Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Hello! And welcome to this webinar from making music on inclusion and access. My name is Barbara Eifer, and I'm the chief executive of making music, making music is the Uk Association for leisure time music groups of all kinds. And we have about 4,000 member groups
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: in memberships throughout the Uk. We cover all 4 nations.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and they are anything from brass bands to orchestras to choirs of all kinds.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: We provide our members with a range of services, lots of practical support to help them run their group. We connect them to each other. We also run a lot of Zoom Events for our members about one a week.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and finally, we are the voice of the sector to policymakers
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: to prevent any inappropriate regulation coming in, and also proactively to campaign for things that we think would make it easier for groups to operate.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So that's just a quick introduction. And, as I say, I'm Barbara, and I'm the CEO at making music. I've been here for about 10 years, and with me is my colleague Elizabeth, who will just say a few things about her role.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Hello, yeah, I'm Elizabeth Palmer. And I'm the inclusion focus program manager for making music. Which basically means I'm managing the delivery of our include program which I'll be talking about a bit later today in more detail.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Great. Thank you, Elizabeth. So now we we'll start with.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: There's a webinar and I will be sharing my screen
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: if you bear with me for a second.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Oh.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: oh.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: okay.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So, Elizabeth, just tell me if you can see that. Okay.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Yeah. All good.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: great. Thank you. So this webinar is on welcoming and including new people in your band and we'll be talking. There's 2 parts to this, and part one is me talking about the principles of access and inclusion. I'll be talking about identifying barriers to people taking part in your band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and then I'll be talking about what you could do to start removing barriers.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And then, in part 2. Elizabeth will talk about the include program which is about working in depth with 4 leisure time music groups.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So she will talk about the learning that we have so far one year in from this project.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the 1st thing I want to do is talk about access and inclusion principles and you might
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: wonder why I'm talking about that. But if you are talking about welcoming new people to your band you need to possible make it possible for them to access your band, and then you need to make them feel included when they do join. So what are the definitions of access and inclusion? It's the work that creates accessible and inclusive activity
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: accessible means that any barriers that would prevent a person attending and fully participating are removed.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and being inclusive means that all people are included equally, and everyone feels welcome and valued.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: equality, diversity, and inclusion is what you will often hear the the recovery that's used.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But it's both a principle on how you operate, and it's an end goal of what you're trying to achieve. So equality is about fairness, equality of opportunity without discrimination.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Diversity means that you are looking at respecting and celebrating difference and reflecting your community, whatever that community is, and that will look different in different parts of the Uk.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And inclusion is
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the principle that everyone is welcome and valued, that some people aren't treated differently.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so what are the benefits of taking action? And this is where I come back to the title of this webinar
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: of the obvious one is to prevent discrimination. And whether you're
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: volunteer Run group, a small charity or a large organization. It is an organization's responsibility to prevent discrimination.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But actually,
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: in terms of how it can help your band. It's about encouraging recruitment.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: You want to welcome new
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: participants to your band. Well, maybe there are barriers that they are facing that you are unaware of, and that you could remove to increase that recruitment.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: 8. Can also help you improve retention and retaining your current participants.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: because they may face, changing circumstances. In their life, in their work, in their physical ability, as they stay with you in the band. And how can you make sure that you can accommodate that, and
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: keep them part of your band for as long as possible, and everyone really benefits from this work. The participants, obviously
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: their families, their friends, neighbors, and the community that you offer such valuable
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: service to, with the music that you make
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: by the way, we are going to share the slides alongside this recording as well, and the the links that you see in the corner of some of the slides. They are all live ones, that you can go and have a look at.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So one of the things that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: often happens is that when you look at who should take action on accessing inclusion, that people nominate one person.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: person then sort of carries the full responsibility. But is that the right thing?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Probably not because it's something that needs to pervade the whole organization. Yes, the committee or the board, whatever they're called in your band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: They need to provide the leadership from the top. They need to set the policies.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: That could help with this work. But then the people who are on the ground every week in rehearsals.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: They need to help with identifying and removing barriers.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So I'll just give you an example from my own band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So I now have hearing aids.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and I can't wear those
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you will not be surprised to hear during a brass band rehearsal, because that would be too loud, but then I struggle sometimes to hear the conductor. So that is a bit of a barrier for me, and probably for the conductor, because I keep having to ask my neighbour, you know which is the next piece, or what bar are we going from?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So so it's the the people who are organizing rehearsal and the conductor and me. So the organizers on the ground that need to identify what the barriers are, and potentially find solutions like the conductor wearing a mic.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the leaders, the. So that's the conductors or or other leaders of the group carry out any actions that you might have identified.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But everyone really needs to
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: think about accommodating differences and adapting your behavior to including everybody.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I want to talk about identifying barriers which may be not the approach that you're used to.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So I will refer back, even though this is not exclusively about disability to the social model of disability.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And this is
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: as defined by scope, the disability, equality, charity.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the social model of disability says that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their impairment or difference.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So barriers can be physical, like buildings not having accessible toilets.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or they can be caused by people's attitudes to difference.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the social model helps us recognize barriers that make life harder for disabled people. Removing these barriers creates equality and offers disabled people more independence, choice, and control.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So this is why we
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: like this
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: social model is because it gives
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you control, and the person that is experiencing a barrier control and barriers are things that can be identified and removed.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: In a very practical way. And
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I feel that you are probably the same as many of our member groups in that you're very practically looking for solutions
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: that will make the environment in your band more accessible.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So let's talk about potential barriers. They could be physical. This is the thing that people always immediately think of, you know, in terms of disabled access it could be transport, you know. People don't have cars, whereas the public transport to your rehearsal. Venue it could be about the venue or the room layout.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you know. Is it? The acoustics is the lighting terrible it could be about equipment.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: It could be other practical barriers like the cost of taking part in your group, though I know that lots of brass bands don't have a subscription model.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Lots of our members do have that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: it could be timings, you know. Are you? You know, able to accommodate. You know, people with with young family or working patterns that that these days aren't as regular as they might have been 2030, 40 years ago.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: communication and communication methods could be a practical barrier depending on whether you have food or drink at your rehearsals. Could that be a barrier. But there's also cultural barriers.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Do you use jargon? That is difficult for other people to understand. Well, I'm here to tell you that you do, because when I 1st joined the brass band
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I had no idea for some of the time what the conducting is talking about. I know now, because I've been there for 6 years. But so that that was definitely a thing that people weren't aware of, because
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the others were also steeped in this, that they didn't realize that.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: It was not vocabulary that would be known to everybody.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And similarly, there are other assumptions, maybe that. We don't realize we? We make, you know that certain knowledge or touch behaviors? in rehearsals or performances, indeed, that that we have.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: who is disadvantaged by barriers. So this is interesting. Obviously, the people who have protective characteristics, groups protected under the Equalities Act
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: that recognizes 9 different things, age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So those are protected under the equalities act.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: 2 things just to note, there isn't a single one of us
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: who isn't doesn't fall under one of those protected characteristics.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so you know, I could be discriminated against because I'm a woman, or because of my age.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or because of a medical condition that prevents me from doing certain things. So that's the other thing that you will immediately know that there's often an overlapping and intersection between those things.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Someone isn't just old. They also might have other protective characteristics.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But there are other things that we feel that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you know you, you need to take note of. And these may be low income.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: caring responsibilities and neurodiversities which could also.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you know, provide barriers to people who might want to come and join your band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so I'm giving here a couple of really small examples for you to to kind of get your head around thinking on in the barriers way. So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the barrier might be that the hall that use rehearsals is on the edge of town, so that could be a barrier, because it's hard to get to on public transport, and maybe for the 1st time it's hard to find when you come the 1st time, and that might be a barrier for a person who has impaired mobility, someone with anxiety issues someone of low income, someone who's new to town and can't find you. Okay.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so it's a really small
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: thing, or it may seem small.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But actually, it can be a real barrier to to people.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: another example is so we have an information sheet to give people who come for the 1st time.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and that could be a barrier to people who can't read it.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and therefore won't see this important information, or so it could be a barrier for people who are visually impaired, people who are dyslexic people who don't read English
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: people who can't hold the sheet.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So why identify the barrier? Not the challenge?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: As I said before, a barrier is something that you can take action to address or remove.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and you can be really specific about the barriers you address.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: It also
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: respects a person's right to privacy.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: what you're asking them is, what is the barrier? What is the practical thing that's stopping you attending? You're not asking about
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the medical history
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or their mental health history, or anything like that.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And so it allows a person to have control over their environment. They are given the option of you. You can get to the hall in this, that, or the other way. You can have the information about the group in these 3 different ways. And the other thing
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: about barriers is that you might remove the barrier for someone
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: who really struggles with
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: severe dyslexia.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But actually, you might also.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: by doing that, remove the barrier for people who haven't said anything about the fact that they find it a struggle to read information, or that they've got some other issue. So, in other words, removing a barrier will actually make it easier for a load of other people who maybe haven't told you about their barriers.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I thought it would be worth talking as well about the common barriers to arts participation that have been identified by the Department for culture media and sports participation survey. So these are the latest data for the 2023, 2024 year.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: There are 2 biggies that are not included here, which is, I'm not interested
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or no reason in particular. Now, these aren't things that you are able to do something about. So we're focusing here on the other
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: issue challenges that they've identified.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: is, as you will see, the highest percentage is actually cost
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and I feel that brass bands probably score really well on that, because participating usually doesn't cost anything or costs very little.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And you also often have influence to lend to people.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But yeah, so think about cost.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I don't have time now.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Obviously, everybody has 24 h in the day. So it's about prioritizing and fitting around the rest of your life's commitments. So it's about time, or timing or flexibility.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: You know how often you rehearse a week. What are the hours that you rehearse.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: You know. Do you have different groups rehearsing at different times? So it's about all these things. We have some groups now that operate only on every second weekend, for instance. But there are still plenty that do regular rehearsals. But how many nights a week are you rehearsing?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: The other. Big one, interestingly, is disability. So I have a health problem or disability. So a lot of people don't feel confident or able to take part in a group when actually they probably could.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Because
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: a lot of
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: disabilities are not a person in a wheelchair. I think of disabled people. It's something like 8% are actually
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: people who use a wheelchair.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But there's lots of disabilities that affect people in different ways and can be you know, accommodated really in a band. And specifically, I'd also like to mention here. The only trust which is an organization that provides adaptive instruments
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: to people, including being able to hire certain instruments for adult
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: musicians. So I'm thinking, someone who had a stroke and can now not play the cornet with 2 hands where there are adapted instruments that you can hire
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or by.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: The other thing is, I don't know what is available. That's about information.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So again, that's about you thinking about how you make that information available to your local community, I don't have anyone to go with is a really interesting one.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and hopefully will make you think about how you encourage people to come, how you welcome them. What, what are the strategies that you use? Recently I was at a festival, a choral festival in that instance, and there were some groups there. They have a monthly
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: sort of casual drop-in singing and they encourage
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: current members of the choir to turn up with a friend.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So that gets around that 1st
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: time of getting over a threshold.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I've already talked a little bit about, you know. The group might be difficult to get to. Where's the venue? The travel? Is it convenient?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And then, and I think that's a new question I would feel out of place. So that's a cultural thing. How would you
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: maybe explain your musical activity to people who've never taken part in it.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the other thing is about how you find out about barriers and some of the ways that people talk about barriers is not immediately obvious. You know someone
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: says I might need to miss a week. Is that okay?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: I can't pay for a full time upfront.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you know. That's their subscription. I don't know if I can get into the venue. I don't want to come on my own. Will it be too hard for me. So there's a link there to the resource from creative lives. Who
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: talk about that in more detail. But so, in other words.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you need to be able to listen to your participants and your current
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: any potential new participants
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: to understand what their barriers might be.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So how do you find out about them? Ask people
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so can you, for instance, do an annual survey of your members and find out what their barriers might be or ask people with lived experience. So if you
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: know that there's someone in your group who has a particular impairment, say, you could talk to them about what their barriers are, and what adjustments might be helpful to them.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And also,
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: tell your members.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you are committed to making your activity accessible to everybody.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the other thing is when you ask questions.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: be very specific.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So so that people understand what the practical thing is that you're getting at. So do you have any dietary requirements? Give a list.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: We use sheet music and rehearsals. If you would find this difficult, how can we help
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: it, provide a large print version, provide a digital copy in advance, provide an audio recording support, to learn to read music or improve to read music.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So that's just an example.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so obviously, when should you identify barriers? Yes, when you're designing events, you should always think about that. And if you can ask your audiences. I know that many of you probably don't promote your own concerts because you
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you know, you get booked by promoters to to play. But if you are in control of your own event, then
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: this is what you should do.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But also obviously with your own participants on a regular basis when people join, but also, perhaps on an annual refresher basis, because people's circumstances do change.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So how do you remove barriers? Is the last bit from me.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so think about person-centered solutions.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: This image shows
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: equality
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: in the left hand picture, so that each individual gets the same resource or opportunities. But you can see that actually, this doesn't help
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the middle person or the person on the right to actually see the football game.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So equity is what we're aiming for, which recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the resources and opportunities that they need. So in the picture on the right.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: the person on the left doesn't need a box or anything to stand on to see the game. The person in the middle is quite short, and so she is finding it helpful to have 2 boxes. But the person on the right needs a completely different solution to make it possible for them to see the game. So think about each person, but
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: don't think that means you have to come up with 25 different solutions
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: in a brass band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: because
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: if you remove something for one person, as we said, if you think about a solution for one person, you will have it up your sleeve for someone else, or it will be helpful for someone else.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: as I think you know, the mic for the conductor might be not just for me, helpful. It might be helpful for other people in the band.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so what do we need to tackle a barrier? So knowledge and you need to respect the knowledge of the person experiencing the barrier. If they're telling you that it's a barrier, then it is a barrier.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: It might not be a barrier for you, so that it might surprise you. Perhaps what people find
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: is a barrier for them. But you need to respect that. And there's also lots of representative organizations that can help you. So UN's guide Alzheimer's society. Other links we've got here
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: be creative and flexible.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Explore your own solutions, find what works for your group, for your person, for your venue, for your band
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and embrace. Change.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: This might mean that you slightly change what you have been doing. That you need to adapt it to make different people feel welcome and included in your group.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: But you know, let's face it. We all have change in our lives all the time, and this also applies to your band. I'm sure your band is not the same as it was 50 or 100 years ago, depending on how old it is. And also you do need whole group support. Everybody in your group needs to understand why this is
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: necessary and how they can contribute their bit.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And yeah. So asking people to do small specific tasks
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: that help people, for instance, is a really good way of getting everybody involved.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so the law talks about reasonable adjustments, but reasonable will depend on each situation.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: consider if the adjustment will remove or reduce. The disadvantage is practical. To make is affordable
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: or could create a barrier for someone else.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Okay.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: yeah, the
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: you don't have to
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: be able to adapt to any requirement but
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: ideally, you have a good think about what you can provide for any barrier that you come across.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so a red line might be a barrier. But so how can you turn that into a a pink line? So
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: an example here is you can protect the character of your group, but you can't additionally discriminate.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: My favorite example of that is the
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: London gay men's chorus.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So they are allowed to only accept gay men into their chorus, but it should be.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: oh.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: gay men
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: in London!
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: And that is where their diversity and inclusion work is aiming for
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Auditions and skill requirements are another such red line. So how can you explain what the level is that you need to potential participants without
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: using specific grades, for instance.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: If you do do auditions, can you do them?
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: audition videos, for instance, which might be less nerve wracking for some people. Do you want to be open to everybody but would like them to reach a certain level. Can you give support to upskill people.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Can you start a a second session for beginners if you don't want to turn people away? So these are just some of the
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: ways in which you could handle that.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So let's take example 2.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: We have the information sheet to keep give to people who come for the 1st time, so some solutions could be in a pre attendance survey. The person tells you they use a screen, reader, so you can supply the info information digitally.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: You could send the information as a text document with a welcome email. So people can make their own adaptations. So they might have on their computer and also, can you, you know, get someone to meet
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: a new person at the door so that they can pass along any information in person.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so the 1st step is to make a welcoming start. So obviously, it's hard to get people through the front door in the 1st place. And then how can you make sure that they have a great time on that 1st event, and stay.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So ask about barriers at the 1st contact, and communicate any potential solutions.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Make sure that the welcoming information is accessible in different formats and include access information. And
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: ideally, if you can have a
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: set of buddies who can welcome new people at the door explain to them how the group operates all the direct contact for their queries. So the link at the bottom of this slide is to one of our resources, and if you didn't know before, but brass band, England members are all
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: entitled to be members of making music as well. So it is free, you can just activate your membership.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and then you can access these resources.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: So the last thing I just want to say before I hand over to Elizabeth is.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: communicate your approach.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: If you write an aim for yourself, or a policy about access and inclusion, make sure all your communications carry that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so, in other words, tell people that you are doing this, because that
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: just opening the door and sitting back isn't enough. You need to actually go out through the door and invite people in and tell them that they're welcome to come in, and then please put the kettle on so they really feel welcome.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: and that's it from
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: my side of things. And I've probably massively overrun
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: sorry, Elizabeth, because I
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: couldn't really see the clock at the same time. Okay.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: over to you.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Right. Thank you. Let me get my slides up.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Okay, hopefully, they should be on screen. Now, is that all working.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Yep.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Great. Okay? So yeah. So
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: as I mentioned, I'm going to be talking about our include program in a bit more detail. And I'm going to take you through the process that we followed with the groups we're working with to sort of build their plans of action for their inclusion work. And I've decided to focus on the process we've gone through rather than digging deep into specific topics, because every band is different. Every group is different. So I thought that showing you how we've structured
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: the work with them will be the most useful. And then at the end, I'm gonna I will touch on some of the topics we're exploring, as well as some kind of recommendations that are starting to come out of the project.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So a bit of context to start off with include is a 2 year research program for making music that's been funded by the Arts Council, England. And we're working with 4 of our member groups to explore how they can widen the diversity of their membership or their audiences.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And as I mentioned, yeah, we're really learning alongside them. It's a research project for us. And we're communicating what we learn back to our members through events, through resources. And we have an access and inclusion working group as well that some people join to dig more deeply into these things.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: We started working with them in 2023. And it's gonna go on until March 2025, when we'll kind of loop them into the wider, making music, access and inclusion offer so that they can keep keep working on it with us.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And throughout the whole process we've been guided by a group of people who we've called the Critical friends Advisory Panel. And this is a group of experts and people with lived experience of certain things that just kind of help steer us and help guide us throughout the program. That's been really helpful to work with.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So who are the groups we're working with? We're working with?
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: 4 groups across the country. They're all in leveling up for culture places, and we selected groups that would be representative of our membership across the country.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So in the Midlands we've got great Bowden Recital Trust, who are an organization that have 5 ensembles for adults? But we're focusing on their instrumental ones. So an orchestra, a flute choir, and a carnival drums ensemble.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and their organization's ethos really is about trying to be as inclusive as possible and being accessible for everyone. And they can be.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: We're working with Luton Choral Society, who are a choral society based in Luton. They sing mainly classical classical music, choral music. And
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: yeah, I've been going for a hundred years or so
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: there's out in cancer choir who are based down in West Sussex, and they're a choir for people whose lives have been affected by cancer so similar to what Barbara was mentioning. They're a group that have got a specific
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: group of people that they therefore but within that there's that's, there's a hugely diverse range of people who have been affected by cancer. So although it's specific, it's not really really specific. If that makes sense.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And then and finally, we've got a promoter group who are Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire Concert Society, and they deliver a series of Chamber music concerts in Scunthorpe throughout the year.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So to go through the process that we've followed with them so far. This is how we sort of structured building the plans that they've been working on for the past year, and is definitely a process that you could go through with your band, too. If you decide you want to take on something looking at access and inclusion work in more detail.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So the 1st thing we did is establish a baseline for the groups. So working out. Who are they reaching now, and how this compares to their local community?
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Because when you're planning work like this, you need to know where you're starting from, and kind of what the situation is, is right now, so that you can then decide what action to take. And I think it can be tempting to like jump right in, but actually taking a step back and doing this research at the beginning was really helpful in establishing, establishing where the need was for each of the groups.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So we did a a census comparison survey with every group which is an anonymous demographic survey available to making music members to use
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and asks questions about characteristics like age, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, and other long term health conditions. And the groups did this with their members or for our promoter group. They did it with their audience for one of their concerts, too.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Once we had this data, we then compared it to statistics from the Uk census for their areas, and kind of looked at who? Where it was reflective of the their local town or county, and where it wasn't.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And this helped us to identify some areas of focus for each of the groups which included for one group. It was Eastern European communities for another. It was people under 50. And then another group decided that or realized that they didn't have very many men at all compared to their local town. So that was an area of focus for them.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And these are all quite broad. But I think that was the right decision for these groups.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So on the screen. I apologize for the fact. It is a little bit blurry, but the link is in these slides to have a look at the survey online in more detail. This is just a kind of part of what we did with the groups, but it's only one tool available, and there's lots of other ways of researching your local area. So one group did sit down with an Ex. Mp. For their town to kind of talk about what the
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: what their town looked like at the moment. Who was there? Kind of who they weren't that weren't reaching. And also that local knowledge of who is operating in your community is really important as well. So it wasn't just kind of
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: very impersonal data like this was. It was also that that local knowledge and research into what was going on in their towns and counties as well.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: You could also do research with your existing members. So we know of one group that did a survey. They sent out a survey to their membership, especially
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: to specifically to ask about vision and hearing, and any challenges or barriers that their members are experiencing relating to those
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and I think they sent this out kind of not knowing what to expect back, but actually got
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: people a lot more people saying that they were struggling with something to do with their hearing in rehearsals or in concert environments than they were expecting. So they were able to take action on this and make
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: the experience better for their existing members as well as potential members and new members that would join in the future.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: We also asked them to think about their their purpose as a group and agree on a vision statement if they didn't already have one
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: because being really clear on your group's purpose is is key to inclusion work, I think, because if you know who you are and who you're for, then it's easier to make decisions and help you work out where you're willing to be flexible or not. And as Barbara mentioned, what red lines could maybe be turned pink.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: It also helps with how you talk about yourself as well, and whether you you can say Oh, we're open to everyone, or whether you shouldn't say that. And you should be more specific about who your your group is for, and because we think that's just it, it helps with inclusion. If people know what to expect before they could even get through the door to your group.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Finally, following both these exercises, each group developed an inclusion action plan which stated areas of focus and actions they were going to take in the next 12 months.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So I'll put on the screen next. This is the template that we used. But it doesn't really matter what how you structure it as long as it works for your group.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: But the key things that we've realized are important are having simple and achievable actions, especially if this sort of work is new to you. I think it's advisable to start with things that you know you're going to be able to achieve and and see progress with
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: as well as making sure each action has got someone that's gonna own it, and a timeline that they that is gonna be completed by, or reviewed by, as well as a timeline for the whole plan. So set a date, for when you're going to review it and stick to that.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So we're just we've just gone through the process of reviewing these plans with the groups one year on, and then we're encouraging them to keep that annual review process going because it just helps to keep make sure you're actually on track, and you're progressing to where you you want to go to. And if not, maybe identify areas where you want to pivot.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: I'd say that having a plan written down and committing to specific actions has really helped the group's focus on this over the last year.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And it did take a bit of work to build it. So I think that that 1st research research and plan building process that I spoke about took about 3 months for us. So was
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: time consuming, but was worth committing that time to, because now, a year later, the process of reviewing the plans was much quicker, because everyone knew that. What we were doing.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and hopefully, it's going to become part of their business as usual, going forward and could do for you as well.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: when you're doing this, it's important to consider how you're going to bring your members and your musical director as well on this journey with you, because they make up a huge amount of the atmosphere of the group. And I think, are going to be really key to success in this area.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Most of the work that we've done has been specific to each group. But there's been a few things that we built into the program and have kind of
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: push the groups to do that we thought would be helpful. For them in this process.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So one of the things was we've asked them to host 2 discussion events for other leisure time music groups in their area to try and sort of start to create that network of of peers and other music groups that are operating in the same sort of geographical area.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Because we thought it would be helpful to connect with other groups, share learning, share challenges and kind of
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: build relationships. So they've got people they can call on for support or for collaborations in the future.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And this was really helpful for everyone involved. I'd say, just to kind of talk through things with people doing a similar thing in a similar area. But also helped them understand the different selling points for the groups as well, I think, and help them realize. Oh, actually, we're all trying to do the same thing. We're not in necessarily in competition with each other. But that that understand that there's a network of people there to help.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Now, I mentioned this because it's it's quite different to what these music groups do.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and I imagine what you would do as part of your usual program, but was what was a really interesting event for for all 4 groups. So maybe something to think about or something to consider with other bands in your area.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And we also asked them to take part in make music day on the 21st of June, and to deliver free events designed to reach new people.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And they all did something quite different. But all of them did succeed in reaching new audience members, and really showed the value of specifically putting on an event. To put your music out there in the community to reach new new audiences and maybe new members.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: It was hard work, I think, but definitely definitely worth doing. But I imagine, for a lot of brass bands. This is something you do quite regularly, and and taking your music out and about, and
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: forming to new people. But I wanted to mention it because it was.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: I think it just is helpful to remember that it is
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: worth building in events specifically with this in mind.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and then we've also asked them to communicate what they're doing out. So, as Barbara mentioned, it's
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: really helpful and beneficial. If you have got an access and inclusion aims, or if you're you're doing work to improve things, to communicate that out, share it with people, share it on your social media or we've had groups that have shared on their websites and kind of said what they've done, what they're doing or even in concert programs as well. We've seen that sort of help
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: update the audience on how things are going and how they've used the feedback that they've been given.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So some of the priorities to the groups and the areas that we focused on
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: firstly collaborating with other organizations. So whether that's
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: other music groups to help explore kind of
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: new towns, new areas and doing collaborations with other music groups to help facilitate that one group's been doing that. But as well building relationships with other local organizations, such as a community center that
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: helps Eastern European people kind of settle in the town. That's what one group has
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: been focusing on this year and sort of building relationships, working with them to help find out more about that community. And
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: I think that working with others to gain knowledge and build connections has been really valuable for for all the groups.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Sheet music is another area that we're aware. That is a real barrier to people joining both instrumental and vocal groups. So we've been developing a sort of 1st step resource to help people navigate and start to follow a score
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: to help, so that we can help our groups can help those people and hopefully try and remove some of that barrier to to taking part in a music group.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: Practical accessibility information. So I think every single group that we've worked with has looked at this and
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: making sure that they're trying to provide as much information as possible on their websites and on their sort of publicity material about the accessibility of their rehearsals and concerts.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And so whether that's
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: saying, explicitly stating that there's accessible toilets, that there's step free access to their venues or a couple have created videos of this is what our rehearsal venues like. This is what it looks like when you come in. This is where the people sit and and things like that, just to try and again remove some of those barriers that people might have with worrying about getting there or not being able to access the venue.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: We know that being as upfront as possible helps people make their own decisions about that. And helps them.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: yeah. Helps them to
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: work out whether you're or or get in touch about things if it's not clear.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And then finally, uniform has been a big topic of discussion, and we've heard many different opinions on this, and how it can be a barrier to taking part, and can even be a barrier to someone getting in touch with you in the 1st place.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and we've just written a resource on this, and how different groups are removing barriers through their performance wear or through their uniform. But we would be really interested to hear your thoughts on this as well, because it's such a tradition in breastbands that if you have got thoughts or opinions or things. Please do get in touch with us to help carry on that conversation for us.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So finally, what can you do in your in your band? And I'd say, talk about it within your group. Start the conversation
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: as Barbara mentioned. Ask your members so, both new and existing. If there's any adjustments you can make, or if there's any barriers that are kind of preventing them from participating or participating fully in your events.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: you could add access and inclusion to the agenda of committee meetings, so you might have somebody somebody that wants to lead on this. But it's something that
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: you could talk about as a whole committee. You could set up a subgroup. Maybe. Say, one of our groups has done exactly that. The committee wanted to do this work, but we're very overwhelmed with the the work they had to do with just
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: the their standard program of events. So they've recruited a subcommittee to to help lead on the delivery of this work, and that's helped them not only get some more volunteers on their team, but also just spread the load a bit further.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: But as we've mentioned, it's helpful to have someone to drive the work. But it does need everybody's buy in and needs everybody to be doing small things to help move it forward.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: I'd also recommend just getting your foundations right first, st because it's all it's it's great to do a recruitment drive or marketing campaign, or something about your group. But if it's not inclusive when people get there, then you risk not keeping people or and then people never coming back. And I'd say a lot of the work that we've done this year actually has been about this and making sure that the spaces that that
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: we're inviting people into are as inclusive and welcoming as possible. So I think that that's a really good thing to focus on. If you're starting this work.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and then we also with make as making music. We have a lot of resources about making your group more inclusive. So both
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: general things about sort of the whole access and inclusion. Work. But also we have resources on specific barriers. So, recently, we've released one on supporting hearing impaired members or people with visual impairments and Lgbtq plus inclusion as well.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: And
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: and we also run a program of events alongside this that you're welcome to join again, sometimes more general, sometimes on really specific topics that we want to do more of a deep dive into.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So I think that's pretty much it from me and from include. But I wanted to finish by saying that we've
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: recognize a lot of what leisure time music groups do is often very inclusive by design, and I think especially that seems the case with breast bands. I think that you've got a real history of, and tradition of, including people having instruments that people can use bringing people into your to your band. So I imagine a lot of what you're doing is going to be good work anyway, and so keep doing it. Keep talking about it. Keep
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: building on it to
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: yet, just to to make progress.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: But we're also really keen to learn from your experiences. If you've got any questions, or if you've got any stories
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: from from your band, or things that you've done that have worked really well, and you'd like to pass on to us. Please do get in touch because you we've not got a brass band involved in this program, unfortunately. But we'd love to hear from you and hear your experiences so that we can help
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: pass that on. I suppose.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So I've put our email address on the screen, which is just include@makingmusic.org.uk.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: so yeah, you're welcome to drop us an email. Get in touch and we'll have a chat.
Elizabeth Palmer, Making Music: So thank you.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Thank you, Elizabeth, and
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: hopefully, that was interesting to everybody. As Elizabeth said, we are very happy to answer questions. So email that address in the 1st place, and then if it's not Elizabeth, it will be someone else. That can help. And
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: We hope that, as Elizabeth says, you are already
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: Organizations by definition that are embedded in your community and in my experience, participants in our member groups are very welcoming to people.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: but they all that they need to think is a little bit from the user's point of view, that maybe they are inadvertently all because
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: they know so much about brass bands, and I don't inadvertently putting up barriers to people. So this is all work that you can do, and you can therefore benefit your communities even more
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: so. I hope you have a lovely Christmas season of many Christmas concerts coming up. I do. It's my favorite time of year. Okay, so thank you very much. Everybody for watching and get in touch. Bye.
Barbara Eifler, Making Music: okay.