Sir Ernest MacMillan Fine Arts Club

Sir Ernest MacMillan Fine Arts Club

Sir Ernest MacMillan Fine Arts Club. Founded in 1936 by Marjorie Agnew and other teachers at Templeton Junior High School in Vancouver to foster fine-arts activities among the students. Sir Ernest MacMillan approved the use of his name and maintained an interest in the club's progress as it spread from school to school in Vancouver and other cities, including Whitehorse, YT. On occasion he was a visitor at club functions. Besides literary, visual-art, and dance activities, the club presented concerts and gave music scholarships. It opened the summer season at the Malkin Bowl for many years and presented a total of 30 annual concerts for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Student members were recruited as ushers at Denman Auditorium and the Orpheum Theatre and thus were enabled to hear many notable performers. Marjorie Agnew was the club's driving force throughout its 40-year existence, and it was with her failing health that the club fell dormant in the mid-1970s. Donald Bell, Betty-Jean Hagen, William Littler, Gregory Millar, and Heather Thomson are alumni.