Hi everyone, we are running a bit late this year - but we do finally have our new brochure out into the interwebs … and the universe!

Highlights in the first term include:

• the Alphington Show and Dog Show on Saturday 25 March (save the date and start your craft/food projects)

• a series of Jamming (and Preserving) workshops through February and March to make the most of local fruit trees and build up some items to sell for fundraising for ACC

In the second term we’re running a series of workshops including:

• Podcasting 101 over 4 weeks

• Indian cooking over 3 weeks

• Recycled Timber Design with Jane, and

• Pillow Talk with Annie.

Also … movie club on Tuesday afternoon once a month (we’ll head down to Westgarth Cinema - fun!).

You can check it all out here or visit our home page. You can also book in via our website. Not everything is up for booking into yet … but we hope it will be in the next few days!

We’ve got a big weekend coming up at ACC with the Christmas Makers Market on Saturday from 10am-1pm, and the Alphington Open Studios event also on.

If you’d like to pop past on Friday night between 5-7pm you can help us celebrate the opening of the salon exhibition at ACC that is part of the Alphington Open Studios weekends. Our salon exhibition includes works from all the artists with their studios open over the next two weekends plus works by other local artists. It should give you a lovely snapshot of what’s on offer … Share a drink with us, admire the art, collect a map (if you haven’t got one in your letterbox already) and then plan to take a neighbourhood walk and visit local artists in their studios over the next two weekends. Find out more here.

Then come back on Saturday morning for our Christmas Makers Market. We have 25 stallholders who have been busy making lovely things. This is a great opportunity for you to buy local and support your neighbours creative endeavours this year for Christmas presents.

We hope you can make it!

Local artists collective Alphington Open Studios is hoping locals who use Instagram will follow their site … and are having a ‘giveaway’ to encourage you to do so … a series of lovely cards and some delicious chocolate are on offer.

Click here to both ‘like’ the giveaway post and ‘follow’ the page … then you’ll be in the running! Something positive we can all easily do at this time to support other locals who do neighbourly things in the neighbourhood right?

We’ve still got our fingers and toes crossed that the Alphington Open Studios weekend (currently scheduled for 27-28 November) can go ahead.

And did you know that we’re planning to host a small works exhibition at ACC as part of the event? If you are a local artist who would like to participate (you’ll need around 2-4 small works) please email your interest here. Thanks Yarra City Council for supporting this local arts initiative.

And good luck in the draw everyone!

You could win these gorgeous cards made by artists from Alphington Open Studios.

Whether you have littlies or biggies, it is quite possible that in these uncertain times you might benefit from some tips and new strategies. Drummond Street Services has sent us some info about two free zoom sessions coming up that you might find useful.

You can book into Parenting Under Pressure here.

You can book into Kids and Emotional Intelligence here.

And Drummond Street Services has lots of other great things on, including support for LGBTQI+🏳️‍🌈 families, free zoom dads groups, support for families with children who are worrying, resources for new families, resources for building resilience if you have to isolate … and more. Check out all the things here.

We got a great email the other day from Jacinta in the Yarra Family, Youth and Children’s Services team that included links to online resources. I thought it would be helpful to share them with families and parents during lockdown. Here’s what she sent through …

Playgroup Victoria are providing online playgroup and activity sessions here.

And, if you are after specific online information sessions you can:

• Find out more about sleep and settling here.

• Join a workshop about understanding children’s behaviour here.

• Learn more about raising children in an eco-friendly household here.

• Join in a workshop on parenting teens, managing screens here.