? Kia ora from me, the Ceramics Association of New Zealand Vice President and interim newsletter editor Nicole Gaston. Welcome to my newsletter debut!

In this issue we put a call out for expressions of interest in joining our Executive Council, as well as a heads up about an upcoming strategic review and invitation to participate in a survey, along with updates from around the regions.

There’s also an update about our next issue of Ceramics New Zealand Magazine and a welcome to our new Auckland council member, Siriporn Falcon-Grey!

Most importantly, a huge thank you to Elizabeth Martindale for her work on these newsletters over the last year.   Elizabeth is moving on to new projects and we wish her the best of luck!  Thankfully she has agreed to stay on in a reduced capacity for the time being for which we are extremely grateful.

Despite being Vice-President of Ceramics Association of New Zealand (CANZ) for nearly 5 years this is my first time writing anything for our newsletter so a lot of you might not recognise my name or face.  In addition to my role as CANZ Vice-President I am also a studio potter based in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara alongside my day job as the Library & Research Manager at Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School.  While the roles of President and Executive Director remain vacant for the time being I am the defacto head of CANZ council as well as interim newsletter editor, so hopefully you enjoy this issue!

Unsurprisingly many members of our community are finding the increasing cost of living difficult to manage alongside balancing a career in the arts and voluntary work for arts organisations such as CANZ or local pottery clubs.  Our council is made up entirely of volunteers, all of whom are passionate about supporting the wider ceramics community in New Zealand.  They contribute to the functioning of the association (now in it’s 66th year!), the publication of the magazine, this newsletter, our social media channels, the touring potter programme and other events.  This is all in addition to their full time work, art practice, family, and some of them even have other hobbies!  If this sounds like the kind of challenge you’re up for please consider joining CANZ council! We have vacancies for not only the President role, but also Regional Council Members for Northland and Marlborough.  If you are interested in helping out but perhaps not in any of those roles we also welcome expressions of interest for Special Advisors to council, which are elected roles and can help contribute to governance and operations of CANZ.

This is an exciting time to be a part of CANZ — Executive Council have engaged Briar Monro to carry out a strategic review of our organisation to guide us and we are about to undertake a nationwide survey of the sector to inform our planning for 2023-2028.  More details on this review and the upcoming survey, along with updates from around the regions are all included in this newsletter.

Currently our plan is to publish this newsletter every other month.  That means the next issue will be coming to you in July — if you have any events or news you’d like included please get in touch!