Group Background

The group was well established at the Avenue Neighbourhood House Blackburn since its inception in 2003. However the toy box was upturned when the owners of the property wanted it for other purposes. The Neighbourhood House was therefore relocated to the Eley Park Community Centre in Blackburn South in October '07. We had the use of a comfortable room but privacy was an issue as other groups met simultaneously and in close proximity to our meeting room. Also, following the move to Eley Park it was apparent that our tenure was going to be shorter than we were given to understand.

With little more than a weeks notice to find another place a couple of us spent a good couple of days looking for a suitable accommodation in the area and found an OK place though we had a few reservations about it. Other people we approached simply didn’t return calls or didn’t want to know about us. However, the director and staff at Eley Park were fantastic and assisted us in every way possible, including sourcing us an ideal venue within 3 minutes drive of Eley Park. Thanks Colleen. Deb, Judy and Stuart!!

After months of uncertainty the group found a home we could have only dreamed of. In my time in recovery I’ve only seen a few meeting venues that come close to it. Rob, showed me through the Livingstreams Centre and said we were most welcome to use the venue for as long as we like and have exclusive use of it and its facilities on our meeting night. Thanks Rob you’re a star!!!

The place is meticulous, spacious, air-conditioned and has heaps of off street parking. There is a fully equipped kitchen with a servery into the meeting room. The meeting room is spacious and we set up three trestle length tables around which we sit for the meeting. We used one bank of the fluoro lights until we found a set of pretty cool down lights along one wall. Talk about ambience!!

In addition there is a comfortable smaller room, lounge size, with a leather round corner sofa, coffee table and a few chairs. It is ideal for one on one chats, time out or nursing baby.

The group held its first meeting at Livingstreams Centre less than a week after our existing venue started the anticipated extensions that necessitated our relocation. Talk about cutting it fine! The flyers and news advising of the change went out by hand, email, phone, SMS and our webpage was rejigged as well. But now we have a home and are very grateful for it.