NECCHi

Mamma mia, è un’altra festa passata! Saturday 15th March, 9:30am - 3pm That's right folks, Rita and Umberto are returning to Newlands this summer for their much loved Passata Party! 🍅 Learn all about the fine art of passata making from our certified expert Nonna and Nonno. You'll be guided through the process from picking to bottling. 🍅 From 9:30am, join us at our Newlands house for a day of cooking, eating, and fun family-friendly activities! 🍅 Held in the beautiful Newlands Wayi Community Garden, you're invited to bring a picnic rug, some antipasto, and your closest amici (friends) to enjoy the party! 🍅 We recommend wearing red – or clothes you are happy to get dirty in. Oh, and be prepared to be bossed around. It’s traditional. 🍅 Brewlands will be open serving up coffee, cool drinks, and delicious treats. 🍅 Spaces are limited, and this is one hot ticket, so be sure to book! 🍅 NECCHi's Fifth Annual Passata Party 🍅

We have some exciting new programs for the second half of Biderap & Iuk season, as well as the return of Chris' very popular ceramics workshop!

Explore the sound world of the Merri-Merri with NECCHI artists in residence - Ria Soemardjo and Live Particle: Angela Clarke and Camilla Maling. You will be guided in simple sensory attunement, listening and sound recording practices. Come absorb in the sonic textures that enliven your environments and inspire your imagination. All welcome, no previous recording skill necessary.  The session includes a brief intro to capturing sounds with mobile phones/digital recorders; a 2-hour workshop at NECCHI East Coburg House, and nearby creek; followed by a listening session/chat and cuppa. Book your spot online - numbers limited. Full Price $20 | Concession $15 Book now Returning by popular demand! Landscapes in Clay is a hand building pottery workshop where we will explore sketching with clay. Bring along a picture or painting or choose from our small library, have a play and explore in three dimensions. During the workshop we will explore composition, colour/tone choice, and surface treatment. We will provide clay, carving tools, paintbrushes and underglazes and we will have the work glazed in clear glaze and fired for you to be picked up from Necchi. Chris' second workshop will take place on Sunday 23rd March from our East Coburg House. Full Price $55 | Concession $38 Book now

Join Bibha for this three-week workshop on full body baby massage, held at the Maternal and Child Health Centre at Newlands Neighbourhood House. In each one-hour session, parents will be guided through a number of specific strokes for baby massage, with the aim of practicing the methods at home. The three-week course is designed to allow for an intuitive approach to baby massage, and one that prioritises confidence and comfort, where both parents and babies can gain the full benefits of this practice. The values of baby massage are many, and the practice provides a wonderful opportunity for relaxation, as well as for bonding and communicating between parents and babies. Tickets include a pass for all three workshops. Starting Wednesday 19 March. Full Price $90 | Concession $75 Book now Our Slow Flow Yoga class has returned to Newlands on a Monday night, with our new teacher, Jemmi! Join in as we take yoga at a slower pace. This class is suitable for both beginners and more advanced yoga practitioners, as the postures are held for longer and the sequences are slower than a regular Vinyasa style class. Jemmi is a teacher with Yoga Alliance, offering Trauma-Informed somatic movement and community yoga. He infuses playfulness, humility, curiosity, courage, collective guided energy, and an open heart into his teaching and facilitation. Join Jemmi on a Monday night from 6.30pm at our Newlands House. Full Price $18 | Concession $14 Pro-Rata Term Tickets Available Book now

Merri Merri Morning Movement is a 6 week offering of gentle movement practice at the East Coburg Neighbourhood house and along the creek for embodied wellbeing, led by NECCHi's Artist in Residence Vanessa Chapple. For adults of all ages and levels of experience it combines movement practices from dance, yoga and somatic movement education to orient to the senses and our relationship to the outside world.. Play within your capacity to find ease and fullness of expression. Wake up and greet the day with vitality and connection through fun explorations of the moving body in the sun room studio and walking to the surrounds of the local creek, 400 metres away. We will return for nourishing tea at the end of each session. Free for NECCHi Members | Non-Members $5 Book now Join poet and editor Simone King for a morning of observing and writing in the Wayi community Garden. We will ground ourselves in this special place and open our senses to it.  Gardens are rich and fertile places for writers. They are places of uncertainty, where things stir under the surface and we are not sure what will emerge. They are places of creativity and vitality, where new life blooms. Gardens hold their own stories too, and listening to these stories can inspire our own. Simone will share a few writing tips, read you evocative pieces of garden writing, and offer some prompts to inspire new writing from you. No writing experience is necessary. You can write in any form: poems, stories, essays, fragments, journal entries, or stream-of-consciousness ramblings. We will attend to our inner and outer landscapes and see what takes root. Full Price $18 | Concession $12 Pro-Rata Term Tickets Available Book now

A message from the Rain Moth Community Nursery We'd like to say thank you to everyone who has shared their enthusiasm and support for a community nursery! It’s been so helpful as we plan to bring low- and no-cost native and food plants & seeds to community in the near future. We have a pre-launch sale coming up on Saturday, March 22 at the Newlands Neighbourhood House. If you’d like to be notified, please sign up to the mailing list here Greenfingers? We’d love to have you on board to help Rain Moth grow community plants. Please sign up to the growers mailing list here

An Update on Works in Cox Reserve In good news for Cox Reserve and the Wayi Commuinty Garden, we have been assured that proposed works to construct a 1.5m high cyclone fence between the reserve and the Newlands Neighbourhood House entranceway will no longer go ahead. From all of us here at NECCHi, we'd like to offer our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to all of the community members who wrote to Merri-Bek Council to have their concerns heard, and who shared their deep feelings of connection to this beautiful community space. We would also like to thank Councillor Nat Abboud (Pentridge Ward) for visiting the Newlands Neighbourhood House, speaking with volunteers from our Garden Group about the proposed changes, and hearing from our volunteers about the incredible efforts they've made in bringing Indigenous species back to this area, and creating a thriving community space. The Wayi Community Garden is proof of the strength and importance of community-led initiatives. Please note that while Council has yet to remove the signs, we have been assured that works on a cyclone fence will not proceed.

We're Looking for a Casual Housekeeper   NECCHi is seeking expressions of interest from local community members/NECCHi members who would be happy to be called upon (sometimes at short notice), to clean the Newlands Neighbourhood House in the event of staffing shortages at the house. All cleaning equipment and products provided 😊   Rate of pay: $32.79/hr x 2-2.5hrs Days/hours cover may be required: Mondays 8am-10.30am, Wednesdays 2.30pm-4.30pm, Fridays 2.30pm-4.30pm.   For a position description or further information, please contact Toni via email to enquiries@necchi.org

Don't forget to renew your NECCHi Membership! NECCHi is a member-based not-for-profit organisation, which means that as a member, you can play an active role in shaping the organisation.  As a NECCHi Neighbour, you get:  10% discount on full-priced tickets 4 free brews from Brewlands per year (that includes coffee, tea, chai, and hot chocs!) 1 pkt seeds from the NECCHi garden (subject to seasonal availability) Attend any $5 per session programmed activities for free  Free hot-desking at East Coburg (subject to availability & must be booked through website) Invitation and voting rights at our AGM Become a NECCHi Neighbour!

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CLAIRE MOSLEY Newlands Neighbourhood House 20 Murray Rd Coburg North VIC 3058 Ph 03 8528 2332 enquiries@necchi.org www.necchi.org East Coburg Neighbourhood House 32 Nicholson St Coburg VIC 3058 Ph 03 9913 5472