On Friday 12 March, we invite you to come along to a special morning tea following which we will officially open our new neighbourhood community art initiative, the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery.

The Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery will feature 12 art works by an artist connected to the neighbourhood. The gallery will be paste up boards along our fence. The works will be accompanied by a bio and a QR code link so that anyone passing by can find out more about the artist. This project has been funded by the lovely Yarra Arts team at Yarra City Council, who we thank very much.

The first artist we are featuring is Ross O’Meara. His works will be up for one month. We plan to feature 10 artists over the coming year.

We’d love it if you could join us from 11.30am for morning tea followed by the launch.

Ross O'Meara, Untitled, 2019, ink on paper, courtesy of the artist and Arts Project Australia

Ross O’Meara, Untitled, 2019, acrylic on paper

Ross O’Meara, Untitled, 2019, watercolour on paper

We’ve had an exciting week in our front garden this week with Mark and Mark from Pacific Australis Landscapes here finishing off all the big things that were in the pipeline before COVID put a halt to plans.

They’ve rearranged the rocks in our front garden to create some small seating areas, and have made room for a third raised garden bed (round this time). These garden beds will form the centre of what we hope will be an even more productive community garden. They are connected up to the water tank that was kindly donated and installed by Yarra Valley Water and we’re anticipating that they become a fabulous community resource, both in terms of creating opportunities for people to come along and get to know each other as they garden together, but also in terms of generating some food that can be used for local cooking and eating (for classes, for catering for morning tea etc. ).

If you pass by you might also notice that Jenny built a potting bench … and we’re looking forward to putting in a small greenhouse next to it so that we can germinate some seeds and have seedlings available in our street seed library into the future. So many fun new things …

Mark and Mark also finished off the landscaping out the front of the community shed, putting in some beautiful slabs of stone to create a dedicated seating area. Our community shed space is so well used and it is wonderful to think that it is 95% complete. Next week we’ll plant some native violets and white thyme in the gaps between the stone pavers and plant out the rest of that corner garden under the lemon tree and we’ll be done. Hooray!

Did you know we have a Lego Club here at ACC on a Monday night after school? It’s pretty great for Lego obsessed kids. Cat sets a challenge each week and they spend around an hour building and creating.

And she’s also running a school holiday program in week one of the upcoming holidays.

If you have a child or grandchild who might be interested in joining in then contact Cat here.

Here’s some work from a couple of weeks ago.

Hi everyone, Leanne here.

At ACC we all (well nearly all) need to do our first aid certificate again. Some of us (like Kalimna) need to do the refresher course and some of us (like me) are due to do the full course.

We are thinking of getting someone to come out to ACC to run the course (like we did last time) - most likely on a Wednesday which is the only day our main room is free. If you too need to - or would like to - get your first aid certificate (renewing it or doing it for the first time) and would like to join in our session, you can let us know here, and we’ll let you know the proposed date and cost. Cheers.

Hi all, happy days! After the 5 day lockdown ACC will be opening tomorrow (Thursday) with the same rules as before the lockdown.

We’re looking forward to seeing all our Japanese Playgroup friends along with the enthusiastic Thursday Women in the Shed group. Matthew’s Guitar Lessons are also back on tomorrow afternoon.

Anyone keen to drop off food for the ASRC should note that Andy wont be here this week, but our cupboard is open and you can still leave non-perishable goods here anytime. Not sure where to leave them? Give us a call.

Please also note that adults will need to wear masks indoors and everyone who is onsite for more than 15 minutes will need to register via the QR code, by visiting our website or popping into the office. Thanks all. See you soon.