Hi everyone,

Thanks to those who came to our AGM last Monday. It’s been a great year and we loved celebrating it with our ACC community - lovely to have a mix of committee and volunteers along for dinner etc. I am in Timor-Leste this week with Friends of Baucau, but India will be here Monday, Tahlia on Tuesday, Clare on Wednesday … and the rest of the week will be pretty normal …

Come along to our Op-Shop tour this Thursday from 10am-2pm! Lee and Tahlia will be heading up to High Street in Northcote for a bit of bargain hunting. Bookings can be made online here.

School holidays are coming up … but we have some free events before then - namely, our morning tea and conversation with Leigh Mankey from Dementia Australia, and John Byrne’s Shadow Work program. See the posts below for details. And then we have our two week break before term 4 and we are so glad to see people already booked into some of our term-based programs such as CRUNCH and Cook By The Book.

See you next week!

Cheers, Leanne

Hi everyone,

We are just about prepared for our AGM tonight at 6pm! We are super grateful for all the work that our committee has put in in the last few weeks with reports and so forth. If you would like to come along to hear about what we’ve been doing this year (as well as for a spot of dinner!) then please book in at this link (before 12pm today).

This week we are wrapping up our programs for the term … so we hope to see you all at our last sessions of Heart-Centred Breathwork, CRUNCH and Cook by the Book. And we would like to thank Fran for hosting The Momentum to Write which has been such an awesome class for us to have here this term.

In other exciting news, I’m going to Timor-Leste with Friends of Baucau from the 5th-11th of September! Friends of Baucau is an amazing friendship organisation that connects the cities of Darebin and Yarra here in Victoria with the Municipality of Baucau in Timor-Leste. The purpose of the connection is to be provide shared learning and support. This will be a wonderful opportunity to talk to a range of local community leaders and community led organisations that are similarly operating at the hyper-local level, supporting women, families, youth, arts projects, permaculture programs and more. Last time I went (before Covid) it was an amazing and inspiring experience, and I hope I can learn a lot and come back with lots of great ideas again this time.

Whilst I am away Lee will be leading the Op-Shop tour (read on for more info…) which I will be super sad to miss out on! It is always lots of fun (and I LOVE op shopping).

Okay, that’s it this week. Hope to see you soon.

Cheers Leanne

Come along to our Op-Shop Adventure next Thursday the 10th of September! Lee is going to take us to High Street Northcote. We’ll catch the 508 bus. Bookings are $10 and include lunch - and can be found at this link here.

Hi everyone,

We had a particularly gardeny productive week last week with Community Lunch (where we cooked a yummy Thai meal with vegetables from our garden) and Preserves Group … we made cumquat marmalade, lime marmalade AND tomato relish. Big thanks to Margaret for donating the cumquats and to Megan for donating the limes. Pop in and buy some of our excellent (not bragging - it is good!) marmalade if you like.

We are going to have our Annual General Meeting next Monday the 31st of August. Anyone who is interested is welcome to come along. It’s free, but you need to RSVP by booking in online at this link.

Also coming up in our calendar we are going to be running another of our Op-Shop Adventures on Thursday the 10th of September. These events are $10 and include lunch after a fun day out shopping. Book in online here.

And this week, we look forward to seeing you all at:

• Heart-Centred Breathwork with John on Tuesday from 7.30-8.30am (book in here).

• Line Dancing at Alphington Scout Hall on Wednesday at 10am-12pm.

• Alphington Playgroup here at ACC on Wednesday at 10am-12pm.

• U3A Armchair Theatre on Wednesday from 12-2pm.

• Cardboard Playgroup on Thursday at 10am-12pm.

• Cook by the Book on Thursday from 11.30am-1pm (book in here).

• CRUNCH on Thursday from 12.30-2pm (book in here).

• Embracing Life and Death on Thursday from 1-3pm (contact eoldoulasinmelb@gmail.com).

• Community Morning on Friday from 10am-1pm.

Lastly, here’s another link to the Yarra Council website - this time featuring Rob in the video. Thanks Rob, for talking about why you come along to ACC and why neighbourhood houses are great places for social connection.

Cheers Leanne

Last year (or was it the year before …) Thomas came along to Gardening Group with a fresh chilli, and asked Clare to teach him how to grow his own chilli plant from it. So Clare and Thomas started the process - drying the chilli pod, saving the seeds, planting the seeds, nurturing the seedlings … planting and growing the plants, harvesting the chillies, drying them … and saving the seeds … AND NOW … if you pop past our little seed library out the front you can pick up some of Thomas’s seeds to plant in your own garden! And Thomas is an expert in growing chilli plants.

Also … we’ve got some dried chillies (that we put in the dehydrator) in the kitchen for our community cooking too!

If you would like to learn more about the processes and practicalities of gardening and growing food at home, join Clare on Friday mornings in the garden from 10.30am-12pm … spring is a great time to get going so you have a wonderful summer vegetable garden to admire (and eat!).