Blue Sky Thinking and Acknowledging the Clouds: Training at Plymouth Music Zone

Plymouth Music Zone has invested heavily in Music Leader training despite all the challenges to fund and support it. It's evidence that we can have 'blue sky thinking' to help us keep energised and committed to our work. At the same time, we can 'acknowledge the clouds' i.e. not everything can be brilliant and we are meeting the challenges of working in increasingly complex and challenging settings. We have an ethos that encourages reflective practice and encourages us to embrace challenges as opportunities to learn. We constantly strive to improve and build on what we have been doing now for 18 years. Here is an overview of how we are currently doing that through our training. We strongly believe this helps people and funders to remain confident about our ability to deliver top-notch stuff!

Why does Plymouth Music Zone invest so heavily in training and development?

We want to say and do exactly what it says ‘on the tin’. We want to continue to consistently provide high quality work with absolute integrity throughout all the layers of the project. This emphasis on training applies to all areas of the organisation, from management and strategic development to new and incoming music leaders and volunteers.

Plymouth Music Zone has always invested in training and contrary to what may be expected during current economic challenges we are continuing to do so in the firm belief that it’s absolutely the most surefire way to sustain ourselves and remain resilient and progressive in our thinking.

For example, we are currently undergoing a process with Investors in People to acknowledge this commitment. We currenty hold a Silver Award and are aiming high…!

Momentum

It’s really important that we can keep motivated and sustain energy whilst being on the ‘rollercoaster’ of meeting challenges and successes – such as simultaneously finding funding for our work - maintaining consistent delivery in increasingly challenging settings and supporting one another along the way. A bit like Owls – in order to stay in the air and keep nourished we need to have a bird’s-eye view: looking forwards, backwards and all around us at the same time!

As creative people we need nurturing to allow us to ‘feed’ ourselves as well as giving out energy and ideas. There’s a high risk of ‘burnout’ and we are keen to avoid that.

What kinds of training are in place and how is it delivered?

Whole-team training: Team Days – these incorporate organisational development and sharing as well as working together on themes. Sessions within team days are delivered by our senior management team / core and sessional staff depending on what we need to cover. We sometimes also bring in external practitioners and consultants.
Music Leader ‘Hub’ is the umbrella term we use to describe the differently tailored layers of training support at Plymouth Music Zone
“Legs Bums and Strums” music-based circuit-training for our music leaders to develop maintain and motivate us – particularly building ‘toolkits’ repertoire sharing / games / group dynamics and creative activity such as approaches to composition and song-writing. These sessions are mostly led by an experienced external practitioner.
Support Hubs are set up for small groups of music leaders working on similar areas of work. They are structured to promote open / honest and healthy discussions around particularly challenging work with the view to supporting one another with ideas to take forward.
Skills ‘Pods’ take place with small groups of music leaders who work on a specific area of work.
‘Peer Pick’ Scheme – working mostly in pairs to work intensively on a skill area at the same time as developing capacity as ‘trainers’ (*see separate article on this)
External Training - rolled out to other organisations and providers, such as schools (e.g. building confidence in inclusive music practice in mainstream primary schools)

What do we expect back from our investment?

Consistency – ensuring and maintaining quality work and interactions across a raft of diverse settings and groups
Commitment (to Plymouth Music Zone as an organization!) but also to ourselves and our professional lives
Progression - A culture that celebrates reflective and progressive thinking – for example high quality, constructive evaluations
Resilience when working in challenging settings
Health and wellbeing - A healthy team whose wellbeing is always prioritised
Capacity to deliver quality work with confidence in a wide range of challenging settings requiring a broad skill-set
Integrity - A team that is empowered to provide their voices with honesty and transparency to help steer the organisation. The whole team contributes to research and evaluation projects that in turn help us continue to develop our work at a local / national and even international level.
Income Generation potential when delivering external training