A LEGACY OF SERVICE
Celebrating the Volunteers of the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg:
For more than a century, the story of the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg has been a story of music, but it has also been a remarkable story of volunteerism.
Since the earliest days of the Club, generations of dedicated women and community members have given freely of their time, talents, knowledge, and energy to ensure that music and musicians could flourish in Winnipeg. Behind every concert, scholarship, competition, reception, newsletter, meeting, and special event have been volunteers quietly doing the work necessary to make it happen.
They have served on Boards and committees, sold tickets, welcomed audiences, balanced books, kept minutes, maintained archives, prepared programs, raised funds, secured sponsorships, promoted concerts, hosted visiting artists, organized receptions, awarded scholarships, and undertaken countless other task, many of which would never be noticed by an audience enjoying a beautiful performance.
And they did it because they believed in the importance of music.
That volunteer commitment has allowed the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg not only to endure, but to grow and evolve. Through changing times, wars, economic challenges, social change, new technologies, and generations of changing audiences and musicians, volunteers have remained at the heart of the organization.
Their efforts have helped bring exceptional artists to Winnipeg stages and have supported young musicians as they began their careers. From the establishment of our Scholarship Program in 1915 to the development of the WMC McLellan Competition for Solo Performance with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, so many of the Club’s accomplishments have been made possible because individuals were willing to step forward and say, in effect, “I can help.”
Sometimes that help involved a major undertaking. Sometimes it was simply stuffing envelopes, making a telephone call, greeting someone at the door, selling a ticket, recording a decision, or carrying a box. Taken individually, these contributions might have seemed small. Taken together over more than a century, they created an extraordinary legacy.
And now, in 2026, the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg is about to take another important step in its history.
In October, the WMC will welcome its first paid employee, who will serve as our Artistic and Administrative Director.
This is a significant milestone for our organization. Yet rather than signaling an end to our tradition of volunteerism, it represents something quite different: the strength of what our volunteers have built has made this next chapter possible.
Our new Artistic and Administrative Director will bring dedicated professional support to the artistic and administrative work of the Club, while volunteers will continue to provide something equally irreplaceable—the passion, knowledge, history, relationships, and spirit of service that have sustained the WMC for generations.
It is fitting, therefore, that as we welcome our first employee, we also pause to recognize those who came before.
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