HeartBeats summer party

What a great session last night.

We played some  excellent music, and danced too, with the help of Anna Golding who came up from Bridport to join us.

Sophie and Anna led some beautiful, expressive interpretations of an improvised piece of music.
Geoff and Emma shared their news from Bermuda and Geoff showed us Gombey dancing and rhythms.

Just to add to the mood was the exciting news that Radco have kindly donated us an extra £1000 to help our work.

A BIG cheque

Our next session is September 22nd. Have a good summer everyone!

HeartBeats summer party

One more session before our summer break.
We're meeting at the Lawrence Centre for some great music on Thursday July 14th - this week.

There will be pizza and treats, and we're being joined by Anna Golding who will lead some movement  and dance for us.

See you there.

Goodbye to Esther

Esther has been with us for a year now, both at the Listening Lounge and in the HeartBeats sessions.

We had a Listening Lounge evening out to say thanks to her for all the amazing music and to wish her well as she leaves Wells for a leap forward into higher education. We'll miss the harp and the smiles too. Good luck Esther!

Wells Musicircus

The Wells Musicircus on June 18th was something quite different for us - an outdoors performance, in the company of more than 500 performers all ranged around the beautiful Cathedral Green, with an estimated audience of between 2500 - 3000 people!

Not only did we enjoy playing, and audience participation, but it was a chance to hear some other music too. A great day.

Martina on tongue drum, Sophie on vocals

Mark on the Big Pan

listening to the music

ready to go!

Tom, Martyn. Josh

Josh on the tubes

Tom and Russ setting up

Beautiful! cellos right next to us

DartsFest

We are starting to plan our own festival, to be held next year, to celebrate the end of our project.

Have a look at this one - DartsFest .
It's a 2 day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind.

It's near Exeter if you're thinking of going. 

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpufa

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpuf

A fantastic 2-day festival created with the needs of people with learning disabilities in mind. Live music, workshops, accessible facilities and more. - See more at: http://www.ahsw.org.uk/diary.aspx?id=1885#sthash.RSMs1aBN.dpuf

Wiltshire Music Connect are running a SEND music day

If you are free on July 16th , in Wiltshire, and want some inspiration, then this is the place to be :  Alex is speaking, and you can watch the SW Open Youth Orchestra perform.

Wells Music Circus

This Saturday we'll be in Wells for the enormous, ambitious Music Circus. The city will be full of live music.

Please join us if you can - there will be some empty chairs and some spare instruments.

We'll be outside the Music School on the Cathedral Green, next to the Museum. Our slots are 11.15 - 11.30, and 12.10 to 12.25.

At 12.30 everyone involved will be singing 'All you need is Love' together, and then we're all having a picnic together on the Cathedral Green.

We'll have plenty of lovely instruments with us for you to play.

Radco's year of support for our work

We often mention our major funders, Youth Music. But it's important to remember that their funds are matched by smaller amounts from others, too. It's a vital part of keeping our work going.

Count Me In have been the Radstock Co-Ops 'charity of the year' and they've taken a real interest in what we do. We've been grateful for their generous donations but were totally surprised to get a letter after their recent Gala Evening, saying "thanks to the generosity of our sponsors, guests, business partners and suppliers we raised a fairly significant amount for charities and local community groups. In this respect, we'd like to make a donation to Count Me In / Heartbeats to mark the end of the society's year of supporting the cause."

They also said "we'd like to pay tribute to the great work that Count Me In does in helping people to engage, communicate and express themselves through the medium of music."

So - brilliant news for us. We're looking forward to a visit from them : here's a picture of the last visit.

The Mermaid

Mark has been coming to the Heartbeats music sessions since we first started.
As well as being a dedicated drummer, lovely singer, inventive musician and all round good chap, Mark plays and composes on the hammer dulcimer.

Here he is playing 'The Mermaid'.

How do we know what we do is good enough?

It's not unusual to come away from a session feeling significantly better than when you first entered the building - but how do we actually capture that feeling? Those moments?

Evaluating our work is something that is a constant, ongoing process.
We observe, film, photograph, check that we're on track with aims and anticipated outcomes.

Sometimes it's easy, especially when you know people, to see change or capture 'those moments'.
When you're out and about working with new people, the challenges are more complex.

Recently we ran an outreach workshop with 32 students at a local residential college.
We felt it had been a good day, and we asked staff to give us some feedback.

Staff gave us top marks for meeting needs and getting the groups to work together.
What we did was 'age appropriate' ; 'engaging'; and 'easy to follow'.

The sessions were good!  We had everyone playing :
 'It was amazing to see two students who are normally noise sensitive smiling and really enjoying the session'

It was  'Excellent and brought something out in students that would not normally join in'

and, generally ' I loved it on a personal level and the students really enjoyed it – Thank you it was really fantastic.'
 ' Brilliant!'

Russ and Ben in the mood for a tune or two

Some quick tuning up before sessions

All good then.