Oxford Concert Party News
Beccles Festival
We are about to embark on a short tour in Suffolk, which will begin with a prison project. Then in conjunction with the Beccles Festival, we will be playing 3 concerts for schools, reaching nearly 400 primary school children, which will be huge fun. The tour will culminate with a concert at St Michael’s Church in Beccles on Friday 24th September at 7.30pm. There are some tickets still available and if you are booking for us also check out some of the other great performers who will be taking part in the festival.
Music for the Memory
We are delighted that Buckinghamshire County Council has agreed to fund a project for Age Concern Bucks for the beginning of 2011. OCP will deliver a music project which has two key aims. One is to provide a valuable programme of workshops for day centre clients, which will entertain and help with mental health issues associated with older age. The second aim is to provide training to the day care staff from 6 centres, which will create a cohort of staff who can ensure that music workshops become an integral part of the work of the centres. We have worked with the brilliant team at Age Concern Bucks before and we are really looking to this project.
Oxford Concert Party Community Exchange Project
In March 2010, the Oxford Concert Party ran a Community Exchange project in Oxfordshire.
The project was run with detainees from Campsfield House Immigration Removal Centre in Kidlington and children of Kirtlington Primary School, Kirtlington. Although the children and detainees were unable to meet, they communicated through songs, poetry, drawings and instrumental music. The result was a colourful and moving collage of words and music.
Here is a track where we have combined the voices of the children and detainees on one song, "Song of Freedom", an original composition with words by the children.
Kirtlington pupil, Millie Popham, wrote a moving poem, "I Am Running", which she performs with OCP cellist, Trevor Burley
The project was delivered by the Oxford Concert Party on behalf of Music in Detention who work through music to give voice to immigration detainees and create channels of communication between them, immigration detention staff, local communities and the wider public.
Abingdon Resource & Wellbeing Centre
The Oxford Concert Party has done several workshops at the Abingdon Resource & Wellbeing Centre. Sharon Woodward has produced a video about the work of the centre which includes performances and music by the OCP and the video can be seen on Youtube.
Funding
None of the work we do is possible without funding, whether from individuals or other charities. Over the past 3 months, we have received grants from The Bishopsdown Trust; The Concertina Charitable Trust; The Helen Roll Charity; and The Worshipful Company of Grocers. These generous grants will be used towards funding our project work and we are extremely grateful to the all these funders for their support. Without them, we would have to cut back on the work which means so much to the people with whom we work.
Raise Money for Free for The Oxford Concert Party!
We are delighted to tell you that you can now contribute financially to the Oxford Concert Party and help us with our valuable community work via the website www.everyclick.com.
Everyclick's "Give as you Live" programme lets you raise funds for free as you search the web, shop online and trade on eBay. It is powered by Yahoo, eBay and a wide range of leading shopping partners. By using www.everyclick.com as your search engine, and setting The Oxford Concert Party as your chosen charity, everytime you search the web, you raise money for us. We went live on everyclick on 9th March and had just one person using it who, within two weeks, raised £1.45. That one person could raise almost £40 a year with no cost to themselves as they go about their usual internet activity; 10 people could raise £400, 100 people could raise £4,000!
On www.everyclick.com you can also make a donation to us by credit or debit card directly to us from £5.00 upwards and even add on the Gift Aid contribution if you are eligible. It is a quick, easy and secure way to make a donation, which will make a huge difference to our work.
Oxford Concert Party on Facebook
We have set up a group page on Facebook in order to extend our profile. If you are already on Facebook, please join our group and share us with your friends and contacts!