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Moose Jaw Pottery Club back at the wheel with online pop-up fundraiser

The Moose Jaw Pottery Club is back this fall with a new kind of fundraiser for the group
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The online sale will feature handmade items from Moose Jaw Pottery Club members, much like these items featured in the 2019 Mother's Day Sale.

The Moose Jaw Pottery Club (MJPC) was disappointed to cancel its spring Mother’s Day Sale and the fall Chili Bowl Fundraiser due to COVID-19 this year, but the club isn’t shutting down its kilns entirely. 

Coming up on Oct. 1-4, the MJPC is hosting its first online pop-up fundraiser to help raise some proceeds for the club in a socially-distanced way appropriate for this year.

“(With most things cancelled,) if we can do a little bit of online sales and kind of get some enthusiasm going, that would be a great help,” said club representative Yvonne Wozniak. “We’re going to try these online pop-up sales, is our plan for the fall.”

The online sale will take place on the MJPC’s Facebook page, featuring a small group of handmade items created by club members using club materials. People can purchase the items by messaging the club, with online payment preferred, and someone from the MJPC will deliver the pottery pieces to each buyer’s doorstep for a seamlessly contactless interaction.

All of the proceeds from the sale will return to the MJPC, to help reduce the utility costs of maintaining its studio space up on South Hill. 

It is an entirely new format for the club’s fundraising efforts, but Wozniak said the club was itching for a way to replace its cancelled fundraisers in a safe way. 

If the online format goes well, the MJPC is already thinking ahead to hosting more, smaller events like it throughout the rest of the year — maybe even with themes, like Halloween or fall, or a version of the popular chili bowls except without the chili.

Members of the MJPC were out of the studio all throughout the spring, during the initial height of the pandemic lockdown, and while some have trickled back in over the summer to get back at their hobby, the prospect of a sale has done wonders on the club’s morale.

“It’s kind of sparked excitement again in the club because we’ve all stayed away through March, April, May, June, even July, and now people are starting to come back and get into it again,” said Wozniak.

Classes at the MJPC are also on hold indefinitely, as the safety guidelines and comfort of instructors are top-of-mind for club members, but the club is still open to members and working away at the wheel.

“We’re still here and even though classes are cancelled for the moment, we want people to keep us in mind,” said Wozniak. “This might be the new way we do sales, and quite a few of our members have quite a stockpile of things to sell because there’s been nothing to take them to for a while, so this might be a really good opportunity to purchase some gorgeous pieces going into fall and Christmas.”

Wozniak said everyone is looking forward to the online sale. She encourages people to check out what’s up for grabs because each piece will be unique.

“We’re just hobbyists, not professionals, so our pieces (do have) little imperfections,” said Wozniak. “But it’s always nice to say, ‘here’s a piece that I bought at the sale and it’s by a friend of my friend or whatever.’ To know the potter is sometimes a nice touch.”

More details about the upcoming pottery sale and future pottery sales will be shared on the Moose Jaw Pottery Club’s Facebook page.

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