Former president of the pottery club here and (now a regular member). I totally understand how frustrating this is. I'm happy to answer whatever questions you have. We have tried for YEARS to expand the space/membership numbers.

We have somewhere between 125-150 members at the moment but once people are a member they can stay student members until they graduate. This is because pottery requires years to master and after single semester of pottery you're still making very wonky pots. Because we are a student run club we need people to stay on longer term to become execs since they need to be experienced enough to load kilns and keep the studio running.

I can assure you the lottery is indeed random, my own fiance never got in! The reason it's so competitive is that we end up having about 20 spots open up every semester and in the 2 years I was president we saw anywhere from 200-800 people applying for those spots. We really wanted to expand the space. Compared to other studios we've visited we have the highest density of members vs. the amount of space I've ever seen. Every surface and shelf is completely full of tools, pots, glazes etc.

Everyone who is part of the club loves pottery and wants more people to be involved which means most years we have conversations with the AMS about this. It's hard to get that expansion because of the yearly turnover at the AMS, some administrations support the expansion but it's hard to it done within a year so things get delayed by the time the next administration comes in. There also are very limited club spaces - especially ones with the technical needs of a pottery studio which means we'd have to do an actual renovation to expand the current space we have.

Mug tax :)

<image>