead of in the IGA on Station Street!)

So just be creative!

Or … there’s the no sew option using a sock that’s popped up in various forms in my Facebook feed. I tried it with one of the kids old socks - it was super easy to make. Only one layer, so probably not a great long term option, but an adequate and simple gap filler. I showed my gorgeous children what I had done and they were horrified that I was wearing one of their old school socks on my face. My middle child told me to ‘take a look in the mirror Mum and rethink your decision’ - I laughed and laughed! It was pretty gross. Perhaps I need to get out the Napisan more often …

* If you have any spare elastic lurking in the back of your cupboard that you don’t need please let us know … we can put it to good good use!

Jill modelling the CWA masks - thanks Jill!

UPDATE: We published this post at 2pm and by 5pm we’d sold out of mediums! We’re trying to source some more but we can’t promise anything. Feel free to email, especially if you want large or small … but PLEASE don’t come past if you haven’t heard from us!

The Alphington CWA has been sewing up a storm in the last week, making reusable 3 layer masks based on the pattern supplied by the Chief Health Officer earlier in the week.

Given that masks will now be mandatory from this coming Thursday, we’re very thankful that they were on the job so quickly!

If you’d like to buy one you can email us your order (we’ll email you back to confirm we have stock) and then you can pop past ACC on Monday from 12-2pm. They cost $10 each - all the profits will go back to the CWA. We will have about 70 for sale.

Use the link here to order. Please don’t come past ACC unless you have heard back from us - we’re trying to minimise face-to-face interactions.

Note we will pre-pack all masks into an envelope for you to minimise contact and time onsite. We do have an EFTPOS machine you can use if cash is a problem. If you want to pay cash please bring the correct change so we can minimise money handling.

So .. the details …

CWA has made masks in 3 sizes:

1. small (for young kids … I’d say kinder and early primary school)

2. medium (good for teenagers and adults)

3. large (for larger faces obviously!).

There are a number of colours, and there are some images below, but at this point we’re expecting quite a lot of demand … so perhaps you’d just like to let us know for each mask you wish to purchase

1. size, and

2. design - your primary options are patterned or plain. If you have any colour preferences you can ask, and we’ll do our best but we can’t guarantee anything!

Please note, if we still have some left after tomorrow we will put a link on our website for further purchases.

As mentioned previously, these posters are now available - out the front in the community art bin - a gift from us to you! Help yourself when you are walking past. And … look after yourself!