We Can All Make Music.

The times they are a-changin'!

Community Music Victoria and the Victoria Sings adventure have reached a watershed, with some dramatic changes planned for 2009…

The story so far

Since 2002, CMV's key program has been Victoria Sings - a State-wide initiative designed to weave community singing into the cultural fabric of Victoria. It’s major strategy has been to nurture and support singing leadership within communities, and through the program more than 1000 Victorians have taken part in affordable singing leadership skills development workshops and networking gatherings. Public funding for the program has been reasonable but irregular, unpredictable and of limited duration, so our focus has always been to ensure that when funding dried up there would be sufficient momentum for development to continue. Our current sources of funding for the program are now coming to an end, but we are pleased to report that our efforts have been successful - independent networks of community music activists all over Victoria are extremely keen to continue harnessing the power of participatory group music making and using it to transform lives and communities.

While we are extremely optimistic about the future of the networks we’ve helped to create, and of CMV as an organisation, we are sad to announce that at the end of 2008 funding for our two full-time staff - Jon Hawkes (our Executive Officer) and Nimity James (our Administrator) was no longer available. Jon and Nimity were both with us since 2001, and we sorely miss their unique contributions.

In 2009 we contracted a new part-time Administration Co-ordinator - John Howard, and a part-time Volunteer Co-ordinator - Jane Coker.

Creating a sustainable organisation

CMV's voluntary Board of Management has been busy planning for this stage. Our mission has been to re-design CMV, transforming it into a self-sustaining organisation that will:

continue to assist the emergence and development of regional networks of community music-making activists.

continue to develop Victoria's community music making capacity.

inspire participatory group music-making of all kinds, including group singing.

maintain core stability without being dependent on external funding.

enable its state-wide supporters to participate more fully in its operations and direction.

After thorough analysis and discussion, it has become clear to us that the only truly sustainable model for CMV is one that is driven by volunteers and that develops self-generated streams of income. Rest assured, we will continue to seek funding, and when we get it we will do remarkable things with it, but our new structure will ensure that stability will not be threatened during times when the public coffers run dry.

Become a CMV Volunteer

So, over the next few months CMV will be recruiting around 70 volunteers. Our intention is that the majority of these will be based in regional and rural Victoria, working from home, with the remainder based in metropolitan Melbourne either at home or at our office in Ross House. Tasks will include administration, finance, volunteer management and newsletter production. We are also looking for volunteers to become involved in catalytic, advocacy and skills-development work as well as in IT, seeking funding, legal, marketing, membership, resource development, evaluation, research, policy development fields and, of course, management of the organisation itself. If you are interested in playing any kind of voluntary role in the organisation, we would love to hear from you. Please email us with a brief expression of interest - we would like to hear from both individuals and from teams of people who are interested in keeping the CMV ball rolling.

Sing It!

Another valued team member who will become a volunteer in 2009 is the magnificent Belinda McArdle - editor of "Sing It! - The News-Voice of the Singing Leaders' Network of Victoria". She has brought great vibrancy to our statewide networking publication and, along with her team in Geelong, has serviced an ever-increasing readership. Belinda and the team will continue producing "Sing It!" as volunteers, and we thank them all a great deal for their enormous contribution.

Sing It! has been mailed free of charge three or four times a year to every person who has attended a CMV leadership skills-development or networking event - a number now exceeding 1000. From 2009 Sing It! will be edited, packed and mailed by a team of volunteers for CMV subscribers, who pay a small subscription for their copy. The subscription rate is $22 for 4 editions in 2009. You may also opt to receive your copy electronically rather than in printed form, but we know a lot of people like to read it in the garden shed or while they’re “on the bowl”, which is why we produce the publication in both forms. Sing It! is an inspiration to anyone involved in community singing. Your contributions of stories, thoughts, songs and pictures are always gratefully received, and will be needed as much now as ever before.

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SHOUT!

Our bi-monthly subscription newsletter - SHOUT! - which incorporates listings for community music making events as well as festivals, performances, singing and playing opportunities (and much more) will become an electronic publication in 2009. We’re producing SHOUT! electronically now in an effort to save much needed (and scarce) resources, but if you are not a computer-user let us know and we will continue to send you a printed copy. As is the case with our other publication Sing It! (mentioned above), SHOUT! will be put together by a team of volunteers. CMV email bulletins will continue to be produced, as before.

Skills Development and Networking Gatherings

Even in our short period of existence, we are already seeing individuals and groups across the state taking the initiative to organise regional skills-development and networking gatherings (which we think’s great!). These events can be “cost neutral” if ticket or entrance prices are appropriately set for participants, but funding may also be made available by local councils, community health organisations and other sources in order to keep the cost to participants low. CMV is able to provide advice and support to anyone wishing to organise an event of this nature, and we would encourage you to contact us if you think our experience with these issues may be of value to you.

Support our singing leaders and leadership teams

Currently, CMV has been providing on-going support for singing leaders and their teams for 7 years. This support has been provided by our networkers and catalysts, all of whom (as well as being contracted), have also worked in this capacity voluntarily, giving up huge amounts of their personal time to ensure this in-valuable and much-needed service remains available. In 2009 there will be opportunities for volunteers to continue this work on a regional basis - please contact us if you would like to join our networking or catalyst teams as a volunteer team-member - your assistance will be greatly appreciated!

We can work it out

We know news of these changes will come as a surprise to many of you, but we’re confident our new volunteer-driven structure will move CMV securely into the future, and we look forward to working together (with you!) to make it happen. If you want to know more, email the Board and we’ll fill you in!

Together we can make a sound world!

From all of us at the CMV Board of Management:

Lyndal Chambers, Jane Coker, Chris Falk, Belinda Glass, Emily Hayes, John Howard, Richard Lawton, Heather McLaughlin, Sue North and Brian Strating and CEO Jon Hawkes.

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CMV - making a sound world together.