Hi everyone,

Lots happening this week in the lead up to our Christmas Makers’ Market this Saturday the 22nd of November! The weather is looking good - touch wood - and it’s shaping up to be a lovely day to celebrate another great year here at ACC. We have 25 stalls this year, so lots of opportunities to find perfect gifts.

And while you are shopping we’ll be running Christmas craft activities to keep the kids entertained, and naturally a barbecue to keep everyone happy. We’re also looking for volunteers to help out on the day - see more details later in this newsletter.

Alphington Open Studios will also be starting this weekend, and the inside of the centre will we transformed into a gallery space on both Saturday and Sunday to feature some awesome local artists. How exciting!

And before all this we have another great program lined up this week:

• Garden to Plate this morning from 11.30am-1pm - book online

• 3rd Monday of the Month Book Club tonight 7-8.30pm

• Tomorrow from 1-3pm we are running a special Preserves Group in preparation for the market on Saturday. We will be making jams, pickles and relishes, and we encourage everyone to come along if you can! And donate small clean jars if you have them hanging around …

• Toy Library will also be open tomorrow from 1-3pm

• And 3rd Tuesday of the Month Book Club will be meetomg tomorrow evening 7.30-9pm

• AAA Bowls at Alphington Bowls Club, Line Dancing at the Scout Hall and Alphington Playgroup here at the Centre Wednesday morning from 10am-12pm

• Armchair Theatre Wednesday from 1-3pm

• Crunch on Thursday from 12.30-2pm

• Alphington Arts will be running Thursday evening from 7.30-9.30pm and we will doing linocuts to make Christmas cards! This is a super fun activity and a great way to get into the Christmas spirit. We hope to see you there! Book in online.

• Community Garden and Craft Friday morning from 10am-12pm

• Community Lunch Friday 12-1pm

• AAA Art Friday 1-2pm

Looking forward to a very Christmassy week!

Cheers Leanne

Friday mornings are always lovely down here at Alphington Community Centre, with craft, chats, gardening and, of course, a delicious lunch.

We love to see everyone each week connecting and getting involved in the activities, and we especially love seeing our garden flourish - as it has in these spring months.

The flowers have been beautiful and the produce is looking fantastic. Recently we’ve harvested bok choy and lettuce, silverbeet, beetroot, chives, coriander, spring onion and cabbages (although someone took all of our large cabbages so we couldn’t use them in our community cooking programs (sad) … never mind. Let’s assume they REALLY needed them). Also rhubarb, parsley, cumquats and lemons 🍋. I think we even grew a lime on the tree in the middle of our raised bed this year!

We’re now getting our summer planting in - tomatoes and new silverbeet. More herbs etc. And our fruit trees are fruiting - plums and apples - it’s very exciting.

We feel so lucky to have such committed gardeners in our community who are willing to help out each week and hope you are also enjoying our lovely space and appreciate all of their hard work too, when you pass by or come here for activities.

Thanks gardening peeps!

A date for your diary.

It’s that time of year again… the weather is warming up, the magpies have nearly finished swooping, and our very creative community are working hard to provide another classic Christmas Makers Market. This year it will be on Saturday the 22nd of November from 11am - 2pm.

We’ll have a whole lot of great stalls selling things by talented locals, including the CWA, and our own jams and preserves, a sausage sizzle (obviously) and fun Christmassy kids’ activities.

Get in some early Christmas shopping and enjoy the (hopefully) lovely weather, and catch up with friends in the local community!

Annie Bolitho from Transition Darebin Food Swap has popped twenty packets of naturalised seed into our Seed Library - so do come and see if there's something there for you.

According to Annie your seedlings should jump out of the ground.

'Naturalised means the seed has grown for repeated seasons in the same place, so it's very strong. We have amazing gardeners in our Food Swaps and you'll see many of the seeds originated with them, like Clara's Pottimarron pumpkin, Damien's Trombocini, John's Marvellous Marigolds and  Roslyn's rocket.'

If you pick Bruno's Dad's Beans, a climber, try to save the best seed you can. Bruno's Dad kept them going in Reservoir from the mid-1950's, and Annie and Silvana Predebon who you might know from the CWA have kept them going.

Happy Spring gardening!

• Fairfield Food Swap is 3rd Sat each month, 11am, St Andrews Church, Gillies Street

• Reservoir Food Swap is 3rd Sat each month, 10am, Reservoir Library

• Thornbury Food Swap is 4th Sat each month, 11am, Thornbury Picture House.

A few snaps from our Thriftseekers Op Shop Adventure on Tuesday.

We caught the train from Alphington to Collingwood, then took a short stroll down Gipps Street to the Abbotsford Salvos. It is such a great op shop, with furniture (Linda bought a footstool) and clothes (Leanne bought two tops) and homewares ((Kalimna bought an owl) and books (Heather shopped in this section) etc. etc.

Then we walked down to Victoria Street to the other Salvos (near North Richmond station) and ran into Rob - who does lots of arty things at ACC and also volunteers weekly at this Salvos). Lovely!

After exhausting ourselves shopping we went to Tran Tran for lunch - and returned to ACC by train at about 2.30pm.

It was an excellent adventure! We look forward to the next one, coming up soon. To join in just book online.

Thanks once again to the Community Bank on Queens Parade for supporting us to run this adventure in our own backyard.