Frequently Asked Questions
Cancellations
We know that you can't always control your calendar, and that things go wrong. Our policy is:
· If you cancel your class more than 28 days before the start date then a full refund will be issued (less a £10 admin fee).
· If you cancel your class between 28 and 14 days before the start of the class 50% of the class cost will be refunded (less a £10 admin fee).
· If you cancel your class less than 14 days before the start of the class (and we can't fill your place) no refund will be given.
Please bear in mind that we are a very small business, and re-scheduling loses us money, as we can't then take other bookings on the new date.
If things change at the last minute, we'd expect you to act like you would with a cinema or a gig booking and send a friend in your place.
By all means ask us nicely if there's another time we can do, but please understand that this isn't always possible, and try to treat us like you would any other business where you need to book and pay in advance. Thanks!
Accessibility
Our studio is in our loft!
We hate not being properly accessible, and we'd love to change it one day (if we ever can), but there's absolutely nothing we can do about it at the moment. You will have to be able to get up two flights of stairs (however slowly).
So sorry if this is a disappointment or frustration for you. There might be things we can do with mobile one-off workshops, so email us if you have any great suggestions for this area of development - we'd love to hear your ideas!
Firing costs
We don't charge for firing pieces made in a one-off workshop as those costs are factored into the price of a workshop.
For course work we do charge 85p per 100g of finished fired work. All pottery schools and classes charge for firing, and the fairest format seems to be to do it by weight.
Essentially this allows students to have as bold and grand a vision for their pieces as they like (within some reason!).
The kiln costs a great deal of money in electricity to fire, and so space in it is limited. It's about space as well as mass, so if you make something very tall and thin or very large we'll also end up having a chat about kiln firing costs.
So you have a rough idea of what to expect, most students end up paying between £10-£25 at the end of a course. If it looks like it'll be more, we'll always warn you before you get muddy!
Public holidays
Our course dates are fixed in advance, and are available to view at the bottom of our classes page.
If you're looking at a course and thinking "well they'll obviously take a day off for a bank holiday, or Shrove Tuesday or something", then no. We won't. We'll already have thought about that when we booked the course dates and we'll be expecting the class to happen unless we've told you otherwise,
We already allow for one make-up session per course, and we sometimes get people shuffling classes or attending on a different day, so if you've got a holiday booked, talk to us and we'll work something out!
Parking & Location
We are lucky enough to live in a 'light touch' parking zone, so parking on our street is free in the evenings after 7pm and all day at weekends.
Restrictions apply on weekdays between 11am & 12pm and 6 & 7pm. There are no parking meters you can use, so if your class spans one of these times we will either make space for you on our drive, or can sell you a parking permit for £3.
Our studio/house is fairly central. It's about a 30 minute walk from the seafront/ south lanes, and a 20 minute walk from the station. Lots of buses go past the end of our road, on their way to the universities.
You're jolly expensive! Do you eat caviar sandwiches for lunch?
It's mostly toast. And yep, pottery is rather expensive! There isn't much we can do about it. But we can assure you that no-one gets rich from doing what we do! And if you compare us to others, you'll find everyone is pretty much charging the same thing, or more.
If it helps to explain it: Our expenses are way higher than you'd probably guess, and we spend a lot of time cleaning, glazing, firing, and running the business. Any one of our students makes far more pottery than we do!
It can seem like some people feel like it shouldn't cost as much as it does, but think about it this way: pottery ends up being about half the cost per hour as (cheap) music tuition. And those guys don't have as many overheads!
You just have to think of it like a really lovely treat - which is easy because it is!
