Hi All,
On Saturday 3 October, we're meeting up for lunch in a pub near Saint
Pauls in London, , followed by an informal session where we'll talk
about how VIBE can be useful for you, what some of us have been doing
or planning, how you can help, and other questions or topics you tell us.
After our first meeting and the Visually Impaired Musicians' Lives
conference in March, many people have shown real enthusiasm for the
idea of VIBE. In particular, you have embraced the value of
networking and sharing resources, ideas and information. However,
the feedback from my last update showed that people have very
different ideas about what They want. We now need to build on the
momentum by deciding what we can do next.
Following the pilot, we're looking for further funding to do some of
the more ambitious things people have asked for, such as providing
help with transport and access issues around playing, recording and
gigging, but meanwhile we can still move on with the networking and
helping each other out, so some of the things we'll be discussing are:
* Should we create an actual association, or social enterprise, a
bit like BCAB, (British Computer Association of the Blind) so that we
have members and a steering group to help move things forward, and
share the work to make the most of different people's strengths? If
so, then this will be the starting point.
If we have found more funding by then , then we will be recruiting a
project worker to coordinate work and continue what we started, so
this will be a chance to help guide that work.
We are holding a workshop, soon after that meet-up, around confidence
and how to improve promotion and networking skills, run by Steph
Cutler, a well-respected coach in that field, so this will be a
chance to talk about what will be the most useful content for that workshop.
Steve Burge, one of the people at the first meeting, is working on a
project around live gigs for musicians with and without impairments.
Steve has agreed to talk about that on 3 October.
Any other things you'd like to discuss, including practical and
accessibility questions, will be very welcome, so please contact me
to let me know whether you plan to attend the meet-up, and if you
have any topics you'd like to include.
In conclusion, this will be a chance for you to shape VIBE and help
it stay alive and develop into something genuinely useful. I've said
before that it's no use whatever if it is just a talking shop, and we
can't do this at all without your help and involvement, so your
feedback and participation are crucial if you want to see it succeed.
Please Email your reply to me at peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In case you aren't familiar at all with VIBE, it's an initiative to
support blind and visually impaired musicians and sound engineers
find and keep work, and you can read more here:
http://www.vibeworks.net/
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best,
Peter
--
*******
Peter Bosher,
Email: peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.soundlinks.com/
Tel': (+44) (0) 1494 794 797
Fax: (+44) (0) 1494 583 146
snail://
SoundLinks Limited,
43 Broadlands Avenue,
Chesham,
Bucks.
HP5 1AL
England.
