Neuroblastoma Australia recently reached out to us to invite our ACC community along to their fun run and fun day coming up on Sunday 15 November. We encourage everyone to go along and support an important cause!

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Run2Cure Melbourne is a fun and inclusive day for the whole family, featuring a 1km Little Heroes Walk, family activities, and run/walk distances suitable for all ages and abilities. Most importantly, the event raises vital funds for research into neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer that primarily affects babies and young children. Find out more and register here at this link.

When I was in Baucau in Timor-Leste the other week I had breakfast every morning at the Pousada Hotel … and after a few days I realised that the ‘marmalade’ I was putting on my bread was actually pumpkin jam. Having never had pumpkin jam before I looked it up online to discover that it is a traditional Brazilian jam … (also another Portuguese colony) and … I can highly recommend it.

So … this week we made some at Preserves Group. It has pretty simple ingredients: pumpkin, lemon and orange, with a hint of cinnamon. And some sugar (of course). Perfect on a fluffy white Portuguese bread roll (traditional breakfast fare in Timor-Leste).

So we’ve now got some for sale in the foyer, along with a new batch of cucumber pickles. You can pop past and buy some if you like. Only $7. Our jams and preserves make a lovely small gift for someone … and the proceeds support us to run our disability programs.

Win=Win.

Anyway, thanks to everyone that came along to our short courses this week. it is super to get back into the swing of things!

Now the weather is improving you might like to start your day in a mindful way - why not check out John’s Breathwork sessions which you can book on a weekly basis or for the term.

And …

We’ve also had a refresh of our op shop this week - so come and have a look for a bargain if your wardrobe also needs a refresh.

This week we’ve got Embracing Life and Death coming up on Thursday from 1-2:30pm. This month the focus is on bereavement and living with grief and loss. The sessions are free, but booking is essential via eoldoulasinmelb@gmail.com.

We have 3 spots remaining for Community Yoga this term if anyone is keen to join Rosie from 5:30-6:30pm on Wednesdays. It’s just $22 for 3 classes over the next few weeks. Book in here if you’re interested.

As always, we’ve got all of our regular programs and short courses continuing this week so we hope to see you all soon.

Cheers Leanne

Hi everyone,

It’s been great to have lots of our programs back up and running this last week! We had AAA Arts back on Friday and Alphington Arts on Thursday night, so it’s been a lot of creativity going on here. We also had a great Community Lunch on Friday - we used a Chinese lettuce called Celtuce that we grew on the garden. And we had lots of regular and some newer locals along for lunch, which was awesome.

We’ve got an exciting week coming up this week, with lots of our short courses kicking off for Term 4 as well as some super events.

So starting up again this week we’ve got …

• Heart-Centred Breathwork with John starting at 7:30am on Tuesday morning

• AAA Bowls on Wednesday at 10am down at Alphington Bowls Club with Jill

• Community Yoga with Rosie from 5:30-6:30pm on Wednesday

• Cook by the Book starting on Thursday at 11:30am, where we’ll be kicking off our adventure through Yotam Ottolenghi’s SIMPLE cook book

• CRUNCH with Lee on Thursday from 12:30pm where you’ll get the pleasure of eating Cook by the Book’s delicious creations for lunch before heading out into the shed for some art.

It’s not too late to sign up. You can book in on our website or click here.

We also have Preserves Group this Tuesday from 1-3pm! We’ll be making some more pickles this time!

Also starting this Friday, Elaine and Marie-Louise have very kindly volunteered to run a Christmas Craft Project, making wreaths, baubles and more - so come along from 10:30am to start getting into the Christmas spirit. If your Christmas tree at home is already full of fabulous decorations, anything you make that you don’t wish to take with you will be sold at our Christmas Makers Market on 21 November. Thanks again to Elaine and Marie-Louise for volunteering to lead these crafty efforts.

As always, we’ve got Community Lunch following at 12pm on Friday, with AAA Arts afterwards.

We also had our first Money Matters talk last week, with Robyn teaching us all about how to navigate Scams and AI. We had heaps of people turn up and it was a big success, but don’t worry if you missed out, we have another Money Matters talk happening this Wednesday (the 21st) talking about how to manage on a limited budget which should be very interesting, plus there’ll be lunch provided as well! You can register for it here.

We have a busy weekend coming up too, with the second Shadow Work workshop with John and Diarmaid on Saturday from 10am-1pm, which you can find all the info about here, and another Ukulele Singalong with a uke group ‘The Flukes’ on Sunday from 2-3:30pm! The Flukes have heaps of great songs lined up and it’s shaping up to be a great afternoon of community fun! You can get a seat here.

Hope everyone enjoyed the sun over the weekend, fingers crossed it sticks around. See you all soon.

Cheers Leanne

Our ukulele group The Flukes are holding another Sunday singalong on the 25th of October! It’ll be a one hour singalong, starting at 2pm followed by tea and coffee afterwards.

Anyone interested in coming along for a sing and a boogie can look forward to tunes such as Build Me Up Buttercup, Be My Baby, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Last Train to Clarksville, Jolene, I’m Into Something Good and Six Months in a Leaky Boat.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can book in here, it costs $10 as a donation to ACC.

We can’t wait to see The Flukes in action!

Hi everyone,

Lots of getting organised behind the scenes this week. We’ve been diving into emails, setting up the processes for this coming term and confirming numbers … all the boring admin-y things that make us feel somewhat under control (at least temporarily!). But, more excitingly, we’ve also been mosaicking! We are currently working on a project with Clare that is coming along very nicely. If you are around Thursday or Friday morning this week and would like to help us (hopefully) finish things off, we’d love some help!

Also, on Friday, we collected the fired ceramic pieces for our totem poles - they look beautiful! See the poste below for some pictures.

As you may recall, I am on the community reference group for the 2 Wingrove Street site, and we had another meeting on Wednesday. If you read the minutes from the last Council meeting you will know that they voted to continue to have reference group in place as the site is developed. There are lots of great community thinkers in the group, all with different stakes in the site and the wider community outcomes … so I think it is a really valuable … and it is super to be a part of this process. I’ll keep you up to date as things progress. Council is currently about to launch into seeking geotechnical assessments for the site - which will be very helpful and really are essentaial - because the site used to be the tip, and so there are inevitable issues around stability and leeching etc. etc.

This week we are back into the swing of things with our Money Matters - Scams and AI conversation on Wednesday 14 October from 12-2.20pm. We have 16 people booked in, so a few places left if you still want to reserve a spot available at our website here.

Then on Thursday night we have Alphington Arts at 7.30pm. Come along for a fun night of getting creative.

It was lovely to see everyone on Friday - we had some new people along which is always great. Also, we had a good turnout this week for playgroups on Wednesday and Thursday (let’s hope the weather keeps being nice on these days).

Okay, that’s about it I think. See you soon!

Cheers Leanne