club history

Back in 1970, Herbie and Carmel van Houtum were very involved in the local Shorncliffe / Sandgate community and had many interests including lapidary, playing cards and table tennis. They made many friends and started up a club called DASCOS – The Dutch Australian Social Club of Sandgate, where they would be actively involved with all the above activities.  

In 1983, Beryl Raynor came across an advertisement for pottery lessons at the Petrie Potters Club. Beryl was very excited by what she learnt and couldn’t wait to show her good friends Herbie and Carmel. Herbie became interested straight away and was keen to set up a studio at their house, and the next thing you know there was a kiln in the backyard. Experimenting with clay continued at their home studio but as interest grew with more people asking to come along and learn, it was decided to move the club to an old shop in Pier Ave, Shorncliffe, and change the name to Shorncliffe Potters Club. The first official meeting was 8 June 1983. (The old shop was situated on the site of the current St. Patrick’s College Callen Centre.)

In 1983, we had a membership of 13 people. Two wheels were purchased in September that year for $295, along with a slab roller (which was replaced in 2002 and is still with the club today). The kilns were fired 85 times in that first year and we now do approximately 150 firings per year. Our kilns are constantly working, as soon as one is cold it is emptied and re-packed. 

In July 1988 the club had increased in size so much that we moved to the rooms under the Sandgate Town Hall as our new studio space. However, in August 2003 with incorporation and workplace health and safety laws changing the Brisbane City Council were worried about their beautiful heritage listed building and keeping it safe, as our kilns were considered a fire hazard. In July 2004 we were encouraged to find new premises and then President Tania Kunze, Treasurer Cherryl Lever, and Secretary Margaret Jacobs had the task of shopping around for a new home for the club.

In October 2004 it was voted to move the club to a shed at the Sandgate PCYC, and on Sunday 26 June 2005 we moved. We had exclusive use of the shed but had to pay for the fit out and contribute towards the insulation and the cost of electricity and water connections. So, the fund raising started with meat tray raffles at the Sandgate RSL club.

Our shed studio officially opened on 27 October 2006, and the lean-to was enclosed in March 2008, under the guidance of club member Jackie and Tim Overington, to give us more space as the club grew. In 2008, the club met with PCYC to discuss a merger and so it was decided the club would become an activity of the PCYC and be known simply as Shorncliffe Potters. In September 2010, Margaret Pettit became President and with Cheryl Ryan as Secretary (from 2008) they steered the club through the years to July 2020.

The club prospered over those years holding its annual Expressions exhibition, being involved with the local Einbunpin festival, and in 2011 started doing Bunnings Sausage Sizzles as our main fund-raising activity until 2020.

In July 2020, the club held a special meeting where a large number of its 100+ membership base attended and voted for the club to once again become its own entity/be incorporated, and on the retirement of Margaret and Cheryl, voted in a new working committee to lead the club into its next chapter. On 9 September 2020 the club was incorporated and at its first AGM the club’s working committee was voted in as the first management committee of the Shorncliffe Pottery Club Inc, with President Tamara Vitale and Vice President Ken Bull.