It’s always nice to end the term with a crowd, and it was lovely to have so many people along on Friday morning for Arty Gardening followed by Morning Tea. It was a gorgeous morning.

So many things were happening … we had Crystal drawing flowers, Sandra and Mark picking herbs to make little wardrobe bags to keep the bugs out of clothes and things smelling nice, Debra setting up seed trays (we’re getting some calendula and pak choy seeds sprouting hopefully) and Derek and David helping Clare in the shed to drill the holes in our soon to be finished worm towers.

And then we had more people turn up for morning tea - on the menu the most AMAZING chocolate biscuits made by Kinfolk.

In the garden this week Clare planted some more natives out on the front corner. And we dug some fertiliser in to the second productive garden bed in the front yard so it’s ready for a new crop to be planted when we are back.

Which will be on Tuesday 26 April.

So happy Easter, we hope the Easter bunny visits you … and we’ll see you on the other side of the school holidays! If you need to get in contact with us during this time please email info@alphington.org.au.

Alphington Community Centre is a friendly, welcoming, kind and caring community space, run by paid staff, funded through a patchwork of stable ongoing funding and short term grants and overseen by a wonderful community committee that meets around 8 times a year on the fourth Monday of the month at 8pm to provide strategic direction.

We currently have 5 committee members and we’re keen for one or two more.

If you are kind-hearted and community-minded and would be interested in helping us with our big picture thinking we’d love you to consider joining our committee of governance.

Please email Leanne or call our office on 9499 7227 if this sounds like your cup of tea.

Hi Leanne here. Well term one is drawing to a close, and we’ll be taking leave for two weeks from this coming Friday. We will be back on Tuesday 26 April.

We hope you have a happy Easter and a lovely break.

And … If you are keen on a road trip along the lines of a four hour drive to Western Victoria, and a fun community event - I’ll see you at the Cavendish Redgum Festival on the last weekend of the holidays. My sister Merryn helps organise this festival in her tiny country town on the western side of the Grampians, and I am helping out with the catering for the Friday opening event and will also be assisting with the nature craft activities for kids (a specialty of mine as you all know from our events) on Saturday. There’ll also be tethered hot air balloon rides, bus tours to see magnificent trees, music, food and a dog jumping competition … fun!

Click here to find out more about the Cavendish Redgum Festival.

The inaugural ‘people’s choice’ at the Alphington Show goes to Florence Maslen for her beautiful plaited bread.

Thanks Heather for suggesting this new addition to the show - it was a great way to get the community involved on the day.

For anyone yet to collect their entries, please drop by this week - the last few remaining items are in the foyer.

And congratulations once again to all those who entered. It was really fun to see how talented and creative so many people in our community and beyond are.

Leanne here. It was just great to meet with our local MP Kat Theophanous and Minister Anthony Carbines (who is also our neighbouring MP for Ivanhoe) on Friday with the other houses in the Darebin Neighbourhood House Network to ‘chat about our sector’.

Unsurprisingly my colleagues and I - none of whom are backwards in coming forwards - did chat a lot! As you know if you’ve been to our houses we do actually really love our work and our neighbourhoods and all the people in them … and we all have loads of ideas to keep improving things … and we’ve seen lots of changes and growth in our roles in the community throughout this COVID period … so … who better to impart our ideas and hopes and ambitions for our houses to than the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers and the Minister for Child Protection and Family Services. Don’t you agree? Poor fella! Haha. No - it was excellent.

Here’s a nice photo of us all after the meeting over at Bridge Darebin (he looks like he survived happily enough right?)