The West End Pottery Club is an active group of hobby potters who are associated with the pottery studio at the West End Community Centre. For 43 years, in collaborative partnership with the Community Centre, our members have helped create a thriving and welcoming community, and a positive culture within the Centre and in the West End.  Club members have contributed to cleaning the studio, and maintaining and helping finance its equipment. We have promoted pottery-making and helped make it popular through regular sales, workshops and charitable activities. We attracted the public’s imagination and in turn they eagerly signed up for classes and to join the club. In turn, this resulted in long wait lists for both classes and the club.

Recently we were shocked and disappointed to be notified by two members of the WECCA Board, without adequate consultation or discussion, that the West End Pottery Club will no longer be welcome as a group that is associated with the pottery studio. In other words, the Pottery Club has been removed from the premises, and in effect, the long-standing reciprocal relationship between the Pottery Club and the West End Community Centre feels broken.

We understand that one of the motivations for removing the club has been to increase accessibility to the studio, but we feel there are better solutions to achieve this through dialogue and scheduling compromise, while maintaining the benefits of the Pottery Club. Cancelling the West End Pottery Club will squander the achievements of the club over the past several decades in fostering and promoting community engagement in pottery. 

Please sign this petition and join us in asking the West End Community Centre Board of Directors to meet with us formally so we can work together to find a solution that offers greater community access and preserves the West End Pottery Club community!

If you would like to share your thoughts directly with the West End Community Centre Association, please email at westendcc@vancouver.ca. Thanks!