Mike Cocke, Secretary of the Luton Choral Society writes about how they are embracing diversity to grow their membership.Luton Choral Society has a...
Marian Pearson, Chair of Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire Concert Society (SNLCS), tells us how they’re revitalising classical music in their community through building a diverse membership.
SNLCS was formed in 1949 and organises seven concerts each season, engaging a wide variety of internationally recognised artists. Today our membership is made up almost exclusively of white middle-class members over the age of 60. Twenty years ago, our membership was more diverse, but venue changes and societal shifts halved it to around 110 pre-COVID.
Then the pandemic struck! Our increasingly elderly membership dwindled to less than 60 members owing to ill-health and lack of confidence. Sadly, we have no young members at all.
We were surprised to hear that we’d been selected for the INCLUDE programme! Most of the committee that runs the Society had little capacity to add to their workload, so we formed a subgroup comprising six of our younger recently retired members, who are participating in the programme and will feed their findings back to the main committee. It has so far proved extremely valuable, and we have been buoyed by the sub-group’s enthusiasm and the expertise that they have brought to the INCLUDE programme. Their input on how to publicise SNLCS and their creativity has been refreshing!
So, what have we done so far?
We have completed a census comparison survey of the audience members who attended a performance we gave in October 2023. The results of which showed that our audience makeup is broadly in line with the North Lincolnshire demographic except for age groups, although it was a pleasant surprise to find we had more 50–60-year-olds than we thought.
We’ve asked those who have attended our performances for the first time for feedback on accessibility and general audience experience, and we plan to record a video of the premises to assist people who might be unsure about attending for the first time.
The other stand-out feature was that our audience members are highly educated, more so than the norm for North Lincolnshire. The survey results also showed that very few people from one part of Scunthorpe, which is more ethnically diverse than the rest of the area, attend our performances.
Therefore, our main objectives for the INCLUDE programme are to reduce the overall age profile and improve our offering to young people who participate in the Society and attend our performances. We will also work towards encouraging those who live in certain postcodes to attend performances.
We’ve added more information to our website about how we can make performances more accessible to all and researched various tools to measure how inclusive we are. We’ve asked those who have attended our performances for the first time for feedback on accessibility and general audience experience, and we plan to record a video of the premises to assist people who might be unsure about attending for the first time.
We have also worked with the Music Hub to offer local students an opportunity to take a masterclass with our artists. It has been interrupted recently but we’re looking at resuming this soon!
As part of our next steps, we hosted an inclusive event on 3 March with local music groups to facilitate the development of ‘Musical North Lincs’ – a network of leisure-time music groups in North Lincolnshire. The groups shared information about what they do, signposted to each other’s groups, and pooled ideas for widening participation. We will also host a celebration of music locally for Make Music Day on 21 June. We are looking forward to engaging with other music groups locally – far more than we had thought! The Day is taking shape slowly and we hope that local groups will participate, particularly students from the two local sixth form colleges, as it will provide us with opportunities to engage people who may not have come across classical music before and to share information about what’s available locally.
The INCLUDE programme offers us a rare opportunity to gain advice and support in expanding our membership. By having outside expertise, we hope to be able to 'future-proof' the Society and keep classical music alive in Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire.
Find out more about SNLCS on their website.
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