Guidance

In this recording of our webinar (original event 11 February 2025), we partnered with our corporate member Rayburn Tours to talk about how to organise a tour with your music group.

The INCLUDE groups made changes to the way they operate their regular activity to make their groups more inclusive, involving their members to ensure that they felt included and changes were well-suited. 

Gathering ideas and opinions

Short-term

The groups involved their members in change, asking people about their experiences and inviting them to be part of decision making. 

The INCLUDE groups made small changes to the way they welcome and initially interact with new people to improve the accessibility and inclusive feel of their groups. 

Enabling access through information  

Short-term

The groups made changes to the information they provide about coming to their rehearsals and concerts, so it is easier find and helps people understand how to access their activity. They particularly focused on access information for disabled people.

It can be very difficult to get new people to discover your music group. But with our handy resource for beginners, you too can start using Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to improve your website’s search rankings.

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The INCLUDE groups used activity that was designed to reach new people and organisations as part of a strategy to widen the diversity of their groups.

Creating musical activities that connect 

Short-term

All four groups planned musical activities with the aim of reaching new people and raising awareness across their whole communities. Large-scale events required money and effort to organise but had the potential to make an impact if the follow-up was right.

Approaching access and inclusion work strategically helped the INCLUDE groups set realistic goals and embed access and inclusion as key to their whole group’s development.  

Getting people involved

Short-term

The committees of the INCLUDE groups engaged with all their members and got extra people involved with building and delivering their strategy.

We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to make music in their community. This resource is for music groups that want to build a plan for making their group more inclusive.

Music groups often have an aspiration to make sure that everyone who wants to can take part in their activity. 

This might be to:

Across the country, there are thousands of leisure-time music groups that exist for distinct reasons and appeal to different people. This is a great thing, but it means that you need to able to clearly describe who your group is and what it does so that people know what to expect when they interact with you. This resource will cover how and why to produce a ‘definition statement’ for your music group. 

In this recording of our webinar (original event 28 January 2025), we talked about process of commissioning new music as a leisure-time music group, and the challenges and benefits that it brings.

Commissioning a new piece of music can be a daunting process for a leisure-time music group, and it can be equally daunting for a music creator to approach a group to discuss collaborating. 

Our sixth meeting in our Climate Network series (original event 2 December 2024) discussed some of the latest success stories from our member groups who have implemented more sustainable practices into the ways they work.

The speakers for this event were: