Making Music

This year our AGM will be followed by member meet-up - this is your association, we are always interested in hearing from you!

Both events will be online with a short break in between. We expect the AGM to run from 6pm to 6.30pm and the meet up to be 6.40pm to 7.45pm.  You can book to attend just the AGM, just the meet-up, or both, using the links below.  

AGM

98% of Making Music members have a music professional leading their group – but how to find and engage the right individual, and what are the different models of how music directors and committees work together? 

Making Music will talk about some of the practical help we have to help you find the right musical leader for your group: our Musical Vacancies tool, template contract, the fee results from the Big Survey 2022, and our ‘Searching for a Music Director’ resource. 

To fully include everyone in our music activities, we need to understand the barriers that stop people from attending, taking part or progressing. In the Conversation about inclusion series of events, hear about the issues from the perspective of those who directly experience barriers and discuss what we can do to change things from within our own music groups.

If you’d like your group and your audience to be more diverse and inclusive, thinking about how you recruit and welcome people is crucial. And if you want to increase your membership and your audiences, recruiting and welcoming new people in a way that is inclusive means you’ve more chance of success. Whatever your driver, there are actions you can take that will remove the barriers to joining your activity and provide access to more people. 

You may never have considered becoming a trustee and may not know much about what it involves: find out more at this event about how your skills and experience could help Making Music and what you would be expected to do.

Making Music is a charity and 9 of its (maximum 14) trustees are elected by and from the membership. They are ultimately responsible for the charity and help set the strategic direction of Making Music and oversee its work.  

The topic we receive the most queries about is PRS. What is PRS, how do you pay it and just why is it so complicated?

In this session, we’ll clear up some of the mysteries and help you to understand how, when and where you need to make your PRS payments, and what you need to consider when performing live, sharing sheet music and broadcasting performances online. We'll also explain the new classical music tariff, and the 50% discount for leisure time music groups.

We'll talk about:

Over the last 20 years governments have introduced various creative tax reliefs to enable organisations to claim back some of their production costs. Two of these – Orchestra Tax Relief and Theatre Tax Relief – are already being used by Making Music members to claim back an average 23% of their concert and event costs. Especially now that a higher rate of relief has been made permanent in the spring budget, these tax reliefs can make a significant contribution to groups’ budgets and facilitate growth and activity.

Picking up on the discussion in the last Climate Change Network meeting in November, we are hoping that music groups will come and share where they have found or are looking for funding for climate-related projects, e.g. commissioning specific repertoire, changing their practice, etc.

Running your group is a rewarding but challenging role. Our regular meetups are a chance for you to meet and share learning and ideas with other Wales groups facing similar challenges, explore specific issues affecting leisure-time music making in Wales and consider how we can work collaboratively to find solutions and advocate for the sector. 

Stephen McNally, Wales manager, will be leading this session.

N.B. this event was originally scheduled to take place on 24th January but will now be taking place on 31 January.

In this meetup we'll: