Address
given by Marjorie Thatcher at the Open House for the renovated Rudolf Steiner
Centre in North Vancouver,
on October 21, 2012:
On behalf of the anthroposophical community
in Vancouver and the Board of the Rudolf Steiner Centre Association, I welcome
you most warmly to this open house marking the completion of the subdivision
and renovation of our strata.
The difficulty of finding tenants, the need
for renovation, and the desire of our last tenants to purchase the space they
were renting from us led to our decision to subdivide. Five years ago at a
meeting of our association, when agreed to begin this process, someone said,
"It will be a piece of cake and take only a few months." It proved to
be quite a cake and gave us several bouts of indigestion during this five year
process!
When we began, the strata council and
management said it was not possible for us to divide a business strata. Yet
with the help of a lawyer and a number of consultants, the subdivision and sale
were completed in February 2011. Aspects of the strata complex challenged us,
and we are grateful to our former tenants who worked with us to meet these
obstacles and shared equally in the costs incurred.
We could now proceed with renovating the
Centre itself. Many in our community were involved moving out the contents of
the Centre, then moving them back in. On behalf of the Board, we thank them. An
special thank you goes to Bert Chase, who served as architect, artist, and
project manager. He steered us through the whole of this process and you can
now see the result of his work.
We
are fortunate to own a centre in Canada devoted to the work of
anthroposophy. It is with gratitude that we acknowledge Steven and Helga Roboz,
along with others who in 1969 founded the first Centre on West 4th Avenue in Vancouver. We are building on their legacy. In the late 1980's
the Centre moved to a house on Keith
Road in North
Vancouver. Then, due to zoning restrictions on that
site, we moved to this location in the Delbrook Plaza.
Rhoda Meier and Mary Speck worked to make that move possible. We thank them for
finding and first creating this space that has served us for many years.
May this renovated and beautiful space,
with its large library and kitchen make possible new opportunities for anthroposophical
activity. We trust that everyone will contribute to support it.
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