Love a bit of political campaigning? Love your neighbourhood house? Enjoy an outing to the city? Know your local MP?

Join us on the steps of Parliament on Wednesday 18 February for our “Day of Action” - we’re hoping to keep the momentum going for our ask for fairer support for neighbourhood houses from the State Government.

Logistics wise, we’ll leave from ACC and catch the train from Alphington Station, meeting up with other houses along the Hurstbridge line on the train.

If you are keen to help support us please email us here so we can know to expect you - and keep you up to date with any information for the day and beyond.

Week 2 already …. and it really is good to be back! It had been super to catch up with so many of you already, and to have wrangled the leaves (oh the leaves, the leaves) into order and gotten the rest of our organising (that we didn’t get too at the end of last year) organised.

And yes, our brochure is finally out. Check it out here.

And so it is the perfect time to book in online to our programs for this year!

AAA Art (Friday 1pm) and Artful Painting and Drawing (3 classes on Monday and Tuesday) will both be starting back this week with the wonderful Clare. You can contact her directly to book into Artful Painting and Drawing on 0423453160 and call our office on 9499 7227 to find out about AAA Art.

Book Clubs are back! There are still some places available this year - so book in online. Our Thursday evening Book Club starts this week. Get in quick as these groups generally fill up fast!

And this Saturday at 8am we will also be running our first Men’s Breakfast for the year - you can book in on our website or call John on 0439899352 for more information. See the post below for more details …

Also running this week will be:

• CWA on Monday night at the Gleeson Centre in Darebin Parklands

• Alphington Playgroup and Toy Library both Wednesday and Thursday mornings at 10am-12pm.

• Line Dancing at Alphington Scout Hall on Wednesday at 10am-12pm.

• U3A Armchair Theatre on Wednesday at 1-3pm.

• Alphingtones Choir at St Andrews on Thursday at 7.30pm.

• Our Community Morning on Friday from 10am, and Community Lunch Friday at 12-1pm.

Looking forward to seeing you here at ACC.

Cheers Leanne

This semester in addition to our Wednesday playgroup we are introducing a new playgroup that will be running on Thursdays! Both will run from 10am-12pm, and you can book in online here. We also have Toy Library running at the same time, and you can book toys to borrow out beforehand at this link and collect them during playgroup.

Over the last 18 months we have launched and been running two new and very tasty programs: Garden to Plate and CRUNCH (Creative Lunch).

This year they are both back with a bit of a variation - they will be running on alternate Thursdays!

So, Garden to Plate will start next Thursday the 12th of February from 11.30am-1pm, and Crunch will start the following Thursday the 19th of February from 12.30 to 2pm. Each program will run for 4 weeks per term. The cost is $10 per week and places are limited so you will need to book in if you plan to attend.

At Garden to Plate we cook a meal together using fresh seasonal ingredients (including from our Community Garden when possible!) and then sit down and eat our creations (admiring what we made and chatting about life). And at Crunch we eat a lunch cooked by Leanne and then get into the creative spirit with arts and craft activities led by Lee! Both are lots of fun and very social. A real highlight of the week.

See some of our favourite things we made at Garden to Plate and Crunch last year are in the photos below … and don’t forget to book in online here for our first sessions!

Keen to get into reading this year? We run 5 Book Clubs that meet at ACC. Books are provided by Darebin Libraries. And they are all just about to begin! The perfect time to join up if you are interested. Just jump on our website to sign up.

You can book in here.

Kalimna will then get in contact with you with all the details (note she is in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday each week).

This year we have the following vacancies:

• 2nd Monday of the month Book Club (evening) - 2 places

• 3rd Monday of the month Book Club (evening) - 3 places

• 1st Thursday of the month Book Club (evening) - 2 places

• 2nd Tuesday of the month Book Club (morning) - 9 places (this is a new book club that will begin when we have 5 people signed up … )

We look forward welcoming you to one of our Book Clubs.