Governance and finance

The role of your group’s committee or management team (or whatever term you use to describe the group of people who volunteer their time to run your group) is to organise and facilitate the activities of the group, whilst supporting and protecting the reputation of the group and ensuring that legal responsibilities are met.  The role of the chair within this, is to oversee the work of the committee and the everyday activities of the group to ensure that these aims are achieved.

We have all experienced the positive impact of music – either as a music makers or music listeners. However, measuring that impact can sometimes be quite a difficult concept to grasp.  If you have secured funding for a music project or activity, you may be already aware that measuring impact is often a standard  requirement. However, it needn’t be burdensome. There are many benefits in adopting a simple and proportionate approach that may help grow your group, improve the impact it makes and help with a funding application.

Data protection is about organisations collecting and using data in a fair, responsible and transparent way. It puts the emphasis on needing a good reason for holding and using the data and being clear about what those reasons are. It also emphasises the need to have consent from individuals (in some situations), and the individual’s rights over their data. New data protection laws (often referred to as GDPR) came into force in May 2018.

https://www.makingmusic.org.uk/about-us/contact-usOur Charity Registration Service is designed to make the process of registering as a charity as simple as possible. Find out how we can help you.

Running a leisure-time music group can be time-consuming. Getting bogged down in the small details and immediate issues, you can occasionally forget to look at the bigger picture. Creating a strategic plan will help you keep an eye on the overall picture, and provide a framework for dealing with those day-to-day details.

What are the key elements of a strategic plan?

What is succession planning?

It is the process of preparing for someone to take over a role from another person, making the transition as smooth as possible, and having a plan for emergency cover should a role suddenly become vacant. There are three key aspects to succession planning:

A key part of your responsibilities under GDPR is to provide easily-understandable and accessible information to individuals at the point at which you are collecting their data - these are called privacy statements.

On this page you will find various template documents to help you prepare for GDPR together with links to notes and guidance to help you use them.

Data protection and retention policy

This policy is an internal document that sets out your organisation's approach to using data. It is a set of rules and principles for the people running your group, or working with it, about how to treat data.  

This is a template Data Protection and Data Retention Policy for use by Making Music members. It has been designed in line with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and can be used as it is - with just your specific details (e.g. group name) added in, or taken as a starting point with changes made to suit your specific activities and circumstance.

This guidance looks at data retention in relation to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).  You can find out more about GDPR in our GDPR toolkit, including a template Data Protection and Retention Policy.