West Park Centre - the Petition

props for multi-sensory etc days

The The West Park Centre lies empty, uncared for, and inevitably will decline in health. Twenty years of hard work devasted by one thoughtless act.

gamelan [some of it]  in boxes

YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic for years worked in tandem with ArtForms Music Service, sharing rooms, personnel and equipment, and providing more than the statutory requirements for children with Special Additional Needs, not just round all of Leeds but also all round Yorkshire.

Now the equipment lies in storerooms, and backrooms and bedrooms, and front rooms and garages all round Leeds, difficult to get hold of, by arrangement, impossible on the spur of the moment.

 e.g. "Ah, you've brought Jack* with you. He just loves an ocean drum. I'll just nip to Whinmoor and see if Mavis has one in her garage."

pans at Town Hall concert

YAMSEN had a permanent base at the West Park Centre, storing its extensive music library with everything from specially adapted xylophone beaters [for children with hands that find gripping normally hard to do] to a whole gamelan, bought with a donation and imported from Java. 

pan players at Town Hall concert

We put a brave face on it; have meetings here and there, run the muti-sensory days and the Town Hall concerts and everything else, as if life was normal, because the people for whom we provide extra specialised music education have it tough already, and don't need our problems on top of their own.

marimbas and stuff in the front room

But five months later, the officers who closed us have still not provided any decent even temporary accommodation, and quite frankly our own health is being affected.

So, here's the petition to sign. Let's get the numbers up before the new council date of 8 May. And go onto Twitter, follow and retweet the ShoutOut4WPark tweets. 

http://democracy.leeds.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=38

1.* not his real name.

2. only pictured steelpans at Leeds Town Hall - can't picture all the children. Just imagine several hundred on the raisers behind us.