INCLUDE: Bringing music groups together

Marian Pearson, Chair of Scunthorpe and North Lincolnshire Concert Society (SNLCS), tells us how her group acted as a catalyst for bringing music groups in North Lincolnshire together to share their learning.

One of the activities we were requested to undertake as part of our involvement in the INCLUDE project was to organise an event for Make Music Day. This was quite a challenge as we are not a performing society, but a promoter group which engages professional musicians to play at our concerts and this date was outside our normal season. Although we had a budget for professional musicians, we were keen to include as many local people as possible – potentially through the local music groups. We were also tasked with organising an 'inclusion event' to share our learning from the project more widely. It seemed sensible, therefore, to combine the two and organise an event for local music groups where we could share our learning and experiences from the INCLUDE project and try to gain their involvement in Make Music Day. 

The first challenge was to find the groups. Making Music membership was a good start, local Facebook pages and web searches gave us a few more and our own society members knew of others. We managed to identify over 20 groups; far more than we had thought there were locally. A date was chosen and Sunday afternoon was recommended as a good time to avoid any clashes with rehearsals etc. A local venue with good access to all areas of the county and adequate parking was identified.

Over 30 people attended this first meeting, representing most of the contacted groups. We shared details of the INCLUDE project and the results of our audience survey, then facilitated discussions about how to widen groups’ reach and how to increase our collaborative working.  

Members of SNLCS committee alongside Making Music's Inclusion Focus Programme Manager Elizabeth Palmer for Make Music Day 2024

We found that many of us had similar problems – particularly recruiting younger people to join our organisations and making links with local schools. The fear of using the wrong language around equality, diversity and inclusion also featured in our discussions. Focusing on overcoming barriers to inclusion, we identified that we need to remove the fear of coming back to an instrument and make the joining process as easy as possible, e.g. no auditions. It was identified that groups need training in arts marketing and social media in order to optimise their reach, especially for younger people who tend to use certain platforms. We recognised that having policies in place is helpful in case of challenge but can present a challenge in themselves to get them right. 

The feel of the meeting was extremely positive as ideas flowed back and forth. Feedback was encouraging as many groups indicated they would attend a further meeting. Topics for future discussion were identified as hearing how other groups in a rural area have managed to attract new members and diversify successfully and to learn more about social media. It was also suggested we could become a lobby group to work with local government and schools to increase interest and awareness of music groups more widely. 

One tangible outcome was the collection of data for a booklet – 'Music Groups in North Lincolnshire'. We were very lucky to have a member who volunteered to oversee the setting out and production of the booklet. The booklet has now been published and is proving popular, with local libraries needing to be re-stocked. We have also set up an email group which circulates information about concerts and events to each other for forwarding to our members, thus extending our reach considerably. We await our second meeting of the groups for feedback on whether any of these measures have proved successful in the short term.

Sadly, however, we had no recruits for Make Music Day as many groups were already participating in a local music event the following day! 

View the online version of the booklet on the SNLCS website

Find out more about SNLCS on their website

Follow SNLCS on Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter)

If you would like to know more about anything in this blog or you would like to tell us about your own inclusion work, please get in touch with Elizabeth Palmer, Inclusion Focus Programme Manager for the INCLUDE programme