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.

Wow, I think we had over 100 people along on Friday night for the opening of the Winter Arts Salon exhibition - which was just super. We had over 50 artists exhibiting, and hung around 150 works - it was LOTS of work to hang, but the whole place looked amazing.

Thanks to all the artists who person-ed the gallery over the weekend, and everyone who came along. It all felt very neighbourhoodly!

I have included some snaps I took but will make a post with Kalimna’s photos next week!

We’re gearing up for creativity for Adult Learners Week this year with an installation at Fairfield Library.

We’re taking a trip down memory lane … replicating old library cards and pockets … and getting out date stamps to explore ‘books that stay with us’. Our project called ‘Due Back’ will be at Fairfield Library from 1 September … pop in and check it out - and add your two bobs!

Neighbourhood houses and libraries provide amazing community resources for life long learning and we’re excited to have the opportunity to highlight this through this fun and interesting (we trust) interactive community arts installation.