We hope that you are all safe, well and enjoying a relaxing Easter.
Please find below a message from Coda Music Trust’s CEO, Phil Hallett:
I hope our messages have provided some comfort and entertainment in recent weeks. The Coronavirus pandemic has truly turned our world upside down and I know many of you will have been tragically affected by the virus and its impact on our lives.
I am writing to update you on the Summer term at Coda, which we postponed back in March. It is now clear that the Summer term as planned will not take place and, consequently, any invoices you received relating to Coda’s services from April onward have been cancelled. Please consider these null and void and new invoices will be issued when we reopen. For those of you that have already pre-paid for the Summer term, a credit will remain on your account.
While we remain uncertain of the situation and unable to open Coda Music Centre, we will continue to offer a myriad of events, activities, links and resources to music online, so please take advantage of these by joining our Facebook community here facebook.com/CodaMusicTrust/
In order to support our staff, the whole of Coda’s teaching team and much of our management team will be furloughed while the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is available from HM Government. This will ensure some income for our valued staff for as long as possible. However, while furloughed, our staff may not work or provide services to Coda and, consequently, for now, Coda will not be providing a formal online teaching service. Instead, we will focus on providing as many free resources as we can to our students, so please follow our social media pages, share relevant links with us and we hope we will provide motivation and inspiration for you to continue to practice, play and listen to music.
Everyone at Coda believes that music is undeniably a force for good and we know that joining with us, and with people across the world, in sharing our love of music will be of benefit in these difficult times.
You should know that, like many businesses and charities, the impact of the pandemic has been profound and devastating for Coda. The income to our charity has dropped to virtually zero from almost all sources with the cancellation of our Summer term music tuition programme and the loss of all our work in local schools, as well as all care and community settings. We are ineligible for small business support as a charity and have decided to support our staff through the furlough scheme and support students with free resources instead of launching fee-paying online teaching services. Nor have we launched a major fundraising campaign that might draw much needed finances from families and frontline services. However, we are fighting for our survival and if you value Coda as a place for you to learn and play music in your local community and feel able to help us, we would welcome any donations you are able to provide to the charity.
You will find full details of how you can donate and support the charity further down in this update and thank you to everyone who has helped us so far.
Your funds will help us to work with our freelance team to create music resources online, in particular for the key vulnerable groups we work with, such as adults and children with learning disabilities and the very oldest people in our community that are at severe risk and isolated more than ever. Donations will also help us to meet the essential overheads of the charity that can no longer be met through earned income. Every penny will help us through this time of crisis.
We look forward to opening our doors again as soon as we are able, and in the meantime please keep well, stay home, and play music!
Phil
CODA FACEBOOK LIVE EVENTS
Thank you to everybody who joined us for our inaugural Facebook Live Easter Music Quiz on Thursday – we hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to your generosity, this raised a fantastic £205!
We’ll aim to run another of these quizzes in a few weeks time.
This week, however, we will be returning to music from another of our incredibly talented tutors, Guy Gardner.
On Friday 17th April at 7pm on Coda Music Trust Facebook page, Guy will be going live, playing Jazz Piano. He has performed nationally with top ranking jazz players including Pee Wee Ellis, Roger Beaujolais, Dave O’Higgins, Jim Mullen, Derek Nash and Mornington Locket and recorded two albums, one featuring his own trio and one with vocalist Sue Hawker.
Please join us online to enjoy Guy’s gig and support us through the ‘donate’ button on our Facebook Live stream.
HOW TO SUPPORT CODA MUSIC TRUST
You can always donate online via our Just Giving page here
Join us online for our Facebook Live events and support us through the ‘donate’ button on our Facebook Live streams.
Support Coda through Amazon Smile – it won’t cost you a penny!
AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon with the same products, prices and shopping features as Amazon.co.uk The difference is that when you shop on AmazonSmile, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the net purchase price from your eligible AmazonSmile purchases. Millions of products on AmazonSmile are eligible for donations to charities by Amazon. For more information, visit https://smile.amazon.co.uk/about.
CLUES FOR STUART’S TV THEME QUIZ
If you’re still puzzling over Stuart’s TV Theme Quiz from last week, here are some clues:
- Put off by disheveled stockings
- Floating craft on the south coast
- This one might have pissing nits!
- You’ve been clapping together with them perhaps?
- Where Robert Johnson got his powers
- Your father’s elderly troops
- Top US team
- a right bunch of ’em
- Pacific Island’s half century
- Ricckkkkkky!!!
SELF-ISOLATION PLAY-ALONGS WITH STU
Stuart has also been filming these great self-Isolation play-alongs for Guitar and Ukulele. You’ll find links to the first three below:
Episode One Rainbows (Guitar): Click here (Ukulele) Click here
Episode Two Daydream Believer (Guitar) Click here (Ukulele) Click here
Episode Three Only Fools & Horses (Guitar & Ukulele) Click here
Have a great week, stay safe and we’ll be back next week with more news, play-alongs and events for you to enjoy!
