For 2012 we have a new proposition for our corporate clients.  It is motivated by our desire to do maximum good for both charity and young people, and this year of all years seems like an appropriate time to launch this initiative.

Here’s the deal:  for every corporate event we run, we will donate a comparable event to a school of your choice, on an expenses only basis.  So if you decide to buy two one day events, we will give 2 days of Musikscool time (with a team of up to 10 of us) free of charge to the school you wish to support.

What is more, we will invite you to support the event if you so wish by sending a cohort of your staff who attended your Musikscool to assist, in whatever capacity they wish. thus extending the impact of your event, developing their coaching and facilitation skills, and building your organisation’s relationship with the community.

This offer will run throughout 2012, and we are not putting any constraint on the commitment we therefore will be making to resource the free events.

Classes under the tree

Without help, hope and happiness 156 mentally and physically disabled children in  Mpumulanga, South Africa are in need of a helping hand. They live with life-limiting problems such as blindness and missing limbs etc. They are considered the outcasts of the community, surrounded by a negative stigma of not having anything to contribute to society. They live in the Masoyi Special Care Centre, which is in desperate need of a classroom.  This projects aims to provide these children with a place where they can express themselves in a safe learning environment whilst gaining a basic education. Ask yourself, would you want your child to endure these horrific conditions every day, or to rather grow up in a fun environment filled with happiness, security and love?

From 27 countries, 800 delegates united for an international conference at Wellington College to produce an inspirational song that will help evoke emotion and empathy for these children, whilst providing an opportunity for the delegates to open their eyes to the plight of others. These delegates represent young people working together to create a better world, something we all share as a common goal. It is fitting that the conference theme is “Reaching Beyond our Limits”, as we came together on our first night of the conference to begin this production which has evolved into a fully-fledged fundraising campaign that will play a key role in raising awareness for Masoyi. The classroom in Masoyi will be named “Reaching Beyond Our Limits”, in recognition of our efforts.

However, this student-driven initiative is only the beginning. Every pound, every
dollar, and every rand goes entirely towards building the centre; all proceeds
go directly to the Masoyi classroom. With your help, we can raise the target of
£50,000; together we can move this project from vision to reality. All help is
appreciated, and we are spreading the word through social networking sites;
such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can donate funds at www.Justgiving.com/roundsquare, and on Sunday the 23^rd  of October the video will be uploaded to YouTube, as well as the CD being  available for download from the Just Giving website. The initiative has already  been kick-started with each school pledging £100 per student whom has attended  the conference. Will you be giving a helping hand for these children… Will you  help them to become limitless?

Thank you for your support in helping these children reach beyond their limits!

Blog written by Round Square delegates.

On October 18th we’ll have just 3 hours to create an “anthem” for the Round Square conference hosted this year at Wellington College.  The anthem is going to be performed by no less than 800 students from around the world, who are going to learn it and work out a dance routine so they can produce a tip top performance first time round once the cameras start rolling.

The students then plan to use their sales skills to persuade at least 10 people to pay to download the video, which will raise £50,000 for Round Square by Christmas.

Musikscool has co-written the music with a group of Round Square committee members.  Our role on the night is to galvanise, support and motivate the students to work out a fab dance routine and a performance which will knock peoples’ socks off when they hear it.  We have mustered a team of 25 for the event, and the excitement is beginning to build.

We’ll publish an update of the event when we have more to tell.

Wish us luck!!!

We have been given the task by the ‘Musikscool’ team, and have been given four different areas of the production; Dance, Singing, Drama and Stage Pruduction, in which myself, Ollie Spink and Josh Horton are involved. Stage Productions involves Press Conferences, Photography, Costumes and Props, Lighting, Scenery and our pathway, Social Networking and publications, on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The show will be to a real audience of over 100.  Every component of it will be built from scratch, from props, scenery, the music, theatre and dance acts.  We have only three lessons for each group to have its stuff ready for the show, which is not long at all.

Michael Brown, co-founder of Musikscool, has told us that this is the first time Musikscool has organised a live show involving music, dance and theatre.  It is also the first time they have worked with 12 to 13 year olds, so they are learning a lot too.

We hope we can pull this off and put on a show that we can all be proud of.  It is great to have a challenge like this, and very different from a normal school day.

They ended up close to £4,000 within the event, and plenty more to come we hope, because they have worked out how to have the album “Hope Begins” hosted on ITunes (a real breakthrough, it saves so many production and despatch headaches, as well as costs).

They were great to work with:  passionate, energised, respectful and with an impressive “can do” attitude.  One pupil spent 2 days aiming for a £10,000 single donation (pity he didn’t get it, but he soon bounced back).

We think the music is great.  You’ll have to judge for yourself (it’ll be available to buy on Itunes shortly).  Meanwhile here’s what we think is one of the best tracks ever produced on a Musikscool, and some images from the event.

We are very grateful for all donations, and wanted to thank in particular Holroyd Howe independent caterers, who are one of the UK’s leading independent schools catering companies, and service Pangbourne College.  They made our largest ever corporate donation.

To add your contribution to the pot (currently approaching £5,000) please visit DEBRA’s Just Giving page

Well done all, you were great ambassadors for Pangbourne.

The pupils are amazing:  4 tracks almost oven ready within 4 hours, discussions with suppliers of major sponsorship opportunities, and some great PR lined up for tomorrow.  If they keep this up, they will amaze not just themselves but us!

The event is one part of the annual  ‘Taking Responsibility’ programme run for senior pupils to develop leadership skills and personal qualities before they move up into the Upper 6^th Form.  The College has a strong tradition and history of placing great importance on teamwork and personal development.  Pupils will be closely observed by members of staff during the exercise, and assessed against a range of leadership competencies.

We are taking donations now:  please visit Just Giving to make a donation.  Thanks!

This year they managed to get the event onto BBC Radio Berkshire, and Head of 6th Form Murray Fowler did a great job of describing the Musikscool challenge.

Murray and pupils get the brief

Interview with BBC Radio Berkshire

It wasn’t all plain sailing by any means. 

Running the event across two afternoons meant we were following a morning of school lessons, and it took the pupils some time to snap out of “being taught” mode into taking responsibility and running their own business.  However, we got there, with a great sum raised (and more to come no doubt), and some great music too which will last forever. 

Here’s one of the  Musikscool team’s favourites, called ” Life free of pain ”.  Great lyrics, beautiful guitar playing, and some lovely two part harmonies from the four singers.

The group were video’d just before they went into the recording studio, and we think this captures the spirit of these talented and modest young people.

This group nailed their track in 3 hours.

We are currently halfway through our most ambitious project yet.  40 Lower 6th pupils at Wellington College are devoting two afternoons to create 5 more tracks to add to an album first initiated by last year’s group.  Not to be outdone by the sum of £11,800 raised then, this year they have decided to go for no less than £15,000 in the 8 hours available. 

The funds raised are in support of DEBRA, a charity based in Wellington’s local village of Crowthorne.  DEBRA supports children who have the genetic skin blistering condition Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). 

 All money raised will go directly towards helping people with EB by, for example, expanding DEBRA’s Foot Clinic service beyond the overstretched provision offered currently in London. £15,000 would allow DEBRA to operate 4 new Foot Clinics across the UK, which would be an amazing achievement.

EB Simplex, the least severe form

At the halfway point there is still much to do, but the music has started to germinate, PR has been lined up, and fundraising has begun to pay off:  no less than £7,000 has been donated so far. 

Please Tweet, Facebook and share this page in whatever way you can so that we can make mincemeat of our target.

To make a donation visit virginmoneygiving.  Thank you so much, we really appreciate it.

First recording within 90 minutes!

We set out with the aim of making a 5 track music CD in the day, raising a substantial amount of money from it and raising the profile of  The Sweatbox as much as possible.  A huge challenge for any group,  let alone a bunch of teenagers, who we all know are supposed to be disaffected, lazy, lacking in focus, confused and generally dysfunctional.

In the event we had our first track recorded by 10.30 (3 hours earlier than if it had been in a big fat corporate).  The first local press turned up at 10.00.   The BBC were there by noon filming us for an hour, later transmitted on local evening news.  And we had no less than 4 interviews on BBC Radio Oxford, with over an hour in total on air. If you’re quick you might catch it on iPlayer  (3 interviews, one with Michael Brown 2 hrs 34 mins in).  Local MP and Minister for Communication, Culture and the Creative Industries , Ed Vaizey, came and watched for an hour or so (and managed to fight off invitations to join in on bass!).

 Oh, and by the way, the music was oustanding, as this short video will show you (this track was the first to be recorded).

So, the results speak for themselves.  They win, hands down.   What the results don’t show is the way in which they did all this.  They made it look a complete breeze.  We found oursleves worrying about the lack of sense of urgency, the permanently chilled but cheerful demeanour thoughout the day.  The absence of conflict,  It just didn’t seem right.

Let’s be more specific about how they did things compared with how “grown ups”  (ha ha, give me a break!) perform:  at the start of these events we tell them what they have to do overall and what each team’s brief is, and then ask them to get into the group where they fancy working for the day.  Try that one in corporate land, and give it at least 20 minutes, after which you need your loud hailer to bring them to order and have to then force people to change groups or make their decision for them.  In teenage land you let it work itself out, and within 5 minutes it is sorted.  If you tell them they are short of 5 fundraisers, 5 people volunteer to swap without a moment’s hesitation.  

What’s the difference?  We reckon it’s what teenagers have, but we oldies don’t (and we have forgotten we don’t), is:

• Egos which have not yet stopped them from listening to each other, and recognising who is the right person for each job
• Curiosity to learn and explore new things
• Resilience and the ability to recover quickly from setbacks.  (We had no internet for most of the day.  Imagine that in corporate land.)
• Informality and a relaxed approach, allowing things to evolve without stress.  They get more done by slowing down.

The other thing which knocked our socks off was the passion they had for their cause, and the sense of purpose.  Listen to the lyric on the video.  The song is called “Don’t take it away”.  The opening words are “We’ve been here 45 years, and we’re not going down without a fight.”  Disaffected?  Disengaged?  We think not.

And what was perhaps most moving was the comment at the end of the film, when Jay asked: What does “Sweatbox” mean to you?

The answer was “family.”  The centre is so important to them because they value the chance to be with people, to share and build meaningful relationships rather than hanging around in the park smoking dope, which they readily admit they would otherwise be doing.  Their passion was to protect something as basic as what they think of as a family.  How encouraging is that? 

It got the Musikscool team thinking about how some of these qualities gradually get washed out of us over the years. without our noticing.  This was a brilliant way to put them back into focus again.

If you would like to hear the other 5 amazing tracks on the CD, please let us know (in the comments box) how much it is worth to you (!) and we’ll make sure you get a copy. 

Please help us to get the word out for The Sweatbox by tweeting this and doing all the other stuff that teenagers are good at!

The event is designed to offer these people a lifeline which they will create themselves.  They are planning to create a 5 track music CD in one day, and from it to generate sponsorship and sales of over £3,000 within the day.  A huge challenge for any group, and for these people a real challenge to their comfort zones.  In effect they are setting up their own business and aiming to       make a profit of £3,000 in their first day of trading.

Fortunately they will be supported by a team of 10 facilitators and musicians from Musikscool who know it can be done.  “Our record is £28,000 in 3 hours, admittedly with 120 people and with a luxury car manufacturer with a long list of eager suppliers,” says Michael Brown, co-founder of Musikscool.  “This event will be a stretch, but we know that Sweatbox has a great reputation locally, and that people are very supportive.  I believe they will respect seeing these young  people trying to support themselves, and am confident that they will more than achieve the target.”

Rumour has it that the local MP (and coincidentally Art and Culture Minister) Ed Vaizey will be attending on the day.  Garry Kingett,  Area Youth Worker for Wantage, Grove and Faringdon Area Youth Office, and the key driver behind the event, is optimistic.  “I know for a fact that we have some very talented musicians in the group, and I’ve heard that Musikscool has a lot of talent to bring to bear as well, so the musical side should be fine.  Whether or not we can pull off the fundraising side is another question.  Again Musikscool will be advising and supporting the team, and they have seen it done many times before, so I am ready to be convinced and amazed at what can happen when we all pull together.”

If you would like to donate, please call Garry on  07742 125902, or hit the Contact tab on this site to get in touch with Michael.  Every little helps. 

We’ll be uploading tracks during the day as they come off the production line, onto this page, so save it to your Favourites and keep in touch!

Thanks for reading.