Bridget’s Blog: Looking ahead to 2022

As I made the difficult decision to move this week’s Music Mark Team Away Day online, postponed my trip next week to Belfast, and read news of the Heads of Instrumental Teaching Scotland conference at the end of this month being postponed too, it is amazing to think that just over 5 weeks ago we held our Annual Conference in Brighton with over 350 people attending across the two days.

We were probably just lucky with our dates, as Omicron had not quite picked up the momentum it has now has (do keep up to date with guidance with Music Unlocked), but I am grateful that we were. Especially because we had two great days of presentations, discussions and networking.  Indeed there was so much fantastic content that we are already thinking about how we can share some of it more widely now that the conference microsite is closed.  Watch this space for more, but we certainly hope to share our keynotes over the coming months for those of you who were not able to join us in person or online.

One of the key moments – although there were so many – from the conference was at the end.  No, not because we were all so pleased to have completed such a massive ‘year in the planning’ event, but because I was able to announce our plans for 2022.  We know how important it is for every organisation to consider Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I), including Music Mark, and following our report on diversity in the workforce in 2021 we have taken the idea of being more proactive to heart.  2022 is Music Mark’s year of turning Talk into Action and we are very much hoping everyone will come with us on the journey.

And why did we launch the Talk into Action initiative at the conference?  Well, following a year, we hope, of great action we would like to celebrate the work at our 2022 conference.  We announced that we will be in Newcastle on the 24^th and 25^th November 2022, but we have some exciting ideas linked to that which we will be telling everyone about soon.  For now though, can I encourage everyone to pledge to take action, to explore our resources and training, and let us share the stories you have about what you’re doing!

We will keep you updated on our progress too.  For now, I am delighted to say that the Board appointed Yogesh Dattani to be our ED&I Lead and I am going to be working with him over the coming months to look at our own ED&I plan… watch this space!

Bridget