One of YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic's members is also a committee member for the West Park Church, and so the Friday morning group of adults with Learning Difficulties was up and running again without a break - absolutely essential for any group of people.
Mavis West [who put Leeds on the national stage for its innovative provision of music education to children and adults with Addtional/Special Needs] wrote this report about how they were coping:
Report of YAM activities November –December 2012 -February 2013
We have been fortunate in being able to hire West Park
United Reform Church for Friday morning YAM Activities. Yes it costs just under
£400 but if we have 50 customers attending @£2.50 each we are breaking near
enough even (can be up to 30 -40 support workers/volunteers) + catering costs.
We still feel we can bring outside leaders in every so often.
The customers are fine –we had 3 major concerts in December
–Town Hall, Mencap Fayre and Betty’s Factory in Harrogate. All very successful.
Transport is still a problem with some centres –last Friday one Driver had it
written down to collect from West Park Centre. On the whole we are coping –The
space is more limited at the church – we shall be having to replan workshops
and collect instruments from round the city –the social side is much more
limited but again we are coping.
We are unable to open the planning of YAM Activities to our
customers and volunteers –this was proving to be an exciting way of building
the confidence of the customers and volunteers and limits us having the ability
to extend the work which has already proved to be so successful.
The main concern is the lack of a centre for us to work from
–Instruments are all over the city –we have no designated storage space and it
looks as though we may have to pay for storage after Easter.
The plus side is that we have had no reduction in the
numbers attending on Fridays
Mavis
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