Lovely to have the Minister for Women and Minister for Education Natalie Hutchins and local MP Kat Theophanous at Peer Support Playgroup on Tuesday.

We talked about how neighbourhood houses started as women’s organisations (and Natalie took a tour around the centre) before Natalie chatted to some mums about managing work and the juggle with family, childcare etc. - issues exacerbated for families living with disability.

She also talked o Sarah who volunteers here and is completing her VCE as a mature aged student part time through CAE.

Thanks for organising Kat. It is super for our community to have direct, thoughtful and meaningful conversations at this level.

If you are a local with young children you might like to come along and join the other families who hang out in our front garden on Wednesday mornings. Come hail or shine, Playtime in the Garden is running in the front yard near the cubby and under the pergola. Pop in anytime from 10am-12pm and catch up with other families in a Covid-safe way.

Please note this is an outside program - but our toilets and kitchen are of course available if you need them.

And … if you’d like to borrow some toys to take home for the week you can join our Toy Library which is open inside. You can borrow up to 4 toys at a time. So handy! And neighbourhoodly …

Our front garden is all set up with shelter and seating and our cute little cubby house … and is now well used by the community … and is a fabulous place for a child’s 🎂 party (don’t you think?).

So we’re hiring it out on Sundays. If you’d like to use this lovely play space, access our kitchen and toilet inside and use our smaller room for party games or serving food … you can book in on our website here.

Note we’re always happy to give you a tour and explain all the things etc. Just call us to arrange a time or pop into the office next time you are here.

This year we’re running Playtime in the Garden on Wednesdays from 10am-12pm out in the front yard - making the most of the new cubby house, pergola and sandpit.

This week at least 8 families came past for a play whilst it was on. Some met up with existing friends, others came by themselves. There were mums bringing their kids and grandparents bringing grandchildren for a play. And a few families also borrowed toys from the Toy Library whilst they were here.

It is just so lovely to see our community making themselves at home at ACC and utilising our play-spaces and resources.

If you’re home with children on a Wednesday morning you might like to pop in too!

We are taking Monday and Tuesday off, but are looking forward to getting some more programming up and running in the next few weeks. Here’s what’s on the cards from our discussions this week:

• Japanese playgroup is returning onsite … it will be lovely to see Maimi and the families and especially to see how much the children have grown!

• Matthew is resuming guitar lessons onsite on Monday and Wednesday evenings.

• We are welcoming a new counsellor to ACC. Martina who has recently moved to the neighbourhood will be here one afternoon/evening a week.

• Our Wednesday daytime book club is going to meet in person in November.

• And finally we are looking to resume our Women in the Shed program in a couple of weeks - hooray! Maylei will be taking both classes and Kalimna has been in contact with everyone that was booked in in Term 4 (and 3 I think) to see who would like to get cracking before the end of the year.

It is pretty nice to start doing things in person again, and we are looking forward to a slow and steady resumption of activity.

If you are part of a group that has a plan and haven’t chatted to us yet just give us a call or send an email …

Some of the great kids who come along weekly to Japanese playgroups …