This week we were delighted to welcome a new group of men to use our community shed facilities on Friday morning.

They came along with support (eg. transport) and project supervision from two Merri-bek Council staff - as part of a program designed to help older men connect with each other and build community friendships.

The men were from North Fitzroy, Coburg etc. and I think it really is super to be able to share our resources across the inner northern suburbs - and also connect up with community development colleagues at a neighbouring Council.

They were a great fit for our Friday community morning program and we hope they come back into the foreseeable future.

We’re looking forward to sharing a cuppa and chat with them in future weeks and seeing the outcome off their hard work (they are working on constructing ride-on toys for toddlers).

Soup, slices and biscuits. We had a lovely lunch on Friday of delicious minestrone soup and my personal favourite, lemon slice. Yum! Thanks so much Alphington CWA friends for catering. Our community friends really appreciate your efforts.

We generally have around 14 or so people here each Friday at 11.30am for an early meal.

If you too are interested in coming along, you are very welcome. You can join us from 10am for gardening and/or craft, or just come for lunch at 11.30am.

Great to have our local State MP Kat Theophanous pop in this week to talk about our news, the toy library, our AGM etc.

We’ve had some fabulous support from the State Government in the last few years with additional grants and funding.

As you know, we generally get by on the smell of an oily rag, so these one-off investments are amazing opportunities for us …

Our annual report is now printed for the 2022/23 financial year, presented at our Annual General Meeting on Monday night. Thanks so much to everyone who came along for our meeting and dinner. It was great for our staff, volunteers, Committee and neighbourhood friends to get the chance to chat and learn more about either other.

Keen to read all the amazing things we did in 2022/23? You can check out our annual report here!

I think I forgot to mention that we (with all the other houses in Yarra) launched our Yarra Neighbourhood House Network Climate Action and Resilience Plan a week or so ago.

With fantastic support for Council staff we developed both an individual plan for our house and a shared plan for all of Yarra’s houses.

You can click on the links above to check them out.

It really is super to be taking this type of positive action, and amazing to be working collegiately with Council to think about how neighbourhood houses can make a difference as the impacts of climate change become more obvious. Having the plans also helps us prioritise grant opportunities as they come along, and share our agenda and now clearly articulated capability in this space, more clearly.

I also had the privilege of attending a VCOSS (Victorian Council of Social Services) ‘heatwave scenario planning’ workshop with about 40 other key social services representatives across greater Melbourne in the school holidays.

So it has been a really interesting and immersive month of climate change activity here at ACC.