We had a lovely night last Friday for our opening. Around 60 locals came along which was fabulous, and more popped in over the weekend.

25 artists were part of the event, and we thank Sharyn Madder, Beatrice Magalotti and Wendy Roach for hanging the exhibition.

We’d also like to thank Yarra City Arts for the seed funding to get this regular event in our calendar up and running and also thank the Community Bank on Queens Parade for funding the gallery equipment install.

We have so many talented artists in our community. If you are keen to see more local art in real life or join us for another fun community event (being the opening night) keep an eye out for the Alphington Open Studios Weekend coming up on the last weekend in November!

Looking for a lovely local activity? Pop past on Friday night from 5-7pm for a drink and some finger food and to admire (and even buy) great local art.

If you can’t make Friday then the exhibition is open over the weekend too from 11am-5pm Saturday and Sunday. We hope you can come along.

Alphingtones Choir has been going for many years now and is full of lovely (tuneful) locals! They used to meet at ACC but now meet at St Andrew’s Church just behind Grill’d off Station Street so they have more room to spread out in these Covid times …

And they need some more members - in particular bass and tenor singers (but everyone is welcome!).

If you are interested in being part of this group that meets weekly on a Thursday night just email or call (details below).

Our winter art exhibition is coming up in a couple of weeks. Artists … you can still join in. Register on our website. Local friends … pop past on opening night to help us celebrate 🎉 or over the weekend to check out the talent in our neighbourhood … and perhaps buy some art!

We’ve got our beans (perhaps a little late because of the tomatoes that had a second run …) and our leafy green pak choy and some marigolds grown from seed in the garden and they’re doing their thing slowly … and on Friday Theresa worked on potting up some cuttings from Clare’s garden … salvias and other flowers 🌺 to bring some pops of colour to our fenceline and garden.

And then after morning tea Corrado and Max kindly stuck around and we started up the (previously checked and safe) donated chainsaw (what a generous neighbourhood we live in) for a heavy duty (and hard work) pruning process - the fruit trees 🌳 on the eastern fence … (we all needed to head home for a nap afterwards!). They’ve now had part one of their two part planned haircut … we’ve tackled the width, next time we’ll lop off the top … to make sure we can reach the fruit 🍎 they produce. It’s just amazing how much they grow each year!

Also … did you see our compost on Instagram last week? It’s teeming with life. Thanks neighbours who contribute scraps … it really is looking amazing!

If you are interested in gardening and chatting to nice people and contributing to our neighbourhood come along from 10am on Fridays. We’re back after the school holidays!