Making Music,the National Federation of Music Societies, represents and supports amateur choirs, orchestras and music promotors of all kinds.
Welcome to the South West Region of Making Music. We are a large Region stretching from Gloucestershire in the north and Bournemouth in the east to Cornwall in the west. Some 250 Orchestral Groups, Choirs and music Societies in the Region already are members of Making Music.
Membership is open to all amateur music making organisations and joining packs are available from our Head Office in London. If your Society would like to discuss the benefits of membership please get in touch with any member of the Committee
If you are an instrumentalist, a singer, or interested in attending concerts organised by a Music Society have a look at one of the following pages where you will find a list of Making Music Member Societies in your area. Further information about individual societies is available from our Regional Developement Officer, Rachel Levay whose address is 2 Upper Church Street, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 4JF. Her email address is rachel@makingmusic.org.uk
If you are interested in using our data list of Member Societies in the South West to promote a concert or your availability as a potential performer a label service is available from Making Music Hrad Office. Detaills of this service are available on the main Making Music website or from Rachel Levay at Rachel@makingmusic.org.uk
The Region publishes a newsletter twice a year. The newsletter includes articles of topical interest as well as a list of many of the concerts being provided by member societies over the coming six months
Please use the links on the left to navigate around our site. To help you find an appropriate Society they have been grouped by Counties. Where a Society is known to have a WEB site or an email address this has been highlighting in blue & underlining. If your Society would like a link to be added and it is not shown please e-mail your site address to me. My e-mail address is rogerw.hughes@virgin.net.
Regional Development Officer
Rachel Levay has been appointed our Regional Development Officer. This is apart time appointment - initially for four days a week. Although she reports to Making Music head office her major role will be to help the SW Region Committee in extending the support we can give to our member societies. Rachel lives in Stroud and is contactable at rachel@makingmusic.org.uk
Publicity Mailshots
Non MM members who would like to circulate publicity material to our members may like to obtain sets of address labels for imndividual MM member societies. These are avilable from our Central Office for a small charge. We cannot undertake to provide this service within the SW Area.
Annual Regional Meeting
The 2007 Annual Members' Day took place on Saturday 13 October at King's College Taunton. Some 35 members attended with the day starting with registration and coffee.
This was be followed by the formal AGM of the South West Region and included brief reports from the Officers of the Region. Rosemary Allen was confirmed as Chairman. George Mathers and Tony Philpott resigned from the Committee. Both George and Tony have made a very significant contribution to the work of the Committee. David Edge from Bournemouth was nominated as a Committee Member.
Following the AGM Aurore leQuere from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra gave fascinating talk on her role in their marketing department - I think we were all envious of her £50k budget! ( but she is promoting a full time professional orchestra}. Many members brought copies of their publicity material and Aurore led a discussion using examples.
After lunch we had three "break-out " sessions devided between vocal, Instrumental, and promoting societies. Not suprisingly the vocal group was the largest and I led a very lively discussion mainly on financial matters. One issue that was raised was the illegal copying of copyright material which nrecently led to a Society being heavily fined!
This was followed by a talk by Beth-Marie Norbury on the role of the organisation "Arts & Business" explaining their role as vehicle whereby Business' can support Amatuer Music Making to jointly promote their interests.
The day concluded with a session led by Rachel Levay talking of her experiences inther six months or so of working with us in the South-west, followed by an open forum with Rachel and members of the Regional Committee.
Roger Hughes
This site was last updated on 24 November 2007
To go to the national Making Music website click on their name.