On Thursday 12th July, locals with an interest in the creative, cultural and heritage industries came together at Acanteento Ignite Chelmsford. This month’s theme, The Power of Music, followed a celebration event held by the Chelmsford Arts and Cultural Festival, who shared the success of their events and thanked sponsors and supporters.
We introduced new members to the Ignite Chelmsford team, who are supporting the co-ordination and running of events, as well as providing feedback and planning ahead: Adrian Deakes, Katie Deverell and Memory Kwada
The first guest speaker of the night was Aidan Culley from Help Musicians UK. Aidan gave the group a real insight in to the work of the charity, who provide support for musicians at all stages of their career, from students to working to retired musicians. They offer funding to help alleviate financial difficulties getting in the way of career development, campaign for better mental health – check out #MusicMindsMatter – and have worked in partnership with Musicians Hearing Services and the Musicians’ Union to create a Musicians Hearing Health Scheme, giving affordable access to specialist hearing assessments and protection. That’s not all: what struck a chord with most of us was the real effort and care that the charity put into their work, by visiting each and every musician who reaches out for support in person. To find out more, check out their website, and if you know someone who could use their support, please direct them to Help Musicians.
Following this was local speaker, Amelia Clapham, founder of Ace Music Therapy. Though based in Chelmsford, Amelia and her team work across London, Essex, Cambridgeshire and further afield. She explained the high level of musicianship and training required of a music therapist and how a typical session might go. Rather than teaching clients to play music, Amelia explained that music therapy can help communication, emotional expression, and social interaction. Amelia also shared her intentions to set up a local under 5s music therapy group – if this is something you can offer support to or would like to know more about, contact Amelia via the details on her website.
Throughout the night, members contributed to our new meetup addition: a discussion board. We had 3 different sentence starters:
- I am working on…
- I need advice with…
- In future I’d like this event to…
We’ll be addressing your points in different ways over the next meetups, and bringing it back with new questions and ideas.
A special thanks to the night’s DJ, Darryl Webber, and Emma, Alie and team at Acanteen for hosting us so well.
