We have had another exciting week at Forget Me Notes.
At the AGM we had good conversations about future and the steps forward that we have made with regard our constitution and how we are preparing for further development.
This week was the first meeting of our All Singing and Dancing project team. All Singing and Dancing is a group aimed at those living with additional needs and is open to all. The project leader of this group is Kenny who is a music facilitator and is featured in this quarter’s newsletter. Kenny has been running the group for the past ten years. We have been in discussion with Kenny to bring the project under the umbrella of Forget Me Notes so this week we have been discussing the practicalities for doing that. The handover of the management to Forget Me Notes will take place in April. The wonderful thing is that from a practise point of view nothing will change, the project will be delivered in the same way as it is now. It does mean, however, that we can widen our scope and include in a more formal way those living with additional needs.
It was wonderful to be at Saughton Park this week with our regular members but also to welcome people with additional needs who were attending the group. We had 52 people in the Glasshouse. It was a real family atmosphere with everyone being included and all singing amongst the plants that were in this beautiful building.
We had a good session at Eagle Lodge this week. It is great when staff can join in with the singing, it is not always possible but this week we had a wonderful rendition of Edelweiss (with harmony) that included several staff members.
Friday saw us at The Festival Theatre for another session of Together in Song. It is always nice to have new people and there were at least four people who had never been before. We took the theme of Spring, and the weather certainly helped us out. We did Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves which was great. We also did an Ethel Merman song “Everything’s coming up Roses”. It was great fun.
This coming week we will be singing in the Scottish Parliament for the MSP’s and invited guests. We will take our message of the benefits of music and see if we can influence the budget! That might be a bit of a tall order, but we will present the value of music to the health of the nation and hopefully show that through music we can cut spending on traditional medicines. We will give it a go for sure and see what we can achieve.
I will let you know how it goes next week.