Tonight (Sunday) ACC and Friends of Baucau catered the Music in Exile event at the Fairfield Amphitheatre that was put on by Yarra Council and Yarra City Arts.

ACC contributed to planning and made the main course - a grain salad with dolmades and dip and bread … and Friends of Baucau used catering from Taste of Timor for delicious Portuguese tarts and coconut steamed buns and samosas … and we also bought soft drinks and watermelon and zooper doopers … all the essentials for family summer catering!

It was a fabulous event with excellent music. Elsy Wameyo was particularly great (I thought).

Music in Exile is rolling across Yarra this month. If you are keen to attend you can find all the details here.

Thanks Olivia at Yarra Arts for organising such a great event and inviting us to be part of it!

You just never know what will happen next at a neighbourhood house …

This week we were thrilled when Eugene (who lives locally) popped in and offered us an outside all-weather table tennis table. And then promptly dropped it off AND included some bats and balls. It was quite exciting to see it arriving on the back of a ute on Friday afternoon!

Thanks Eugene and family (who had outgrown the table). We have set it up in the back garden and now we invite you, our neighbourhood friends, to pop in for a play.

Also … if you have some spare table tennis bats and balls at your house that you no longer use (but are still in good nick) think of us! I am sure we could use some spares …

If you have appreciated knowing that you have a neighbourhood house (eg. us … or another of course because we’re all a big team ) here in the community for you over the last couple of crazy years, have enjoyed our newsletter, participated in our programs, appreciated knowing food relief is available, have engaged with our community art activities on the street in lockdown (such as the History Walks, the Alphington Neighbourhood Gallery art on the fence, our Honestly letters, the Community Building Blocks, the Make Your Own Adventure map of Darebin Parklands etc. etc.) or if you have used our outdoor tables or played in our garden or come to our Christmas Market … you might like to talk us up in this survey … or even document a particular story or event (you can do this at the end).

The State Government is currently asking for feedback from Victorians on ‘living more locally and experiencing our neighbourhoods and communities in new and different ways’.

It is a great opportunity to share your lived experience of the community value of having neighbourhood houses in your local area, so that hopefully we can get more recognition (and perhaps even money to run more local programs tailored to specific neighbourhood needs into the future …).

Here’s the link. Thanks in advance!

We didn’t get to publish the beautiful photos that Kalimna took from our fun community weekend last week because we had a technical computer hitch … but we’re back up and running now.

So thank you to the Alphington Open Studios artists who we worked with for the Open Studios weekends. It was fabulous to have a shared opening night that everyone could come along to and just super to have works by all the artists in our space. Yarra Council provided us with some funding to activate our inside hanging space which supported this project.

And then thanks to our stallholders who made wonderful produce and goods for the Christmas Makers Market on the Saturday. And thanks to all the community who came along to shop and enjoy our lovely neighbourhood. I know I made a good start to my Christmas present shopping … and I am sure lots of others did too.

A special thanks to Ivanhoe Rotary who personned our BBQ. It makes such a difference to our centre to have these sorts of community partnerships and we value them so much. And my mum Cheryl who ran the kids activity - she’s a gem and the trees were very cute. And finally, finally Elaine who volunteered on our craft stall. She’s an amazing knitter and community giver as well.

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.