Hello,

If you have some time on Saturday between 11am-2pm and would like to help us at the Christmas Makers Market please email Kalimna - info@alphington.org.au.

Anne and Monica admiring the stock!

We would love some friendly volunteers to help us sell, coffee, craft and preserves and we’d also really appreciate a hand with the sausage sizzle.

Our Christmas Makers Market is on Saturday 22nd of November from 11am-2pm. The weather looks hopeful and we have lots of stallholders booked in …. so we look forward to seeing you there.

The Kiosk all set up and ready for business.

Kevin cooking up a storm.

Tonight we have our AGM. 6pm for a quick overview of the year and some yummy dinner. We’ll be having duck curry for dinner which will be delicious. I’ll make a veg. option too of course. Yes … bribes to come along - it’s not too late just send us an email before lunchtime if you can make it.

Lots of great stuff last week. Check out the posts below for photos etc.

Coming up …

• Garden to Plate is proving popular (note you do need to book in as we only have 10 spots).

• We made some lovely art at Crunch on Thursday. If you enjoy sharing a meal and being creative this is a great program for you! You are very welcome to join us.

• AAA Bowls is back.

• AAA Arts is running.

• Community Yoga is back this term - book in online!

• Keiko is here running Sound Healing on Wednesday.

• Another Embracing Life and Death discussion session is on Thursday afternoon.

Please note that we’ll be taking the Monday off next week before Melbourne Cup Day holiday. Hard to believe it’s nearly November already!

Also, note our campaign for more funding … and please sign a postcard if you can. It’s been lovely to read some of the messages you have written about why the neighbourhood house is important to you! Warms the cockles of our hearts ♥️.

Hope to see you here soon.

Cheers Leanne

We’ll be recovering from last week I think!

Thursday night we had Alphington Arts … check out the post below to admire what we produced.

On Friday we worked on the new wicking beds - which will be fabulous. They are now in place and filled up with layers of pond liner, scoria, geotech (a fabric barrier) and vegetable soil mix. And they are level (we hope) - always the hardest part right? Yes. Lots of heavy shovelling to get to this point.

But also … then … we got our annual delivery of fogo compost from Yarra City Council - only 2 cubic meters at this stage (we might get some more in a few weeks) - but similarly requiring quite a lot of shovelling and wheelbarrowing etc.

I know that I slept like a baby after a day of such physical activity - and I suspect there were a few others who did too!

But then … we all bounced straight into our shared National Volunteer Week event on Saturday morning. See the post below for photos and more general thank yous etc.

OKay, enough looking backwards, onto this week … we have:

• Preserves Group - Tuesday 1pm-3pm (free all welcome). Also if you have small jars and/or excess fruit/vegies in your garden PLEASE feel free to donate them - we will lovingly turn them into pickles and jams etc. Or we can even use them for our lunches …

• Overlocker Maintenance - Saturday 10am-12pm. There are definitely still some places available, if you are keen just book in on our website. Booked in already? Don’t forget to bring your machine along on Saturday!

And then … there’s all the usual things, including Garden to Plate on Monday, Crunch on Thursday and Community Lunch on Friday. Book in and come along if you are keen. The more the merrier! Also this week we will have two Masters of Social Work students starting with us - which should be terrific. We’ll be looking forward to getting to know them and start thinking about some meaningful projects they can do whilst they are here. Make sure you introduce yourself if you come across them!

We hope to see you this week.

Cheers Leanne

Thanks to all the volunteers at ACC - our committee members, people who run classes - like Shirley and Rosie, people who volunteer to lead book groups, lead arts activities, help in the toy library, cook for our lunches, those that volunteer to teach the beginners uke group, people who cook preserves, those that help out on Fridays … those that help at events … and more!

Neighbourhood houses flourish through community generosity, kindness and goodwill.

It was fabulous to get together on Saturday with the other houses across Yarra to thank a range of our collective volunteers, and share the love with Yarra City Council staff and councillors.

Great to have a super turnout from ACC. Thanks to everyone who came along - and to everyone who volunteers at ACC along the way.

Hello to all the nonnas e nonnos out there!

Did you know that 5.5% of fathers and 4.5% of mothers of residents in Alphington were born in Italy. And … 2.4% of Alphinton households speak Italian at home.

Local new nonna Lorena (who is also on our committee here at ACC) is interested in establishing an Italian Language Playgroup - for nonnas and nonnos and/or parents and carers who speak Italian. It would be on a Monday - we have some flexibility for the timing depending on who might like to come along.

If this is something that your family might like to be a part of please click here to express your interest.

Community led programs are always the best! Thanks Lorena for suggesting this idea. We look forward to hearing from other locals who might be keen.