West Point Grey Community Centre At Aberthau

West Point Grey Community Centre at Aberthau is all the way in the West end near Kits Beach. It’s a simple little gym full of toys and cars for kids to go nuts on.
The gym as well as the toys were in clean working condition. There’s a good amount of parking spaces and the helper wasn’t bad. I didn’t see them interact with the kids too much, but they made sure everything was in working order.

This past Saturday morning, a couple girlfriends and myself awoke at the *completely* uncharacteristic hour of 7:30am in order to beat the rush for the annual Aberthau Pottery Club Christmas sale!
Perhaps if you’re like me, you assumed that starting your very own pottery collection went hand in glove with a certain level of disposable income and maturity. ie: is there a remote chance that someone will end up vomiting tequila into this casserole dish? Well then, can’t say it’s worth the $ 70 it’s goin’ for.
Not so at Aberthau! This group of potters are amazingly talented and to the untrained eye, their ‘sale day’ works are a bargain and a half. What I could gather from the Aberthau sale was that the works on display tend to have some minor deviation (like a pottery freckle or lack of even glaze distribution) which marks them not worthy of full price-​hood. For this reason, the group holds these sale days where they are able to unload these deviant pieces on the cheap. And I mean: CHEAP! My mother load on Saturday consisted of: two wood fired raspberry coloured coffee mugs (hand painted, thank ya), a deep dish bright yellow casserole bowl, pear coloured fruit platter, green/​turquoise triangle shaped serving bowl and a tiny purple/​blue (guacamole) dish all for $ 58! Even the ladies wrapping up my loot were amazed at the deals i’d unearthed and did the addition repeatedly!
I was also really impressed with how friendly and warm all the people in this potters guild were! I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a bit of a clique of potters and potters friends and potter-​hanger-​ons based on this small, tight knit group but everyone we interacted with seemed really thrilled to share their art and let us know about upcoming pottery classes etc.
These folks are potting with a conscience too! ¼ of sales go to community programs.
A few insider tips for your Aberthau experience:
1. Treat this like a marathon. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Don’t bring your coffee mug along though… you’ll need that hand to clutch a $ 15 tea pot!
2. Bring a huge canvass sack so that you aren’t limited to what you can carry in two arms alone. The system at Aberthau is that everything is laid out in 2 – 3 rooms and you grab everything you’re intending to purchase and head to the check out where your goods will be wrapped and parceled up for you.
3. The cash only lines were much less busy than the cheque/​cash lines. No credit cards accepted as far as I could see!
4. Be in line early. You’d think these tough ol’broads were lining up for Tony Bennett tickets!