Did you know we have a compost hub at ACC? It is not huge - just two bins - but they are available for our community to contribute to (if you don’t have your own system at home etc.).

Clare manages them on a Friday … and with a little love (and weekly turning) they are amazingly productive.

We have a collection of neighbours and friends who contribute their kitchen scraps regularly which is just lovely … and we use the compost generated to keep our community garden beds healthy … so we can grow food to share! Like our little seeds that have just been planted and will hopefully pop through the soil any day now.

We hosted another great workshop with Gordon Carr on the weekend.

Our Sewing Machine Maintenance workshop was fully booked and our largest room was filled with sewing machines and their owners - wanting to learn how to avoid costly repairs and how best to maintain their own machines.

Gordon’s long history in this field of work makes him a gem of a teacher.

He has props that explain all the parts of a machine - like the clear-cased sewing machine pictured above! He is very honest about the common things that users often do wrong and he shares simple tips that can help you avoid making the same mistakes with your own machine.

There is a second workshop coming up - this time for overlockers - on Saturday 10th of September from 10am-12:30pm here at the Alphington Community Centre. The cost is $45 and there are still a few spots left if you are interested. You can book in here.

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 …

Term 3 of Women in the Shed starts today - this Thursday at 10am. This program is fully booked again for this term and next - it is wonderful that we have so much consistent interest from our community!

We are also starting up our AAA Arts program on Fridays from 1pm. This course will combine painting, print making and woodwork and will be led by Clare with help from Corrado who has recently started volunteering with us on Fridays.

It is a free access all abilities program (please note that carers will need to stay and help if needed) that is kindly supported by our lovely Community Bank friends just down the road in Clifton Hill.

With climate action in the forefront of peoples minds, reduce, reuse and recycle are steps we can each take to make a difference.

This is especially true for our clothes and the fast fashion industry that seems so disposable.

Learning how to repair those loved items rather than buy new and replace is a great start - and very satisfying.

The art of visible mending and slow stitching have become increasingly fashionable skills that also help extend the life of our clothes - keeping them from landfill.

And … these skills also create moments of mindfulness to enjoy and help us slow down!

Serene Paul is a talented local artists who does beautiful eco-dyeing and hand stitching to create art and repair clothing … and we are fortunate to have her returning to the Alphington Community Centre to share her talents.

She has been a maker all her life with sewing a childhood obsession, followed by studying fashion design and working in the fashion industry for a number of years. She is slowly building her own handmade and thrifted wardrobe and likes to make each piece unique by using hand stitching techniques along with patching, natural dyeing and appliqué.

Serene will be running a one-off Slow Stitching workshop on Saturday 20th of August from 10am-2pm. She will show you the stitches and you can practice them yourself with a kit that is provided. The cost is $50 and you can enrol here.

She will also run a monthly Visible Mending session. Bring your project and sew and chat and share skills. Join Serene from 10-11:30am on the first Saturday of each month by enrolling here.

Please keep in mind that each workshop and each group requires a minimum number of people to attend for it to run. So if you are keen and know other friends that share your interest then please enrol and encourage your friends to join in too!