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2023-03-31-accounts

JOY OF SOUND

ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR YEAR ENDED 31/03/2023

COMPANY REGISTRATION No. 6403192

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JOY OF SOUND

Report of the trustees for 12 months ended 31/03/2023.

The trustees present their annual report and financial statement for 12 months ended 31/03/2023 and confirm that they comply with the Charities Act 1993, as amended by the Charities Act 2006, the Trustee Deed and the Charities SORP 2005.

Name of Charity: Joy of Sound (JOS)

Charity Registration Number : 1126361

Address:

48 Larner Road Erith Kent DA8 3RD

Bankers:

Bank of Scotland Community Banking 38 St. Andrews Square Edinburgh EH2 2YR

Accountants:

Accounting Gem Ltd M301 Tooting Works 89 Bickersteth Road London SW17 9SH

Board

Active Trustees 7 Angela Contucci, Chair Christopher Leeds, Treasurer Karen Morgan, Secretary Hugh Ainsley, James Wilkie, Nigel Gilderson, Anna-Marie Franklin

No. of Trustees Meetings during 2022/23: 2 AGM Meeting: 1

Management Committee

Core team: 7 Extended team: 15

No. of Management Meetings during 2022/23: 22

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Joy of Sound (JOS) Chairperson Annual Review 2022 - 2023 .......................... 4 Our Impact ..................................................................................................... 4 Participant Attendances ................................................................................. 5 Workshops Sessions ....................................................................................... 5 Practice Development ................................................................................. 5 Live Sessions ............................................................................................... 6 On Line Sessions .......................................................................................... 6 Volunteers ...................................................................................................... 7 Training .......................................................................................................... 8 Outreach and Events ...................................................................................... 8 Windmill Centre .......................................................................................... 8 Hackney Community events ........................................................................ 8 National Trust / Sutton House ..................................................................... 9 The Lambeth Country Show ........................................................................ 9 Creative Output ............................................................................................ 10 Website Research and Development ............................................................ 11 Web Pages ................................................................................................ 11 P_ART_icipate ........................................................................................... 11 Donations ..................................................................................................... 11 Summary ...................................................................................................... 12 Appendix 1 – Balance Sheet and Accountant’s Statement ............................ 13 Appendix 2 – Funding Breakdown ................................................................ 15 Appendix 3 – Activity Breakdown ................................................................. 16 Appendix 4 JOS partners/collaborators / instigators in 2021/2022 .............. 17 Appendix 5 – Joy of Sound Vision and Mission ............................................. 18

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- Joy of Sound (JOS) Chairperson Annual Review 2022 2023

Thank you to all JOS volunteers, workshop participants and associates who gave their time and energy in this 23rd year of JOS ’ s work with the goal to create a more inclusive society.

The year has been one of consolidation and rebuilding our core provision, and embarking on new ventures. We have now firmly established running live and on line sessions in parallel, giving options for our participants, with many attending both.

We gained a very important grant from the City Bridge Trust, with £50,000 funding over a 5- year period. The income is helping enormously to cope with ever rising costs, particularly towards core costs like venue hire, and provides much needed investment in new and upgraded equipment.

A grant from the Lambeth Well Being Fund has enabled us to start an entirely new project with both on line and live workshops at a new venue, the Brixton Windmill Centre. With an emphasis on physical activity and cultural exchange, these sessions are attracting new participants, particularly elders, providing an inter-generational and celebratory series of activities.

Numbers attending have gradually built during the period. Although by no means back to pre-covid levels, we have a secure base from which to move forward.

Recognising the significance of internet based activities, we have started new initiatives for making our web communications more inclusive, improving access, and providing interactive content for participants.

We also launched our first printed publication, a collection of illustrated prose and poetry pieces created during lockdown.

We have continued with our most popular on line workshops: Tai Chi, Dance and Movement; Seated Mindful Breathing; and our Seriously Silly Sensory Session.

The combined efforts of all our volunteers, trustees, supporters, donors, grant makers and participants have helped us to get to a stable situation with good prospects for a sustainable future.

All of us at Joy of Sound send our heartfelt best wishes for the future to Clive and Judith Main, who left the Parish as Clive retired from his post as the vicar at St. Barnabas Church in Homerton.

Clive and Judith were instrumental in helping us establish a regular group in the parish, welcoming us in when we had to move from our previous location at nearby Chat’s Palace in 2017.

Our Impact

Our core work continued to enable social and creative participation for those in the PMLD, LD and Disability sectors or facing Mental Health issues, for isolated people, those in residential homes and those facing barriers to travel. New projects in Brixton and Hackney have increased our reach to more elders.

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We provided a wide range of workshops including opportunities for physical engagement through inclusive, person-centered movements, as well as playful and creative interaction.

Via the City Bridge Trust’s Media Office, we had the opportunity for two of our team to do an interview ITV London on their ‘London Live’ show in August.

https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/inclusive-music-charity-breaking-down-communicationbarriers/

With our combination of live, face-to-face workshops, internet based activities, our website and social media sites, we have reached many individuals.

Participant Attendances

During the past 12 months the JOS team, which includes 20 volunteers, has facilitated:

Participant / Associates/ Collaborators attendances included:

Disabled People 3230
Elderly Community 692
Families with children 446
Support Workers 1920
Volunteers 880

On line activity included

Workshops Sessions

Practice Development

While our core practice, developed over 2 decades, continues to be a very effective approach, over this recent period we have enhanced our sessions in important ways.

We now regularly incorporate Tai chi based warm ups, which we have found very effective for motivating participants towards joining in activities for longer periods, encouraging physical engagement with its known benefits to well being.

We have also extended our use of Makaton signing, with many of our volunteers and facilitators increasing their vocabulary and incorporating it into workshop sessions. The Makaton system is used widely in residential homes and in education settings to facilitate communication with individuals.

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“I was visiting another group a while ago, where I didn’t really know anyone. Although I’ve only just started using Makaton, while waiting for activities to start I was able to introduce myself to one of the participants just with simple signs for “Hello, my name is Chris”, and she immediately started chatting away – though I was quickly lost, it was so good to establish a rapport like that with a stranger so quickly.” (Chris, JOS volunteer).

Live Sessions

Our regular weekly sessions continue at Kensington & Chelsea - Portobello Salvation Army Hall, at St. Peter’s Heritage Centre in Lambeth and at St. Barnabas in Hackney.

It is always gratifying when feedback confirms that we are still on track and inspiring people:

“I was lucky enough to attend joy of sound, and I was overcome with emotions seeing how the music transformed everyone in the room. Angela, Anna, and the rest of the team are absolutely incredible in including everyone, and creating an environment of joy and happiness. Places like this are truly fundamental.” (Health Professional Support Worker Lottie Giles, at St Peters)

“Today I was visiting Notting Hill Salvation Army as a minister of this church. We were welcomed by the lead facilitator, Anna, and joined the session. I was blown away by her attitude - the care, the respect, the engagement that was shown not only by her, but by the members of the group from whom these attributes are also expected and demonstrated. I loved the way she gave people time to engage in their own time with patience and care. Everyone was given the time and encouragement they needed to be able to be a full part of the group. Praise was used beautiful, acknowledging each person’s achievements and contributions. I have been in many 'inclusive' music groups as both a minister and as an SEN teacher - this one was on a different level and provided a beautiful environment where inclusion was full and rich and wonderful. Well done & thank you for all you do”. (Minister of the Salvation Army, Sarah O’Grady).

“I don’t usually give excellent on feedbacks but I fail to justify otherwise. I really enjoyed the session and was extremely impressed with the facilitator's attention to detail and each and every participant. The instruments too are very accessible”. (Health professional /support worker/PA/carer Annie).

On Line Sessions

Seriously Silly Sensory Sessions use accessible improvisation games to socialise and stimulate the senses. One of the most joyful outcomes is laughter and acknowledgement through playful mirroring, there is rarely a session that does not bring people into the moment and commit to playful sensory interactions that bring out the unexpected and often surprisingly funny happenings.

“From the very start it was seriously silly, anything went and it was improvisation at its best! Whatever came into your head just came out. The facilitators were so full of energy and got the group making funny faces and expressing themselves anyway they felt. We all got to bounce ideas off one another and sing and dance alone to songs and sounds we were all making. The sessions are a real joy from start to finish and ground breaking in their approach to inclusion.” (Elizabeth Merrilees – Social Prescribing volunteer).

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The Tai chi, Dance and Movement workshop, now linked with work at the Windmill Centre, continues to be very popular with our participants, and involves selecting music from different countries to share their heritage with their peers.

“The group made me feel so welcome once again. The first 10 minutes was all about greeting the members and making contact with everybody including the carers and bringing them into the activities. The facilitators were speaking to each member of the group and getting them to make either a sound or movement to create a wonderful story. Their ability to engage with language and sound really stimulated and engaged the group. By the end of the session we had all made a lot of noise but what a fun way to spend an afternoon!” (Elizabeth Merrilees - Social Prescribing volunteer).

The Seated Mindful Breathing sessions pitch the activity at an inclusively accessible level, such that individuals are encouraged to explore their limitations and capabilities. Focused activity balanced by mindful stillness shared by the group can be transformational for mood, sense of self, and breath, and increased of ease of mobility.

"From a personal perspective, I find the sessions enjoyable and relaxing. I feel my ‘troubles’ drift away and my anxiety levels are reduced considerably. The activities and the atmosphere generated are inclusive and conducive to a variety of clients, which is wonderful to experience”. (Christine Stockford, Covid19 survivor).

Thank you to all the workshop facilitators for their hard work in delivering exciting accessible workshops for our participants and associates. Each workshop requires a large amount of preparation and commitment, and the team has been dedicated in offering these workshops on a regular basis to our participants.

Volunteers

Thanks to volunteers Marcelle Ben-Hague, Ray Ramos, David York, Julia Harris Voss, Patrick Carpenter, Lucy Mills, Nico Pollen, Adrian Roper, Anouck Giraud, Luka Ngoy, Tom Fallis, Mary, Carol, and Stephen Wells, whose regular attendance greatly enhances the continuity and quality of our work.

The feedback from our newer volunteers gives an impression of how they perceive the sessions, and, often, how deeply they are affected.

“The whole session was really incredible, welcoming and warm. I learned about the signals and was really impressed at how a circle of people formed itself effortlessly and organically sharing the bond of music and improvising in the moment. The signals are very simple stimuli that everyone can see or understand, whether they are movements made with the arms or the hands or reinforced with words that volunteers or participants deliver from the centre of the circle, signaling to the music players when to gently elevate or decrease the volume of their voice or playing of their instruments, when to be silent and when to stop playing, closing the improvisation. I was also very touched to see how, through non-verbal communication, persons with learning difficulties or certain disabilities express themselves as clearly and with as much intent in response to verbal communication

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from the support workers or volunteers. The JOS sessions really illustrate at their core what communication and inclusiveness are all about. Everyone is de facto included. Communication happens organically. In those simple yet powerful moments we are beautifully reminded of our universal commonalities: we are all human beings sharing the joy of sound and improvisation and living in the moment. No session is ever the same and each session acts as a pure moment of joy”. (JOS Volunteer Anouck Giraud)

“The facilitators bring huge amounts of energy and hard work to the session. It ’ s good that the carers are encouraged to join in as some may feel embarrassed or reluctant. There was a joyfulness and inclusivity which lifted my state of mind”. (JOS Volunteer Adrian Roper).

“Great session full of positive, inclusive energy from the JoS facilitators and the participants clearly loved being there. The location, instruments, and design of the session were all excellent”. (JOS Volunteer Mary)

Training

In September the JOS team refreshed First Aid Training with the Pathways training organization. We also took part in an on line Sensory Walks training workshop.

Outreach and Events

Brixton Windmill Centre

Lambeth Well Being funding enabled us to start a new project in November at the Windmill Gardens in Brixton. It consists of weekly live and on line inclusive, creative movement workshops.

The sessions include seated Tai chi, and uplifting community dance & movement. We aim for physical activity that is appropriate and attainable for each individual. Sessions are relaxed, with a nopressure, fun approach to dance and movement for all ages and

abilities.

Each week, the music is chosen by members of the group, giving the opportunity to experience each others’ diverse cultures and heritages, or simply to share their favourite genre or piece of music.

Special events are held where guest artists are invited to share different music and dance styles, and participants enjoy cuisine from different cultures.

Hackney Community events

Working with Hackney’s Community Engagement and Projects Officer, JOS ran workshops at the Webb Estate and Joseph Court. They gave an opportunity for local people to engage in inclusive music making, trying out instruments and singing.

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National Trust / Sutton House

This outreach was requested by a team of interns from King's College London looking for a group to host a workshop for their intergenerational befriending project. It connects people and provides companionship, bringing together Hackney residents from a diverse range of backgrounds and life experiences. Many of the participants had never played an instrument before and fed back that they enjoyed exploring and connecting with

their peers through their musical interaction. By the end of the session everybody was out of their seat dancing and laughing with a renewed energy.

The Lambeth Country Show

JOS has provided workshops for Lambeth’s annual summer show for many years now, and in June we were at the first live event since lockdown forced it on line.

“It really was the joy of sound. It brought everyone together creatively with no barriers”. (Drop in visitor at Lambeth Country Show, Charlotte Bill”.

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Creative Output

Joy of Sound Founder, William Longden had led the adaptation of our inclusive working approach to the Zoom platform in 2020, so that we could continue to support and promote the mental well-being of our participant group via a series of creative writing projects made during Covid Lockdown.

During lockdown there were 5 series of informal, fun Zoom sessions with pieces co-created in free exchanges. With accompanying illustrations made on the fly during the sessions, many were used as the basis for narrated videos with music provided by various JOS collaborators. This year we completed uploading the work made to our website.

We took a slightly different approach with 2 series of ‘Inclusive Creative Covid 19 Legacy Project – Poetry and Prose’, part of the Mayor of London’s community rebuilding initiative. In the first series pieces were created by individual writers based on free association wordplay during Zoom sessions. In the second series there was a more formal editing and review process, with the aim of publication.

So, in April 2023 we held a public event at Brixton Library to launch our very first printed

publication “Connecting the Distance, a collection of 24 pieces, accompanied with commissioned collage illustrations. The prose and poetry created ranged from fantasy stories to reflections on individual experiences of the pandemic – the emotional ups and downs, the effects on their own lives and those around them.

“Inclusion and listening to each other was the bedrock. Do not underestimate the importance of having somewhere to call your own, a community of exploration, a world of words. Thinking and feeling as a positive force, a honed tool rather than something to be suppressed and fought. Flights and fights in safe space.

As adventurers we explored communication through conversation and gesture, bouncing a notion in a game of catch or pass the parcel.

We created 24 pieces, as a team, as individuals, combating the boring life of Covid with creative steel and shared insight!

I very much hope you enjoy this collection. Keep being inspired!” Karen Morgan, Project Coordinator

All our creative output – stories, videos, images and audio can be found on our website https://joyofsound.org/galleries. Copies of the book are available on request.

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Website Research and Development

Our work in this area is a response to the severe lack of inclusive communication on most websites, and the barriers to access that are encountered by disabled people entering the digital world.

Web Pages

Our approach is to move away from traditional text-heavy website layouts by incorporating symbol and sign based navigation tools.

We have been able to build on last year’s very innovative work with Goldsmiths University UX Department (Four students worked on analysis of our current site and incorporating inclusive site navigation tools like Makaton signing).

One of the students, Zhaohan Ding, has stayed on at Goldsmiths and we have engaged her to continue to work with us, and in March she began the first phase of research. Most of the visits to our website are to the “Join a Session” page – so the first objective is to have that page fully inclusive so that our participants can access it independently to arrange attendances.

P_ART_icipate

In May we connected with the p_ART_icipate project. This is a collaboration between Greenwich University School of Design, and an arts group, KIMA Voice. With input from NHS and Music Therapy consultants, the project is to develop an interactive audio-visual on line application. Pairs of participants can use their voices to generate visual responses, patterns generated on screen reacting to vocal input.

Joy of Sound has been invited to take part, testing and refining the system to ensure that is inclusive and accessible to all. The eventual aim is to link it to our website, with the goal of having more web based activities that our participants can enjoy.

Donations

Our participants contributed a total £10,264 at our live sessions, and various small donations via the web and cash amounted to £1,370.

Huge thanks again this year to Lee Clifford who organised the Portobello Rd Antique Market Dealers to make another donation which helped obtain new instruments and equipment.

Thanks also to Omri at Folkies Music Shop in Kilburn who donated another batch of guitars for us to upcycle.

Many thanks to Vesna Marich, for her continuing hard work on fundraising and administration for the charity this year. In addition to funded work, she has volunteered much of her time, and remains at the core of the team.

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Summary

Like many organisations and charities working with marginalised, vulnerable and economically disadvantaged people, we faced huge challenges in the Post Covid era.

Not the least of the problems have been ever rising costs and severe pressure on regular funding resources that were necessarily diverted to coping with immediate issues. We are grateful to have received some emergency funding ourselves.

Continuity has been the other major concern for our participants in the PMLD, LD and Disability sectors. Isolated people, and those in residential homes all experience barriers to returning to ‘normal’ life, with disruptions to provisions for travel, staffing issues, and, of course, ongoing health issues.

Our volunteers felt similar pressures, and recruiting new volunteers has not been easy, as people’s options have become restricted by the need to find employment.

However, thanks to the dedication of our core team, and some very substantial grants, we find ourselves surviving better than many organizations, and in a reasonably secure position to build and move forward.

The combination of live and online work is proving very effective in gaining and retaining participants. Our host venues have been very flexible, doing their best to keep hire charges within reason. We are happy to be able to continue our efforts to improve and innovate on line inclusivity, and to provide accessible content.

Thank you to all the trustees, particularly those who not only manage the charity, but also volunteer their time as facilitators at our regular live sessions and outreach events.

On behalf of all the JOS team, we want to thank all JOS Volunteers and Trustees for the support, encouragement and hard work that they have put into JOS this year, another one of adapting to the ever changing landscape of the field we work in.

Angela Contucci Chairperson 23rd October 2023

Chris Leeds Treasurer 23rd October 2023

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’ – Appendix 1 Balance Sheet and Accountant s Statement

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– Appendix 2 Funding Breakdown

INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023

INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023 INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023 INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023 INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023 INCOME GENERATED 31st March 2022- 1st April 2023
Funders Total Dates Received Active Non-Active
The London Community
Foundation/Lambeth
Wellbeing Fund		 £9,737.50 06.05.2022 ✓
City Bridge Trust £9,416.00 10.05.2022; 09.08.2022;
08.11.2022; 10.02.2023		 ✓
Groundwork £300.00 11.07.2022 ✓
Awards for All £9,965.00 10.02.2023 ✓
City of London £939.00 11.01.2023 ✓
Outreach Workshops’
Grants		 £2,775.00 11.05.2022; 12.08.2022; ✓
05.08.202; 19.12.2022;
24.03.2023
Donations online and
cash		 £1,369.90 Throughout the year ✓
Live Workshops’
Fees/Standing
Order/Payments for
participants		 £10,264.50 Throughout the year ✓
Total £44766.90

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– Appendix 3 Activity Breakdown
Activity Attendances
Number
of
events		 More information
Zoom Wellbeing Sessions 2224 137
Live Inclusive Music
Sessions		 3488 154 Venues: St Barnabas, Hackney; St Peter’s,
Lambeth; Salvation Army, Kensington & Chelsea;
Windmill Gardens, Lambeth
Community Outreach/Live
and Zoom		 121 6 Worthing outreach; Sutton House; Lambeth
Country Show; SENSE online taster session;
SENSE online taster session for children; Webb
Estate and Joseph Court, Hackney
Trainings 44 2 First Aid Training at Work -live training; Sensory
walks training workshop-online training.
Zoom Meetings 117 24 Fundraising with Jim, Final report for Top-up,
Lambeth Wellbeing revised proposal, meeting
with students from Goldsmiths Uni, meeting with
press officer CBT, meeting with the journalist
from London Tonight, Collaboration- Renu meet
and greet, Discussing funding project- Mayor’s
grant, Inclusive sports for young people with
Sophie, meeting with Kate Soya from SENSE, 4
JOS people doing taster, SENSE taster, Festive
story, meeting with Jerry about L’Arche in
Canterbury, JOS accounts, Survey’s meetings,
Funding meeting, SENSE -active inclusive physical
activity delivery.
Management Meetings 87 22
Trustees meetings 12 2
AGM Meeting 9 1
TOTAL 6002 348

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Appendix 4 JOS partners/collaborators / instigators in 2021/2022

JOS partners: Greenwich University Goldsmiths University Sutton House National Trust The Treasure Basket Association, Worthing Hackney Service Centre, Community Engagement and Projects Officer Hackney Service Centre, Integrated Learning Disabilities Service Webb Estate & Joseph Court, Hackney GLA (Greater London Authority) Lambeth Country Show 2022 Pathways Training NCV0 Portobello Road Antique Market Dealers Bonnington Centre Community Association Southside Rehabilitation Association SENSE University of East London Brixton Library Friends of Windmill Gardens, Brixton City Bridge Trust Press Office ITV London Tonight Sunshine International Arts ColDanzaUK Shamha Vibration L’Arche London BeyondAutism

JOS collaborators: Jim Greenwood Shane Wheatcroft Maria Tashkinova Stephen Wells Diego Laverde Rojas Zhaohan Ding Annamaria Galan Marcella Hadad Xihomara Zentner

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– Appendix 5 Joy of Sound Vision and Mission

VISION

A world where everybody is equal and included

MISSION

A world where every person is acknowledged valued and included in all aspects of society as an equal.

VALUES

We work with all-comers of all abilities as equal collaborative co- creative partner We put inclusive attitude into practice to make creative things happen We build relationships grounded in mutual responsibility and trust We show the meaning and value of inclusion by being inclusive

AIMS and OBJECTIVES

  1. To promote and advocate for increased social and economic inclusion by:

  2. i. Delivering regular weekly all-year-round inclusive participatory music and combined arts workshops

  3. ii. Providing trainings in JOS inclusive workshop techniques

  4. iii. Educating people about the value and use of inclusive and combined arts practices at educational sessions, workshops, seminars, lectures and events

  5. To encourage, facilitate and acknowledge the self-expression and self- empowerment of all people, and particularly:

  6. i. Impaired and disabled people

  7. ii. Socially and economically deprived and marginalised people including elders

  8. iii. People facing mental health challenges

  9. iv. Unemployed people

  10. v. People on wellbeing pathways including learning disabled people, and people living with long term debilitating health issues

  11. vi. People facing barriers to their access of creative health and wellbeing activities

  12. by:

  13. i. Providing all-year-round regular workshops

  14. ii. Providing personal and social advocacy and mentoring

  15. iii. Co-design and production of bespoke musical instruments and instruments access equipment

  16. iv. Reaching out to engage hard-to-reach groups

  17. v. Facilitating volunteer pathways for personal and social wellbeing, lifelong learning and career development

  18. To increase awareness about issues relating to disability and social exclusion by:

  19. i. Disseminating inclusive practices and practice based research at presentations, showcase events, festivals and conferences in UK and abroad

  20. ii. Developing and providing Inclusive Social Training Development with disabled people, familial and professional care and support givers, volunteers and community

  21. iii. Engaging with existing and developing strategic networks forging opportunities for collaboration and focus towards increased public awareness and social change

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