Music Matters North East
A Charitable Incorporated Organisation : reg no. 1193574
Statement of Accounts for the Period
17[th] February 2023 to 16[th] February 2024
| 2023-24 | 2023-24 | 2022-23 | 2022-23 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BALANCE AT BANK17THFebruary INCOME Personal Donations National Lottery Grant Total Income EXPENDITURE Delivery of Charitable Objectives IT Support Services Insurances Total Expenditure BALANCE AT BANK16thFebruary |
£278.34 £740.00 £9,750.00 £10,490.00 £8,250.00 Nil £487.62 £8,737.62 £2,030.72 |
£10,880.00 £490.00 Nil £490.00 £10,585.00 £49.44 457.22 £11,091.66 £278.34 |
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Approved by Trustees as a true record on Wednesday 4th December 2024
Trustees in post during the period:
Thomas Christopher Adams (Chair) Mary Freya Fraser
William Michael Howard (Secretary and Treasurer)
| Registered Ofce 32 Church Road Gateshead NE9 5RJ |
Treasurer’s Correspondence Address 71 Highbury Jesmond Newcastle upon Tyne NE23LN |
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Report of the Trustees For the Accounting Period 17[th] February 2023 to 16[th] February 2024
Mission Statement
We believe that all young people and their families have a right to access and participate in musical and related arts, thus Music Matters North East was created to raise funds to increase the chances of young people and their families in the North East to do this. Our model of action is to support musicians and tutors to offer a range of opportunities in North East areas of deprivation and so develop an interest in music
Activities
Our principal delivery project is “Music in Mind”, working with three community groups that reflect the demographic diversity of the west end of Newcastle upon Tyne. They comprise the worst 1% of lower super output areas and are among the most deprived areas of England. All activities were tailored to the groups’ preferences and help to improve:
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Well-being.
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Community cohesion.
and create tangible, sustainable, positive benefits to the communities and participants.
How we work
Musicians are the original “gig economy” with most being selfemployed. Given this, the Trustees feel that the most efficient way to achieve our aims, with the resources available, is a mix of volunteer input from the Trustees and the expertise offered by Unlock Music CIC.
Funding was secured for one year early in 2022 from the National Lottery Fund Awards for All programme and we
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partnered with Unlock Music CIC , who delivered sessions with three identified groups during the year.
A further year’s funding was secured from the National Lottery Fund Awards for All programme early in 2023 and MMNE continued our partnership with Unlock Music CIC offering sessions to the three identified groups during the year. The group that had been most successfully engaged continued to prosper with the help of Unlock Music CIC staff, but the other two groups were less successful.
Trustees were engaged throughout the year in developing both large and small funding bids, including an ambitious joint bid with Unlock Music CIC to the Arts Council to develop work with some schools that were very keen to provide music-based sessions within their curricula. A less ambitious bid was made to the Northumberland Tyne and Wear Community Foundation to provide the Music in Mind programme with some multi-year security. Bids were also made to smaller funders for continuation funding for the existing activities. Unfortunately, none of the bids were successful.
It may be that in the future, should we attract larger donations/grants and/or longer-term funding our delivery model will change.
Our Recent Work
At one community centre, 12 children aged between 5-13 took part in a mixture of group music workshops and personalised tuition across the year, where they learned the basics of playing a variety of instruments (drums, woodwind, and keyboards). As part of the group work, they then worked together to learn how to play collective pieces of music, rehearsing each week, before going into a local recording studio, where they recorded these pieces of music. These recordings are due to be released on the Unlock Music CIC Spotify account.
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A spin-off of MMNE’s work is that a local Good Neighbour’s Project was further enhanced by increased community engagement at the centre, which, in turn, has helped reach more families with healthy food supplies and other free activities.
We have also established a solid launchpad for long-term music engagement with several of the children showing a solid interest in continuing to learn instruments.
Support, voluntary help and gifts in kind
The trustees are very grateful to the small number of voluntary donors of both cash and musical instruments (which can be loaned to participants either short or long-term or used by participants in sessions) - and to volunteers who have helped with branding and digital media development. We have been able to donate pre-loved instruments to one community centre. And, of course, we are indebted to the National Lottery for their funding which has enabled all this to happen.
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