Tentative steps..

....Here goes.....

Thanks to Doug's encouragement in December to all Trustees to 'make the Drake blog your homepage' and Anna's meticulous instructions I'm HOPING everyone will see my first venture into blogging!

For those of you who don't know me I am a Trustee of Drake Music and had a longstanding relationship with the organisation as a tutor and trainer in London, the Midlands and the north of the country in the 90s prior to joining the Board.

I'm now a freelance consultant, trainer and project manager working across the W Midlands out of Birmingham and advocate our work at every opportunity (which are many!).

I can't wait to hear how Charlotte's trip to Norway has gone, or the outcomes of lots of the activity that's happening all over the country.

Anna tells me I have to write my name at the bottom so I'll say good bye for now.

Clare Smith

SW update for Jan 2009

Here's a quick update from Doug on work in the South West.  We've had a whirlwind start to the year:

Claremont

Alex and Jonathan have turned  the brand new sensory room at Claremont Secondary school into a multimedia Reggae Spaceship for this term's group music sessions!

St. Rose's

St. Rose's school have confirmed that they can fully fund us for the rest of this academic year, which means that in addition to delivering the NOCN course pilot with Bradley Warwick, Alex can now join Jonathan each Tuesday to deliver a full program of group and individual music sessions, working towards the St. Rose's school PROM concert in July.

NOCN Music Course Pilot

The NOCN course is going well. Bradley and Jonathan have nearly finished the first unit (notation) and we have adapted the Grid 2 set up originally designed for Charlotte so that Bradley can compose in Sibelius using 2 head switches. We are working hard on a funding bid to Esmée Fairbairn to continue the Curriculum Development Initiative, as part of which Jonathan has been hitting the phones to the QCA and all major exam boards to get an update on the current state of access to accreditation for disabled pupils. As per the last time we did this, the results are still very patchy. For example, WJEC seem pretty switched on while Edexcel seem extremely unhelpful, even obstructive. We are also talking to NAME about the possibility of presenting on Access to Accreditation for disabled pupils at this year's conference in September. Jonathan will be delivering a lecture / presentation to PGCE music students at Bristol Uni on Thurs 22nd Jan as the first phase of our partnership with Bristol Uni to increase awareness of access issues among PGCE music students. This is definitely something we could look to extend around the country (Manchester, London, E-Mids and more.)

Sing Up / Drake Music partnership

We have almost completed the Clicker 5 and VOCA (Voice Output Communication Aid) resources for the Sing Up pilot project. Our workshop space at Claremont has resembled a programming production line at points over the last couple of weeks with Alex working alongside Hannah, Katie and Nikki of PCAS (Paediatric Communication Aids Service) to render 'Alice The Camel', 'Senwa Dedende' and 'Old MacDonald' (among others) in fully accessible, digital form. We met with a host of people from Sing Up and Faber Music today to test out the resources and to plan delivery of the pilot project. They're delighted with the resources - the pilot is scheduled to run in 4 schools (tbc) throughout the South West from May and the resources will be available to download from the Sing Up Song Bank from September. Alex and I will also be presenting on our work with Sing Up as well as running a series of workshops at at a Singing Conference to be held at the Colston Hall, Bristol on 4th February.

Royalty

The new Wooden Spoon building (which we share with PCAS at Claremont school) was opened today by The Princess Royal. I couldn't attend as the Sing Up/Faber meeting couldn't be re-scheduled, so Jonathan had a shave, shook the moth-balls of his suit and schmoozed with HRH.

BAMS funding?

We are in the process of organising a series of music sessions in Bristol SEN schools funded by Bristol Arts & Music Service under the Wider Opportunities scheme. If it comes off this will be the first time that the LEA has directly funded our work in Bristol. Fingers crossed...

Nordlysfestivalen

Doug & Charlotte are off to Tromsø in Norway from 20th to 27th Jan to attend the Northern Lights Music Festival as guests of the SKUG centre and Tromsø University. Charlotte has written 3 pieces for the opening performance of the Festival which have been pre-recorded (by musicians at Tromsø University) to accompany a dance piece based on the Norwegian Fairy tale of Havmannens sønn. You can listen to the recordings here, here, and here! As well as attending various concerts we'll be giving presentations to the Music Dept at the University and also at Tromsø music college. I'll try and post some photos of the trip here soon.

I think that's about it - back to the funding apps.

Doug

Find you Talent! Festival

Hi everyone,

Drake Music will be present at the Find your Talent! Festival at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Tower Hamlets on the 16th and 17th January 2009, 10:30-17:00. The festival is aimed at young people in the borough to discover opportunities in the creative sector which is represented by local arts and cultural organisations.
Anna and I will represent Drake Music with stand on both days with info material and case studies about what we do and who we are. Also, I am very excited to announce that Anya and Victoria, two of our associate musicians and trainees in our project Connecting Across Difference will be performing there. Victoria is going to sing classical, jazz and modern songs and Anya will showcase her electronic portfolio using Soundbeam and Kaoss Pad.

How exciting! If you want to check out the website of Find you Talent! festival: www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/findyourtalent

Have a nice weekend everyone,
Christine :-)

Happy New Year from the East Mid's!

Just wanted to say hello and wish everyone a 'fundraising success' for 2009! Lot's to do.. Lot's to see.. Lot's to wish for.. and Lot's to gain!

Havmannens sønn music

Just want to share some music with you.

This is one of the pieces that Charlotte is writing for the opening ceremony of the Northern Lights music festival in Tromsø, Norway in January. She composed it in Sibelius (using The Grid 2 and a Smartnav hands-free mouse) and it was recorded by musicians in Tromsø.

The boy in the story of  Havmannens søn has just turned into a seagull and flown away, so his mother's not too happy: listen

Doug

 

Dosh..!

Never enough of it!  heard to day Motorail are giving us some money to finish the album with Harry Head! I was crying into my G n T on Friday as 'computer says no' from the Awards For All people on that one so this has given me hope... Just wanted to share my news with you all.. have a great week!

BBC Children in Need bid

Hello Everybody.

I would like to invite discussion regarding our current bid to Children in Need that we are working on. The next deadline is 15 January, and it would be ideal if we could try and submit something before this, but if not, the next is 15 April. (There is a three month selection process between submission dates and the awarding of grants).

We would like to submit a further bid for the next financial year and for the next two following financial years of an 'interregional nature' - where in the first year of a project's running, the project starts in one region, as a 'model of good practice'. The merits of this project would then be used to establish it in a second region, so that the project consequently has two centres of operation. The following year, the project in the new location would then also become a 'model of good practice', and the merits of this would consequently be used to establish the project in a third location, and so on.

Today I spoke to our contact at the South West Office in Bristol, who remembered Drake Music - we were awarded a grant for 06-07 and 07-08 (for work in South West - I believe that they funded the south west prior to this too). Our contact advised me that although we were technically eligible for support, the committee are growing more stringent against awarding grants for work in schools, especially that which 'takes' pupils out of lessons.

Obviously it is more difficult to organise projects that fall outside of school hours and buildings.

As regional project managers, do you have any ideas about what we could do? Any thoughts and ideas regarding this would be extremely welcome! Do please use the blog to share them and help shape the bid.

For more information on the official guidelines and application systems, check http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/grants/guidance.pdf
it is a lengthy document but is well indexed.

Thank you all.
Roseanna