The last few months have sped by and we’re now closing up shop for Christmas. We’re all taking a break from the office for the entire school holidays … we’ll be back on 31 January 2022 raring to go!

Coming up next year as part of our regular program we have:

• Ukulele on Monday evenings

• CWA on Mondays (monthly)

• Collage on Tuesday evenings (6 weeks per term)

• History Group on Tuesday evenings (monthly)

• Toy Library open on Wednesdays

• AAA Bowls on Wednesdays (6 weeks per term)

• Line dancing on Wednesdays

• Women in the Shed with Maylei on Thursdays (6 weeks per term)

• Choir Thursday evenings

• Arty Gardening on Fridays

• Morning Tea in the Garden on Fridays, and

• Observational Drawing with Louisa on Saturday afternoons (6 weeks per term).

Keen to join in? You can book (and pay) on our website now so you are ready to hit the ground running in 2022 …

And of course in amongst all this we have book clubs and playgroups, guitar lessons, ASRC food collections, counselling and … some weekend workshops and events (like the Alphington Show) that you should check out! You can find all the things in our program here.

We hope to see you in 2022.

Today we put our latest exhibition on the fence for the summer holidays and it features photos and memorabilia relating to the Alphington Bowls Club.

1921 was a pretty great year in Alphington. The Alphington Paper Mills opened for production and the Alphington Bowls Club opened their doors. This year the club’s centenary celebrations included a retrospective exhibition of photos, stories and memorabilia at the club house which we are now sharing with you on our fence. It is pretty interesting to:

• Check out the people who attended the opening of the bowls club in 1921.

• Meet Les (perhaps the club’s best bowler) and Myrtle – they won 36 club championships between them.

• Ponder the rules that framed the Alphington Ladies Bowls Club when it was created back in 1928, and were still in place in 1972!

• Speculate on the cause of the fire that destroyed the original club house in 1951 … The ladies had a picture night that finished at 11.30pm, the fire was reported at 2.45am …

• And admire the bowlers’ uniforms over the years.

If you are keen to see the whole package of information that the club produced you can download it here. Or pop past to see the images in a larger format on our fence.

Enjoy! Thanks once again Yarra Arts for supporting the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery.

We run 5 book clubs here at ACC and have a couple of spots available in the 3rd Monday and Tuesday of the month groups along with one spot in Thursday evening in 2022.

So … if you are interested in joining a community book club here is your chance.

It costs $60 per year to join. Your group will read 10 self selected books. The book sets with notes are provided by Darebin Libraries.

Keen? You can join here.

Thanks to everyone who came along for Christmas lunch. It was a funny old day - sunny ☀️ one minute and cloudy ⛅️ the next - but we shared a lovely meal together - cold meats and salads, including lettuce from Sandra and Jim’s garden, nasturtium flowers from ours, pickles made by our preserves group and a delicious Gusto passion fruit sponge kindly donated by Anne.

Manu came along early to help us set up - thanks Manu! Jim won the lucky door prize and shared his chocolate winnings.

Don’t forget to come along to the Alphington Bowls Club at 7pm on the 19th of December to enjoy some Christmas Carols with your neighbours.