Project Evaluator joins the Blog

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to the blog, Jane.  I'm hoping that the blog will be good source of evaluation evidence for the project.

I'm looking forward to visiting the next Heartbeats session on 8th March.

Local giving

See our presence on the local giving site here.
Encourage people to donate! Donations will be matched by Somerset Community Foundation.....

Linkto the Soundscape page

I am organising my co-working visits to SRYP's Soundscape project in Woolavington. Soundscape is funded by Youth Music too.
SRYP and Count Me In are working together through co-supervision, skillshare swaps and constructive feedback.
There are some excellent pictures of the Soundscape project on the SRYP website.

Why I love Heart Beats

I love Heart Beats because this week -

• I have met and played music with eight young people who had never played together before;
• I have met a whole load of super Mums and Dads, and played music with some of them too;
• I have worked with two top class music leaders;
• I have worked with three gifted young trainees / peer mentors;
• I have been assisted by our super-cool support assistant;
• New people are asking if they can join in;
• Two kind people have given us one Yamaham flute, one lime green DanElectro guitar and one red Gretsch guitar for us to use in workshops;
• and because it's been so a looooong journey to get to this point - getting on with it and playing music is what we want to do now.

Really enjoyed meeting everyone on thursday and listening to some great music! looking forward to the next session! :-)

Heart Beats session warms hearts!

Thanks to everyone who came last night and made it such a special session. What a lot of good listening, playing and turn taking.
Extra thanks to a superstar team of young musicians, Sophia, Iona and Declan.
It was a joy to end the evening listening to Mark play his hammered dulcimer.
We're looking forward to our next session on March 8th.

Things are hotting up

Just putting together some paperwork for our first session this Thursday evening.
Exciting! Bring it on!

Geoffrey - a Heart Beats team member

This is Geoffrey - a team member of Count Me In and a volunteer for the Heart Beats sessions.
Geoff says 'I live in Glastonbury and I play music. My instruments are djembe, melodeon and didgeridoo. I learn music by listening to it. My other interests are painting and travelling to countries that take part in the Eurovision Song Contest.'

Instruments

People are getting in touch and offering us instruments they have but no longer play. Isn't that amazing? Pass this good idea on!

Trainees

We have two trainee posts on the Heart Beats project.
It's meet the trainees day tomorrow. We have so many talented young people interested .... we're going to have a great taster session meeting them all, hoping that everyone who comes will take something away which is worth having, even if they don't get the 'job'.
It may be cold outside, but things are certainly hotting up in Heart Beats land!