M1

 

MISSION STATEMENT

 

To ensure that a Folk Arts based resource is offered to the community through a balanced artistic programme which is financially viable.

 

To offer a venue for a wide range of Folk activities of the highest quality, together with a programme of participant workshops and activities that offer good access to the Folk Arts.

 

To introduce new ideas, and artistic work, into the region from the UK and abroad.

 

BENEFICIARIES:

 

All ages

All abilities

Socially excluded

Ethnic minorities

 

PARTNERSHIP ORGANISATIONS:

 

West Suffolk Mind; East Suffolk Mind ;Suffolk Social Care Services (Learning Disabilities); Bury Volunteer Centre; Connexions; Secondary Education (Comprehensives and Colleges)

 

AIMS:

 

1. To expand The Milkmaid Folk Club into a non-profit organisation promoting dance and song from Suffolk, East Anglia, The British Isles, Europe and the rest of the world. The Milkmaid, in its present form, is one of Suffolk’s leading folk clubs; it holds two concerts a month featuring top professional artists from the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA.

 

2. To acquire a suitable leasehold property that will cater for the activities of a Folk Arts Centre in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

 

3. To promote concerts featuring International and National folk music performers including music from Africa, Asia, America, Australasia and Europe. To invite local performers as support acts giving them the opportunity to perform in front of knowledgeable audiences in a structured concert setting.

 

4. To bring together ethnic minorities and other communities through the medium of folk music and folk dance.

 

5. To encourage and promote local performers by offering the opportunity to perform in concerts and by interacting with other similar centres, where they exist, in Suffolk and East Anglia thereby creating awareness of our musical heritage and raising the profile of Bury St Edmunds as a music centre within the community.

 

6. To encourage and promote folk dance through the participation of local dance sides and the creation of instructional workshops. This will involve several of the Morris and Molly dance troupes as well as Bury Bal, a French dance organisation based in Bury St Edmunds.

 

7. To hold workshops with professional folk musicians, involving the music departments of both local schools and colleges, thereby raising awareness of our very rich musical heritage.

 

8. To offer participation in folk music to adults, senior citizens and children, both able-bodied and disabled, in a day centre setting. As well as musical sessions this could include the making of basic folk instruments and/or related artefacts.

 

9. To actively pursue a dialogue with the local authority ultimately aiming to create an annual ‘Day of Music & Dance’ celebration in Bury St Edmunds with the Milkmaid providing an operational base for local festivals and related events incorporating a folk theme.

 

10. To actively encourage young performers and provide a local and easily accessible vehicle to facilitate public performance.

 

11. To hold classes in the tuition of World music, including the playing of related instruments, for people of all standards, abilities and understandings.

 

12. To teach folk song to all, including ballads and lyrical texts, as well as the wider historical context of selected songs. Many regions in the UK have different versions of the same song that can be studied and discussed in a communal group.

 

13. To make people aware of the rich and varied musical and dance history that comes from the British Isles, Europe and beyond.

 

14. To aid young and older performers to promote themselves in the World music industry. To promote, for example, awareness of the 350 Folk/World festivals in the British Isles that generate around £82 million income for local economies and the opportunities which exist for people to be involved either as performers, listeners, technicians or stewards. To advise and guide performers along the road towards recording their material and to make them aware of the legal pitfalls they could encounter.

 

15. To make people aware that the term ‘Folk Music’ is not confined to Traditional rustic music but covers musical genres such as Blues, Jazz, Country, Bluegrass and World Music and, also, that modern trends such as Rap and Street Music are part of the folk development.

 

16. To provide a base for people to socialise and to enjoy facilities where musicians and singers of all standards and cultures can meet and hold music sessions and dance, a well as enjoying story telling and poetry reading.

 

17. To hold song-writing workshops to enable budding composers to learn the art of composition.

 

18. To employ a small workforce, a percentage of which would be from the socially excluded sector.

 

19. To introduce new ideas and artistic work into the region from the UK and abroad.

 

SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES:

 

Concerts

Workshops

Courses

Promotion of folk music & dance

Folk Music/Dance Origins

Music Tuition

Vocal Coaching

Technical Training

Performance Techniques & Skills

Rehearsal Space