Senior community music leader Forest of Dean

Posted by: Website Administrator - Posted on:

Freelance position £20/hour – 6-12 hours a week

Cinderford based

About The Music Works and why we need this role

The Music Works is an award-winning Gloucestershire charity that uses music as a vehicle to transform the lives of young people (8-30 years) living in challenging circumstances. We work with all abilities, from absolute beginners to some of the county’s most skilled emerging artists. We specialise in music technology and production, singing and song writing, rap and beatboxing, using a range of musical instruments from guitars to Djembe drums, because we have found these approaches to be the most accessible and achieve the best outcomes.

Here’s an introduction to our work https://youtu.be/zz14_Zi2POY  and our website is www.themusicworks.org.uk.

We started in the Forest of Dean in 2004 and now work across the county with 3,000 young people a year and a further 2,000 through events. In 2020, we were gifted a space in the centre of Gloucester by the council and created a state of the art, inclusive music hub for young people. It opened in September 2021 and has proved a huge success with over 1,500 young people regularly using it.

We now want to repeat this success and offer for the young people in the Forest of Dean as they have told us that it is too hard for them to get to Gloucester and there is little for them in their area. Cinderford Council have given us the old HSBC bank right in the centre of town and we have drawn up plans to turn it into a music Hub for young people which we will be building next year with a planned opening of January 2024.

We are looking for a dynamic, experienced senior music leader to lead the development and delivery of a range of music sessions for diverse young people both in The Cinderford Hub and with our community partners both in Cinderford and the Forest of Dean. This is a really exciting opportunity for a fantastic music leader to shape the music offer for young people in Cinderford and across the Forest.

The new Hub is also going to really change our work in the area. So we’re quite flexible about the detail of the role and would welcome conversations with people about what it could look like. The number one thing is that you will need to be great with young people and have a broad experience of leading music across a variety of types (tech, instrument, vocal) and genres. Other than this we can flex and either give you more responsibility e.g. management, community development or less (bringing in other staff) depending on what will work best for you and us.

We do have a music bus and some of the role will be going out on this with a team to work with young people in rural areas, so we do need you to be able to drive.

And, ideally, we would like you to be local as we’re really committed to supporting jobs for people in the area.

We’ve put a rough list of responsibilities and a person spec below but do just get in touch if you’re interested and we can have a chat.

Key responsibilities

  • Help develop an exciting music offer to engage young people of all ages and abilities in The Cinderford Hub and our outreach programmes
  • Deliver one to one music mentoring sessions to young people in challenging circumstances.
  • Deliver and oversee our drop-in, open access music sessions
  • Work across the Forest in any one of our many partner schools and community programmes delivering our music workshops to groups
  • Develop and deliver music sessions to take place across the Forest on our music bus
  • Support young people using The Hub to put on events either at The Hub or in the town
  • Support and coordinate less experienced music leaders to deliver high quality sessions
  • Be part of the safeguarding team

General

  • Maintain records of feedback & evaluation from young people through our data capture system
  • Be committed to putting young people at the heart of everything we do.
  • Promote and comply with all of our policies and practices
  • Be responsible for identifying and undertaking training and personal development
  • Be responsible for managing your own time and communicating well with the team
  • Be responsible for set up and pack down of projects, including cashing up

Person specification

  • Experience of working with young people from marginalised/disadvantaged backgrounds and with a range of complex needs
  • Experience of working with young people through song-writing, music production, vocals and instrumental skills (guitar, drums and keyboard) music technology
  • Ability to work with large groups of children and young people
  • Have a credible understanding of the music scene for young people
  • Excellent communication skills
  • Calm, flexible and resilient when working with young people
  • A great team player
  • Ability and desire to self-organise and work flexibly

Ideally, we’d also love it if you:

  • Understand safeguarding
  • Have relationships with diverse communities in Cinderford and the Forest of Dean
  • Have good administrative and time management skills
  • Understand health & safety and risk awareness
  • Are a First Aider, or willing to undertake first aid training
  • Have the ability and confidence to drive a big van
  • Are from the Forest of Dean

Details of the role:

This is a flexible role and will grow over time as we launch and promote the Cinderford Hub. The first year will be more about building young people’s interest through outreach while the Hub is being built. The role will mainly be delivered in Cinderford.

Other benefits

Cinderford is our base so we don’t pay travel to there but if you have to travel anywhere else we will pay travel.

The Music Works has a very clear way that we work with young people based on the self-determination theory. We’re all about giving young people control, helping them make connections and helping them feel good at something. We have an extensive training and reflection programme for our music leaders to help them deliver this. This amounts to about 6 training days a year which we do expect all music leaders to attend when relevant. The training is given to you free and we also pay a reduced hourly rate of £10/hour for all training days.

How to apply:

Please send a CV, along with a covering letter (or a short video if you don’t like writing) explaining why you are interested in the role and how you are suitable. Please send to lpotter@themusicworks.org.uk .

If you would like to discuss the role beforehand then please email ldavies@themusicworks.org.uk

to arrange a time to talk.

We aim to fill this role asap so will meet with applicants as they come in so please just apply as quickly as you can. We’ll want to try you out with a session with young people.

Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our organisation and we promote equal opportunities.

We believe this can be achieved through attracting, developing, and retaining a diverse range of staff from many different backgrounds who reflect the community we serve. We encourage applications from all backgrounds.

In line with The Music Works safeguarding policy, this job is subject to enhanced DBS checks and satisfactory references.