We’re once again planning our Christmas Makers Market. This year it is coming up on Saturday 25 November, 11am-2pm.

Save the date and come along to buy locally made gifts, have lunch and let your kids get creative with some Christmas nature craft.

If you are keen to be involved book your stall here.

Thanks everyone who came along over the weekend to check out our exhibition. It was super once again. We had lots of new artists and some long standing artists participate. Around 65 works were in the show which was just great!

I’ll post some more pictures this week - but in the meantime here’s a photo of it being hung on Thursday evening - featuring Beatrice and Rob.

And a photo from Friday lunch ‘in the gallery’. Thanks CWA for the yummy meal!

Thanks to everyone who entered works, helped hang or mind the gallery and of course those that came along and bought art to support our local artists.

If you missed it, keep the Alphington Open Studios on your radar - on in late November/early December.

Coming up in 2 weekends! If you are a beginner or more established artist you can join in our exhibition. Click here.

Love arty or doing artsy-type things???? Join us for drinks on Friday night from 5-7pm (18 August) or pop in Saturday or Sunday 19-20 August from 10am-4pm to see the works on display … It is great when we all come together to support and celebrate our creative community!

Our Term 3 program is out on our website - and bookings are open. You can book in here.

We have a spot left in our Women in the Shed program. And a series of repair workshops coming up … book in if you have a sewing machine or overlocker - and learn basic troubleshooting and how to keep them in tip top condition.

Separate booking processes (directly with the tutors) are in place for our new Artful Painting and Drawing with Clare, Meditation with Susanna and Japanese Playgroups with Miami. Also Yoyo’s violin lessons. See our brochure for the details.

And there’s lots more in there as well …

We’re looking forward to seeing you after the holidays.we reopen on Monday 10 July.

As we approach the end of term 2 we’re all looking forward to a break so that we can return refreshed and ready to roll for the second half of the year.

So, firstly this is a reminder that we’ll finish up this Friday 23 June and take a two week break - then see you all on Monday 10 July bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready for term 3.

In this last week we’ll be working on the program for next semester.

We’ve had lots of people come and talk to us about new ideas which is just fabulous! We’ve had discussions about health, wellbeing and fitness classes, maternal/child health support, art classes, community art projects and more. So we’ll spend the week following these ideas up and seeing which ones we can get going.

And we’re also talking with our local artists from Alphington Open Studios about the dates for this year, and talking with the Music from the Wetlands committee about how we can best help out for that fabulous event (how EXCITING - it will be on again in late November, always such a wonderful day!).

We’re also super thrilled that our colleagues over in Richmond got a grant from Sustainability Victoria all about building a ‘repair’ culture. And they have invited us to be part of their workshop series. So we might have a bike repair workshop here, maybe Gordon back for Sewing Machine and Overlocker maintenance/repairs, and a session on how to repair a lamp … Sounds great hey (I’d love to know how to use a kit to rewire my lovely old standard lamp safely … ). Richmond are just in the process of working out what happens at which site!

We also have two students from The Academy of Mary Immaculate here this week, which will be just lovely. I am sure they will be very helpful in getting organised for the end of term. And also a great resource to tap into for programming ideas. Look out for them and make them feel welcome!

And finally I have included a photo from last week of the green tomato relish that our lovely preserves group made. The tomatoes came from Kalimna’s mum and dad who have a big garden - she brought in so many tomatoes that our cooks needed two sessions to get through them all. With donated glass jars and fabric and donated ingredients, our preserves group activities are not just about being productive and helping us fundraise whilst chatting and making community connections, but also about low food miles and recycling! It’s super isn’t it!