Music for education & wellbeing podcast [41] TRANSCRIPT: Nikki-Kate Heyes MBE, founder, soundLINCS

AH: Hello, and welcome. In this episode, I’m talking with Nikki-Kate Heyes, MBE, who was the founder and until recently, CEO of soundLINCS, a community music organisation that’s been working with people from all walks of life, through music, for 26 years. I’ve spotted it was actually set up the year after the last Labour government came into power, which was a time when things seemed pretty rosy for the community music sector. And so hopefully we’ll see a return to that hopefulness in time across the arts. That was also the year that I first started working with Sound Sense the Association for Community Music, and I think it was the year that I first met you, Nikki-Kate. So a massive welcome to you. It’s really brilliant to have you on here, particularly as you’ve recently or you’re in the process of moving on from soundLINCS to other opportunities.

NKH: Hi, Anita, thanks for inviting me. Yes, indeed. It’s all exciting times.

AH: Yes, it certainly is. I thought it would be a good focus for our chat, to look at resilience. How on earth have you managed to keep going without core funding as a community music organisation? And what can listeners learn from you? But first, it would be great if you could just tell us briefly, how did you end up where you are today? And why is it important to you personally?

NKH: I don’t know. If anyone had said I would be, you know, going into a job for 26 years back in 1998, and in the arts, I would have laughed at them to be honest. Why am I here? So my roots are as a cellist. I was working around the schools in Wakefield, having got my degree, and saw this job over in Gainsborough for a music development officer, which happened to be also community musician, it was 11 titles, which is where I came across the term Community Music. That must have been the early 90s, and I went to the library to find a book and what I found was Sound Sense, and they had just started. This is pre-Kathryn Deane, and just as an organisation.

So for me, that was the excitement of being in a new sector, a new type of starting work, and having that support and realising what I was doing. I wanted to go into places to do music, I wanted to work with people and facilitate folks. And suddenly, I realised I was working within schools and youth settings as a practitioner, creating music with people and ideas and working together. Because I was learning on the job because there were no courses or anything. Then to sort of relate to that evolving and pushing doors open was just fantastic. And I’m gonna skip on very quickly from the Gainsborough job to being freelance to suddenly yeah, applying for a job called the Wider Ed project in Lincolnshire, which turned out to be … changed that to soundLINCS and got a gig ticket that says Develop Music Lincolnshire.

AH: And so you really have been there at the start of kind of the formalisation, I guess a community music in the UK just before Sound Sense and sort of came up through all that sort of local authority arts and then into voluntary or charitable sector. So some really, really good experience there. Can you give me a brief overview of what soundLINCS does, who it works with, what its purpose is, and who funds or commissions you?

NKH: Our mission statement is to enhance, enable and encourage people into music. We adopted the tagline of ‘unleashing potential through music’, whether that’s musical potential, social, health and wellbeing. And I also like the e-side of it, encourage, enhance and enable – that if it’s there, we’re encouraging it, if it’s not, we’re enabling or we’re enhancing it. So it’s not doing that at all. I see three main strands are soundLINCS and what it’s here for.

I think it’s workforce development, whether that’s working with a group of participants and their practitioners, whether that’s nursery nurses or youth workers, care home workers and enabling those people to be able to do more music. As well as music facilitators coming on, how do you get into this sector? So we have annually, we have a recruitment for people to come on to our books, and I think we’re as workforce in the wider sense, people quite often start their journey with us as freelance music facilitators, working with us.

And with that, I think it links with we have the second strand of information. So we have a new bulletin, Sound Emission, because we have lots of information in the office. So we regurgitate, it was just links and send it back out there. There’s 80 to 90 links each month, just to share the information for people working with music. We run a another organisation, musicLINK, which we took over which was a subscription organisation in Lincolnshire, and they didn’t want it to close but the committee wanted to finish. And that was about a clash diary for concerts and things. But we also have types of apps and resources and research all free on our website. So again, it’s information to try, which is non-time related. I call them the ‘no shit Sherlock’ books, which basically are that moments, you know, I’m, I need to know something there, but where would I find it? I want to be trained in what to do, but I need some more information, just thinking practically things through. So that’s from working  with hearing impaired, what are the first things you need to know about working with SEND? They’re all evidence-based, and quite often have been linking with academic studies.

And the third strand is obviously music delivery, that we have the music facilitators and we deliver. And we work with, it could be with anybody who will pay us.

As you say, we’re not core-funded. We have been, we started life as a good old RFO for the Arts Council [England], a regularly funded organisation, then we went to NPO [National Portfolio Organisation]. And then I think as the tide rose, we were quite small. So the tide rose, and we became, yeah, non-core funded. Similarly with county council, Lincolnshire County Council used to be strategic, and then they stopped funding non-mandatory organisations. And then obviously we’re tied very closely with Youth Music.

So, yeah, now we deliver where we’ve got a portfolio where we’re commissioned to do work or events, as well as a large  proportion is grant funded. And at the moment grant funding is a mixture between Arts Council [England], National Lottery, Heritage Lottery, but also NHS, Lincolnshire County Council, National Association of Social Prescribers because we do a lot of music and mental health and for older people, that’s a big area we’re working in at the moment. Put up commissions, there are Levelling Up funds. Yeah, that sort of is quite a smorgasbord of funders at the moment.

AH: Yeah, and that’s completely necessary at the moment, isn’t it? Is it a rude question to ask what your turnover is? Because I think listeners will probably be thinking, how big are they? Because it sounds big.

NKH: I think this year, we’re just over a quarter of a million. I think we’re £275,000 this year, but that’s pedalling harder from the pandemic. So we lost about £600,000 over the pandemic, because all our grants got repurposed. So overnight, so although we furloughed, and then people found other ways of doing things, or they’ve got families, we need to find other jobs because it was so uncertain. And then we’ve slowly crept back. So yeah, the year before is about £143,000 and now £275,000ish, and you find many brings money in ways of work making that work.

AH: So you’ve been you’ve been bigger in the past. How big have you been?

NKH: Oh, we got up to just under a million at one point. Yeah. And we’ve had a ridiculous number of facilitators on our books when I look back. Working with Youth Music, and working with the Action Zones.

AH: Wow, in the heyday, when there was money around. And that’s not always great is it for an organisation necessarily, and particularly not if you expand quickly, because it can be just boom and bust then can’t it?

NKH: It’s interesting, because we probably did. So when I started there was £7k in the bank because it was a project. Slowly, we started with £7k, then about £30k. Then by the third year, we got this half million grant, from Youth Music to become an Action Zone. And this was linked to County Council, it came through them. What was interesting was to build a structure that allowed the flexibility. Because you’re absolutely right, we weren’t used to the money. We are a product of the Labour government coming in, but not political, but that’s why soundLINCS came into being I think. And yeah, we had to find a structure that could increase and decrease to the projects, because we’ve never taken it for granted that we will have that money would continue year after year after year and with a different project because that’s the downside about the arts isn’t it? Not being able to do that long-term planning. You’re always doing that one year, maybe two years, three years, if you’re lucky, to planning.

AH: Well, there’s that whole thing as well about as you’re growing as an organisation, at what point do you turn into an organisation that actually has Pay As You Earn employees? And so yeah, I’m just sort of interested actually, while we’re talking about that to know when you took that step to not be all freelance? I’m guessing you started as all freelance and then it’s certain point you start to think, right, we employ people. And at the moment I’m seeing in funding that sometimes you actually can’t apply for certain grants if you don’t have people on Pay As You Earn, and that’s really frustrating for some smaller organisations who are struggling because they’re on project funding. So yeah, I’m really interested to hear about the kind of main ways in which you’ve developed and adapted over the years, and perhaps any important learning you’ve taken away from that.

NKH: That’s a really good question. That’s absolutely right. So I was freelance as a practitioner. And so I was gonna do the projects. Well, I’m bringing the money in. And that’s where you can really earn money. Having this company, which we’ve got a board by then, and the name, we named it from Wider Ed  to soundLINCS, which is quite nice transition to go through a project to a company. And yeah, that transition. No, we were lucky, because there was the Action Zones from Youth Music and that investment, and we were also very lucky, because we didn’t actually have to handle the money at the time. We were then commissioned by the County Council. So we got stable enough and big enough to be able to then take the money ourselves. So we very much in partnership with that. In fact, I got a phone call saying, ‘Would you like to apply for half million pounds?’. And I said to the council, ‘Does that mean I’ll lose my core-funding?’, and they went, ‘That’s the right answer. Nikki, that’s what …’, you know. No, you won’t, because that was only £30K at the time. But as I’m a flash in the pan I we need to have more sustained, you know, and that was very important to have the links with then, the County Council.

Yeah, I mean, obviously, that where the funding is … so we put a skeleton … we got an office first, to be honest. Then we started with, yeah, support. The biggest concern was say, if we’re going to be delivering we’re delivering something like 200-250 Early Years residencies across Lincolnshire per year, and the residency been six weeks. So we needed facilitators, but because we’ve never had this sort of money coming into the sector, and people didn’t call themselves community musicians, how do you identify those people? And how do you help them and support them? So applying was sort of putting odd CVs we had, and going this is what we said, when people said ‘Who are you going to employ?’. You go, ‘We can’t say that’, because we’ve never been this large, you know, you’ve never had this opportunity. So it’s going to be people like this and people like this. Here’s examples. And that was quite a conversation with funders to start off with. It was great saying, ‘We’ve got this money, do this’, and you go, ‘Yeah, but this doesn’t exist yet’.

AH: Yeah. And of course, there’s the whole thing about people are used to music education, where people have formal qualifications, and it’s very easy to tick the box. But actually, in Community Music, you’re kind of more looking for behaviours almost, and values.

NKH: Yeah. And it’s interesting, because even at that time, when you said music education, you talked about peripatetic, you talked about instrumental teaching in schools, because this is pre- the [Music] Education Plan. So that concept we were talking to people at work, explaining what a workshop was, is way, way back in the olden days, you know, and saying what a workshop would recommend to your school, this is what a workshop would look like. What we created was exactly what you said that it is about behaviors and just said, you wouldn’t book a band until you’ve see it. And it’s done on that principle. And we still do today.

We’ve just done another recruitment in May, when we do an annual week of recruitment. And basically, it was inviting anybody who wants to be part of the journey with us. They came and did a workshop and at that time, before the safeguarding etc, we just said, ‘Look, I want to see if people can communicate, I don’t care if they don’t write because they’re not writing reports’. And me being the dyslexic cellist, so my strength is actually hopefully communicating as opposed to writing. And do me a workshop, whatever you think a workshop is, and as folks came and did a workshop with us, and then we’d have a verbal interview one-to-one basically, time to chat, expand on that workshop. And we have a criteria and we’re absolutely looking about the engagement, we’re looking about the inclusivity, we’re looking at the timings and about the health and safety. You know, so we sort of still encourage this, so people would then come on our books.

We are still, again doing it today, having a conversation with folks doing this sort of work, ‘Well how experienced are you?. Under two years, two to four, or over four years and that conversation then allows us to, if you under two years you’re working with that person so that’s our training scheme really. We’re working with that person we’re get a gig sheet, we’ll look at the planning, what’s needed and that will slowly get less and less, and then two to four years is a plan to have a look at it. You know the sort of like to do can come watch me or something. And then over four years I always say beg forgiveness. Go and do your workshop and come back and beg forgiveness, if it wasn’t you if you reflected on it or let’s chat about it. We found that was a sort of a lot over four years and equally we also found that stage people were doing more and more sessions we also have sort of a parallel. You don’t have to be, ‘I’m I’m out there every day for two years. Do I have to wait two years before I can move up?’, and it’s sort of more, ‘No, it’s about how much experience you’re gaining and accumulating’.

AH: How do you support them? I mean, I know you do CPD but you don’t do mentoring?

NKH: It’s really interesting because when we first started looking at this, I get quite perplexed when someone said, we’re saying, ‘Well, how old can we have people coming onto our books?’. Because at that point in the sector, and there wasn’t, you know, the standard qualifications and we’ve got badges and certificates to get. I’m going, ‘If I’ve got an enthusiastic  17-year-old, can I work with a 17-year-old?’. But I might also have been the person getting the gigs was 40-53-years-old who probably wasn’t as experienced as a 17-year-old. So this is hopefully underplay. I do need to drop in when we do Early Years. That was, that’s also the similar process, but with our Early Years partners when we started. And even folks on the six plus route with us, if we do Early Years have to go through the system again, but working the workshop is interacting in an earlier setting. And we do that slightly different because we understood, right at the beginning, that those different elements working with Early Years, and that’s up to six years, and then we learned what we’re looking for. And that was just sitting with CVs, or Early Years partners.

So once the people are on our books have been inducted into you know, not just the practicalities of paperwork, safeguarding and information about what we do and how we do things and why we do things. And they sort of become part of I always say our family, that then stays there’s various schemes from going and seeing people and sharing people who also on our books. So we try and reserve that for just folks who have gone through the system with us if you like, because their understanding is coming from the same place, not just coming parachuting in to freelancers who go,  ‘I’m coming to watch your workshop, and then I’ll go off and do my own stuff’. There’s that sharing so we call it, there is the buddying scheme. There’s the try before you buy, which we brought in for folks who might want to go into the Early Years or from Early Years into the work with older folks. Or I work with, somebody might work in a primary school but would like to work in a secure unit and what can I, yeah, try before, can I kind of go and buddy with somebody and can they go and pop along and see?

We have an annual conference, which we’ve always done. So there’s there’s practicality, especially with safeguarding, you have to refresh that every year. How do we do that with freelancers basically? We pay a few pennies. So it’s not about, ‘Oh, I’ve got a day’s work here’. It’s, I always say we pay beer money, good food, good company, and we have a good conference. And that’s become a bit of a phenomenon that we know, right partners, and people just to the team, yeah, to meet each other. Because sometimes, obviously, they’re working, alone working. We’ve got about 40 folks on our books at the moment.

AH: Yeah, and that’s another kind of issue for community music organisations isn’t it, that lone working and how you support people? Because it’s costly supporting people isn’t it, doing something similar to supervision that music therapists would have? That’s actually quite a costly process, making sure that people have got somebody to bounce ideas off, and also to kind of offload on when they’ve been working in challenging circumstances.

NKH: Yeah, it’s an interesting one. So once a year we will do one-to-ones. Obviously in between them we are available on the phone, some of us heading up the project or anybody is because we share that across the team. Talk to folks, so one’s more of an official time we have with folk and the other one it’s yeah, how can you prescribe this, depending on the volume of work folks are doing or how many sessions are doing, or the nature of the work they’re doing? You know, it’s all going to be constantly changing. And to be fair, I think we’ve built up quite a good relationship and all the project officers and managers, but folks will ring or we’ll ring those guys, if we know it’s been a bit of tough workshops, we’ll touch base with our projects as well, and the facilitators. And there are contact points when we’ve got the office where people drop into, we have if it’s needed, and we’re starting the Wednesday Wonderful Workshops, and where’s your sharing, sharing workshop ideas, sharing thoughts, usually, that goes into discussions about the type of work we’re doing. We’ll put other people in contact with each other, if they’re doing similar sorts of works. Where we can we’ll double up if the budget allows it. So we’re working in HMP Ranby at the moment in a prisoner setting that’s a trial really to the impact of music within a prison. So it’s new for the prison. And part of that also, we’ve got a couple of people in there, just also to pass on that information training.

AH: So workforce development is key to resilience and having that workforce there so that you can respond if you suddenly get a big influx of funding. In terms of your business model, just going back to that question I asked earlier. It’s just really interesting to understand how organisations grow, particularly when they’re, you know, reliant on project funding and at what point you start to have people who are employees rather than freelance. So can you just describe to me what what you’ve learned through that process and how you’ve kind of grown?

NKH: I would love to say we have a really planned business plan that we stick to rigidly and it’s all planned out, which it isn’t. You’re absolutely right, it’s evolved. And usually it evolves, I won’t say at crisis point, but occasionally that feels like it. It’s all or nothing, isn’t it, the arts. You put in funding bids, and you either don’t get them or you get them. And that concept is quite hard for local authority colleagues, or, you know, more big establishment colleagues. So we’re forced, yeah, we have freelance facilitators, them that go and do, we have a core staff, at the moment we are having a big change over with core staff.

 So when we came out of the pandemic, we went into the pandemic with seven core staff, because we restructured and we came out, to be fair, with two of us. So that’s been peddling for many years, working with Shelley and myself, and just doing everything. And it was like when we started and building up and that was a good learning from the start to start to build up. Now we have, yeah, Exec Assistant, Shelly, who’s basically my right-hand woman, and does more of the operationals and the buildings, and works with me very closely. We have a Marketing Comms and Admin Assistant, we have three Programme Development Managers. To build slowly, we went from the core of the work we did, so that’s sort of Shelley and myself. Bringing in the marketing being important, and then be able to grow into getting enough funds for us for say Upbeat. So Vic heads up the Upbeat programme and development manager. And so that role is as a manager for a project, but also looking obviously, to developing it and growing it. So that’s our music and mental health referral service.

We’ve just got lucky with another project with Heritage Lottery Futures Past, and that’s a project and development manager. And that’s just project related. So Nikki is for three years employed to do that project as a part-time basis, whereas we’ve managed to grow with Vic she’s full-time, and will jump on other projects, if needed. But what we found is, as we’ve expanded and been more successful, there’s been another role for another manager, we just brought in new. And interesting enough, when I was analysing what I was doing, the board’s replacing me with the project manager, a part-time finance officer, and the chief exec. I don’t how I feel about this, two-and-a-half people. That’s why I’ve been busy. But I think that’s because we’ve grown and we have to feel our way and go, ‘Can we do this?’. And I think there’s always, it’s always interesting chatting to folks and going to folks coming on our books saying, this job is what you make it. Basically, if we don’t make it you don’t have a job. If we are successful and all work together, we’ll get more funding in and the job will grow. And it’s finding those crucial points of going … we need to bring somebody in at this point in order for it to grow further.

AH: Yeah, interesting. So things like the fundraising role is that spread throughout each project manager and yourself?

NKH: Yes, it depends where the interest is. And when we restructured in 2018 was really interesting, because we had a development bit and a delivery element. So you could start doing a manage, managing your projects and if you’re interested, you can jump onto the fundraising. And practically that’s what sort of happens if you’re going to do the fundraising but got interested to wants to follow it through you could do and have sort of that structure that was pre-pandemic.

But yeah, so core … I always got advised, as well, one of my advices was always do the fundraising Nicky, never let that go. And I’m sitting here, as a dyslexic person, my words aren’t my friend, find it very hard to do. But figures, love doing figures, but right, because you don’t have the passion to write those funding bids. And then for me, I have a good relationship with one of my colleagues who loved words. So he did the worms and I did the budgies, as we like to say. Nowadays, it’s really interesting watching people come through who want to have a go, and I think it’s about people wanting to, at their own pace, to look at their funding. So I’ve never presumed that people will automatically fund[raise] but where it naturally flows, and that’s obviously encouraged.

And it’s interesting this structure. So part of the structure, you talked about PAYE and probably circling back here a minute. Yes, the cost of obviously PAYE, but our people who deliver actually are freelance. And that has always been we’ve never been able to and we have explored it, ‘Can we help the facilitators to be PAYE?’. And that’s the difficulty. We can’t do that because of the nature of the businesses isn’t it, the projects increasing or decreasing. So we didn’t want to, there was a decision made earlier, we don’t want to do zero hour contracts at all. And I know we have to be very careful when we invite people to do the work for us and we check that out regularly. You know, it’s able to how do we fit in folks lives and they fit in our lives with it. And it’s interesting that over this time that we’ve, we’ve increased and decreased, really, which is suited.

So probably the nature was being happy with in the work, we’ve never had to terminate facilitators, they’ve either gone off and built their own companies. And then their own work. They’ve also some of them returned back to us. Some of them have gone to workshops, and they come in joined us, you know, so it’s quite a mix of how people come in and out. We’ve had people who’ve work with us for 19 years, 20 years, and other people who do two or three months and say, ‘Oh, this is great, and this has given me the confidence to start my own business’. Which we’re, yeah, we’re really chuffed about, it’s really quite interesting of just having that confidence to say, each year, we have different folks coming on our books, and they have different skills. And we see, as you say, it’ll take a few weeks for those to filter through, we haven’t got the projects already, we can now like sell what you’re doing. And we can push for that area as they come from a certain area of Lincolnshire, we can zoom in and focus on it’s going to be easier to fill. And it’s interesting, I used to have to write, you know, we’re working towards diversity and inclusion, in funding bids and now my problem is how to write we have it without being arrogant. So on our books, you know, with the there’s been a representation of those protected characteristics from, you know, old, young, Ukrainian, South African, lesbian, transgender, autism, disabilities. And that’s happened through I don’t know, advertising each year, and having open recruitments and attracting those people who wants to work with us.

AH: And I’m guessing that helps with resilience, having that creative diversity?

NKH: Yes, it’s the confidence it brings to those areas where we’re learning to say, ‘Well, how do … what’s needed?’. Well see, we’ve got a fantastic wonderful autism project about to start on one of our autistic facilitators as she wants to be known to be, she was just like, ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for Nikki. How do you do it? How do we do it then?’, you know. You know, ‘What do you need? How can I help you? What do you need, here’s the funding’ and it’s great designing and [someone might be] saying ‘yes, but I don’t really want to lead it’. ‘Great. Let’s get another facilitator work together’. So yeah, it opens up other areas. We always open up the facilitators of ideas where anyone’s got ideas, and I say, sort of morphs and grows and it shapes itself as a sort of needed. Quite amazing, really.

AH: Yeah. So I want to ask you two questions. The first question is a big one. So you might choose to just answer it in very bullet point responses. So that’s what do you think about the health and direction of the Community Music sector overall at the moment, and I know that we could do a whole other podcast about that. So but the question I really want to get to my final question will be about sharing your kind of learning some practical pieces of advice for community organisations and others about being resilient. So if we start with the kind of health and direction and kind of resilience of the community sector at the moment, where do you think we’re at as a community music sector?

NKH: Wow, gosh, as you say, large question. I think we are incredibly well placed as a community music sector, having gone through the pre-music hubs into music hubs. I think the strength of the community music sector is its flexibility, its adaptability. Working now with other sectors, so we’re doing a lot of work with social prescribing, GPs, NHS, community connectors, peer support workers and the community. Which we’re enjoying, and I’m picking and unravelling and saying ‘Yes, but how can we link that with music?’. Even down to music and maths, Multiply, the government’s big initiative to get people to do more maths, I mean, it’s a no brainer for us. What it needs is that opening that goes ‘and we’ll show you how, you know how we can count, how we can learn to count’. I mean that’s maths all around that, isn’t it. So I think in some ways, we’re really, really well placed. But we still have to have the conversations a bit like to having the conversations about what a workshop is, we’re still having the conversation about the power of what music does. It’s just phenomenal, isn’t it?

AH: Yeah, and also, I guess, what community music is? I mean, we’ve been having that conversation since my days in Sound Sense, and still trying to advocate for what it is, same as participatory arts. What do we mean by that? We’ll carry on trying to sort of evolve those definitions, I guess.

NKH: But to me it’s just music with people. Yes, isn’t it? So I don’t consider myself as a teacher because I’ve considered that if you go teachers can say yes and no. And my job is never to say no, my job is to say okay, ‘but how about?’, you know. ‘Have you thought about this?’ It’s sharing those ideas. And that’s just personally how I see it. So, you know,  the teacher I was talking to was like, ‘Oh, my goodness’, you know, got very upset with me. And said ‘I have to say No, because of the national curriculum,’ and I’m going, ‘Well come join our side love, we don’t have a national curriculum, we’re working with personalised learning, what people want to do. It’s a partnership we’re working with, which they call co-creation now.

AH: Sorry, I didn’t mean to take you into the big definition question. But that was really, really nicely put Nikki-Kate, thank you. So what do you reckon are the challenges for the sector?

NKH: It’s having that voice heard. At one point, when the music Plan and hubs came there was I think, this idea that everybody had to be a portfolio musician, and I think as much as that started to happen, I think it’s gone a little bit full circle. To go, No, but I think we’re coming back to saying, we’re coming. I’d hate to say more specialist. But there’s so much music work that can happen. There’s enough for everybody. But it’s finding the keen and interesting people who will take those grains of an idea with into their sector, and say, but we can do this through music. Let’s try it this way. Let’s have a go and work with you.

AH: Yeah, the environment’s, kind of it’s become a competitive environment, hasn’t it? Even in music, where we’re meant to be all lovely and inclusive and working together in partnership. The reality is, it’s really hard to work in partnership, when there’s very little funding.

NKH: Yeah, and people are protective of that. But ever, thus, you’ve constantly got that? One of my mantras has always been to make myself redundant. But I should be enabling, when I’m working with a group of participants, so they can do it themselves, or they can continue themselves, or work with an organisation. And that’s a really big lesson to try and learn.

AH: Really interesting. It would be brilliant if the next phase is about understanding the system and changing the system. Because the system doesn’t work for everybody does it?

NKH: Yeah. I think my frustration with systems is not looking and listening. There is a growth there, and it’s expected that one organisation does it. So yeah, this wonderful words of partnership thing of people. Partnershiping [often] means parachuting people in, as opposed to looking actually what is happening, and what can we learn? How can we make it better? Who’s doing what? Which was always the intention, who’s doing what how they’re doing it, as opposed to but when you have a threat of funds, and not having the money, then you’re not going to do that, which is the bit about change, … are saying, ‘Look, there’s a lot to go round, so why don’t you utilise that?’. I think that is community music is that we do discuss things and not one size fits all. So therefore knowing or suggesting or just automatically, is the team just going ‘Right, I’ve got, I don’t know, been referred an old gentleman with dementia but he wants to do some music, what other groups are around? Or which path or where to go? You know, we’ll chat about that.

AH: So that brings me on to my final question, which I was wondering if you could share three practical pieces of advice for, either for the sector, or for other community music organisations within it about being resilient and surviving and thriving.

NKH: Gosh, you ask big questions. Right, three pieces of advice. So I did think about this one. I don’t know if they’re in any particular order, but I would say spend it as if it’s your own money. And the learning … and I’m a Yorkshire lass, so you can imagine how tight I am. But that caution, we will only thrive, we’re only as good as our last gig anyway. And if we can get the funding in, then we’ll get the funding in, the job can grow, the company can grow. So being cautious about how we are spending.

Make yourself redundant. We’re about empowerment, empowering others, whether that’s musicians or practitioners, and having the confidence that it’s not a good business model, make yourselves redundant, because you will you constantly be refreshing in your work. But equally it’s really exciting. Because even if you’re working with a group, they can become independent, which is wonderful. They will keep those contacts because of the empowerment, the ownership, there’s contact with you to keep injecting, or to do other other projects will come along.

AH: So you’re not saying parachute in, come out again, what you’re saying is go in, make sure that you leave the group with the tools and the ability to continue to do what they want to do in music.

NKH: Oh, absolutely. And have those links back to be able to help them if need to.

Be passionate and positive about what you’re doing and gently push so you’re asking why’s and why not’s. So your having an inquiring mind that wants to understand things. So when someone says you can’t do it, why can’t you do it? Why? What? What stops that from happening? But positive and gentle.

And I go through the fourth one there, because which will probably lead to the call to action. Yeah, I’ve got a good idea. An old boss suggested this to me once, I was very grumpy about it. And then I realised it’s very true. He went, ‘That’s been done before, hasn’t it, so go and find the way it’s been done before and see how you can improve it’. And it’s like, now it’s my brand new idea. At the end of the day there’s only eight notes in music, and they’ve been used in a lot of different ways. So it probably has been done before. And now we do that, you’re gonna have a look gonna go, ‘Okay, that’s good. Don’t like that’. So you’re constantly building as, you know, hopefully, we’re a learning organisation, we’re learning how we continue reflecting,

That goes to your call to action, which is quit stop reinventing [the] wheel. Similar, can we find where the wheel is, can we see how we can create something else and make it better? Then keep recreating the wheel. And it does take time, you’ve got to build time in to go, it’s easy if you have an idea, just gonna do it, to stop and take a breath and go, ‘Okay, where is it happening? And what can I learn?’. And you know, and we can take that, but just find out because there’s a lot of wheels being created. And it’s really interesting. I think we could have … develop smarter, and maybe faster, and sell more in depth, if some sharings had been recognised. And we can build on what has happened and make it relevant for the future.

AH: That’s a brilliant last point to end on Nikki-Kate, because obviously, we’ve got new national plan for music education [in England], we’ve got the reduced number of hubs [in England], the government hoping that that will create more opportunities for learning across the sector. And hopefully, that Community Music organisations or community musicians will be a massive part of that, because they have been so far. And there’s so much more that they can do working with more formal music education organisations. So great point to end on, I just wish we could draw all your learning into some kind of resource. Well actually you already have in a sense, haven’t you, because soundLINCS, you started off saying about what soundLINCS does, and I was really interested that you didn’t start with delivery, you actually started with more of the strategic and the learning stuff. And you are, and you do share a lot. And I think a lot of people are probably unaware that there’s lots and lots of resources to learn from, toolkits and research and evidence on your website. So just to wrap up, I’d urge anybody to just go and have a look at the soundLINCS website and look at those resources because you know, that will maybe help with not reinventing the wheel. Thank you so much, Nikki-Kate, for spending time with me today at such a busy time for you.

NKH: No, thank you. Thank you for inviting Anita. It’s great. It’s, it’s quite a big change. But it’s exciting. It’s still exciting today as it was when I came into it. Yeah.