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

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!

We had a lovely time catching the 508 bus to High Street Northcote on Thursday 3 April and visiting the op shops. We caught the 10.05am bus from Alphington Station and started our op shopping adventure at Sacred Heart Mission Op Shop on the corner of Separation and High Street, then popped over to The Salvos, before heading down the road to Save The Children. We ducked into Mutal Muse (the consignment style shop just near Mitchell Street) … and then took a much-needed lunch break at Tao Dumplings for lunch and jasmine tea. Then we doubled back to the Northcote Uniting Op Shop, before jumping back on the 508 to Alphington Station (which took all of 8 minutes - amazing). Home by 2.10pm.

If you are looking for a great op shopping adventure this is a super one … and so easy by PT!

We’ve got 3 more great Thriftseekers trips planned for next semester - so keep an eye out for them! Special big thanks to the Clifton Hill/North Fitzroy Community Bank on Queens Parade for supporting us to run these local adventures this year.

Village Greening, a volunteer group dedicated to enhancing sustainability in Fairfield Village, is launching a Plastic-Free July campaign and we would love for you to help. 

Alphington Show was so much fun this year! We had glorious weather and lots of people came along and joined in. The pony rides were a real hit and our show entrants were super talented.

We’d like to thank our partners Alphington CWA. It was terrific to run this event together.

We’d also like to thank our friends from the Preston Garden Club for judging (along with the CWA) and Nelson Alexander for helping us publicise the event AND for providing a prize. We had 16 people get a hole in one on our mini-golf green and go into the draw to win the $100 LaTrobe Golf Club voucher… and many more spent quite a while trying!

This year we had 29 entrants in our family friendly, funny and somewhat shambolic dog show. The calibre of entrants was very impressive … we saw the most amazing trick - a dog who retrieved a tissue from a tissue box when their owner sneezed. Beyond impressive! We’d like to thank E and A Salce on High Street Thornbury for the prizes.

We had around 15 stallholders in our makers market with lots of lovely things to buy. We love running events that support local makers.

Finally a big thanks to our volunteers. We had some new helpers this year and along with some old favourites! And we really couldn’t do all the things we do without you.

Oh, and congratulations to all our prize winners … thanks once again everyone!

See you next year!