The Central Coast Music Education Foundation

Trust Fund Doc 1. draft aims and objectives

The Central Coast Music Education Foundation.
The Musical Coast

". . .our answer to inequity also needs to change. In my view, the answer should lie to a large extent in building up people’s capabilities. Investing in people.. . . while we may need to tolerate some inequity in the distribution of income and wealth, we should have zero tolerance for severe capability deprivation.. . . What is essential to equity is to develop people’s capabilities. "
How much inequity should we allow?
Dr Ken Henry Address to the Australian Council of Social Service National Conference, 3 April 2009
http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1574/PDF/02_How_much_inequity_should_we_allow.pdf

Aims and objectives 2010-2015
Initially mainly to:-

• promote excellence in music studies by giving bursaries prizes, subsidies and scholarships to promising and talented music students.
• give bursaries, prizes and subsidies for music purchase, travel to lessons, instrument hire, educational equipment, musical enrichment activities and tuition to financially disadvantaged students.
• to seek out especially youth 'at risk'-the homeless, socially, mentally and economically disadvantaged, and involve them with music education programs.
• fund significant prizes, scholarships and bursaries for the Central Coast Eisteddfod competitions. To provide assistance for funding Eisteddfod venue hire.
  
• promote therapeutic musical interaction between older people and young people, Research the effects of music on the older and ageing. population

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
Albert Einstein

But also eventually to:- 2015- 2050-

• enable purchase, hire and loans of musical instruments for all music students and provide a secure space for storage of instruments.
• facilitate the provision of suitable instruments as students progress and need better quality and more professional instruments (e.g. guaranteeing loans from museums or retired musicians of precious violins, violas etc including bows; or buying and lending professional standard instruments, bows, ethnic instruments etc. There is no harpsichord, no carillons, no pipe organ etc on the Central Coast).
• assist with purchase, hire and loan of musical scores to individuals and groups.
• establish a first class music library for students, staff and teachers and visiting music scholars; pay to staff and house such a library.
• pay for and promote training and development programs of staff and volunteers of the Central Coast Music Trust Fund.
• enable and/or subsidize exchange and travel for musical students and teachers to other areas of Australia and overseas or such other travel that the CC Music Trust Fund thinks will promote the musical development of students.
• proactively organise and/or facilitate enrichment activities centred around music eg babies' concerts, facilitation of string programs, payment of transport costs to concerts or events for either audience or artists.
• pay for master classes and visiting teachers, music adjudicators and examiners.
• scholarships for further training and development of promising music teachers who plan to stay on the Central Coast and teach.
  
• subsidise travel expenses, local, intra & inter state and overseas, for music teachers and students in Central Coast ensembles, choirs, bands, groups and orchestras.
• encourage drug-free musical events
• encourage the study of the history and theory of music
• encourage, promote and pay music teachers for courses and performance and master classes.. This could include a web directory of local teaching musicians/producers and information on their areas of expertise.
• promote music education and experiences for very young children from fetus-0-5, via play-groups, Nursing Mothers' Association, child minding centers & individuals (e. g. This could be as simple as lending a Mozart CD or DVD, sending a student to play for them, or as complex as running classes in early childhood education, and performing a full orchestral concert).
• encourage those learning music in isolation (e.g., piano, harpsichord, medieval or unique instruments, singing, bagpipes) to join in local ensembles and choirs.
• ensure that those taught singing are done so in a professional way so as not to damage their instrument.
• fund other prizes that encourage musical excellence
• above all else 'Do no harm' in the Fund's intervention into the lives of others.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.
Albert Einstein

• help fund and record student concerts, ensembles and choirs.
• publicly call for submissions for help from incorporated music organisations, charities, service groups, (e.g. Rotary, Lions), local government and from families and individual students or prospective students.
• assist young composers (e.g. financial, but also technical assistance, copyright and other advice, facilitating public performance, recording and marketing of their work).
• provide enrichment activities aimed at introducing classical music, musicals and opera to Central Coast babies, children, adolescents and adults. This help to be directed to those least likely to be able to afford such activity. This might be done for example, by paying for tickets and transport to concerts and musicals in Sydney or involving them in musical experiences and activities at local schools, skateboard parks, sporting fixtures, clubs -scouts, guides, surf-clubs, malls and other places where young people congregate.
• especially encourage the study of singing and choir on the Central Coast for all age groups.
• encourage busking by helping music students negotiate sites and by promoting and facilitating busking competitions with local authorities, mall managements and businesses and funding prizes. (Many shopping-centre-mall owners do not encourage busking). Solve public liability issues.
  
• provide expert, knowledgeable clerical and technical assistance to students wishing to apply for grants, scholarships, and further music education courses (e.g., professional recording studio & computer resources for audition tapes -or hire of such; provide advice on scholarships and bursaries available in Australia and overseas)
• give financial support to Central Coast musicians furthering their studies overseas, interstate or out of the Central Coast region.
• subsidise the teaching of music to babies, infants and the elderly.
• invest in money-making, musical enterprises or at the CC Music Fund vote provide venture finance or limited guarantees to enable music to be performed
• lobby all tiers of government for facilities and policies that will enhance musical education, especially that of/on the Central Coast. To campaign against policies that disadvantage such education. Such moneys will not come from the Fund's principle.
• provide enrichment activities for all young people.
• take music to homes for the elderly, drug rehabilitation centres, gaols, victim refuge centres, aboriginal groups and community support groups perhaps by encouraging the development of staff and inmate choirs or other teaching /learning experience deemed possible.
• provide facilities throughout the Central Coast to help young people discover and learn about music and to generally encourage and support musical education and performance as widely and broadly as possible on the Central Coast.
• encourage students and past students (alumni) to raise money for the CC Music Fund .
• provide funds for the continuing education, career counselling and development of Central Coast Music teachers.
• provide or pay for professional counselling services for all music students and staff, on career development, on applying for scholarships and grants (both here and overseas)
  
• provide assistance of all types to the centres of excellence in teaching and learning
• provide management, clerical assistance, financial assistance and help to the Central Coast Eisteddfod as deemed necessary to enable it to best function as a vehicle for music performance and competition.
• hire such expertise as the CC Music Fund deems appropriate.
• to research possible social, economic, political, sociological and cultural blocks to enabling music education, performance and competition (e.g. Can local schools afford to bus choir students to competitions or provide trained and /or dedicated staff? Is extra payment to teachers for out-of-hours activities required?)
• pay for suitable stage equipment, lighting, music stands, seats, steps, instruments and a purchase or hire of a truck to move this equipment; monitor and assist music teaching in Central Coast Schools, Preschools and Play-groups.
• development of website for promotion, resources, communication, advertising, reports to the community and online donations; hire or payment of professional consultants (e.g. public relations, media, marketing, journalists, musicians, arts, lobbyists and communication experts).
• hire of professional fund raising organisation(s).
• promote and encourage the training of music therapists
• promote and encourage the training and development of inspired and creative music teachers.
• promote and encourage the development of organisational structures that promote and encourage creativity and that attract inspiring and talented music teachers. (e.g. Google’s new Sydney office). Enable an organisational structure able to respond quickly (within hours or days). to requests for help from individuals or referrals from helping professions. This may involve taking calculated risks with some individuals and /or organisations, something many Arts Funding Bodies may be unable to do.
• promote the development of the Central Coast as an Australian “Centre of Excellence” in music education, performance, research and teaching
• to promote the old spiritual, folk and religious traditions in music while keeping non-sectarian, and ecumenical.
• develop an elite music education facility modeled on the Institute of Sport in Canberra and the Talent Development Program of the NSW Dept of Education.
• provide ongoing career counselling to elite musicians.
• Above all else "Do no harm" in the interventions in the life of the people and community of The Central Coast

Albert Einstein when asked what he considered to be the most powerful force in the universe answered:
Compound interest!
Mignon McLaughlin

And finally, to add to the wish list:

• to acquire permanent facilities for teaching and learning music. eg The Kincumber Orphanage would be a wonderful Centre for music Education & Performance, It has a concert venue, large parking space, area for an outdoor theatre, teaching rooms, an area for contemplative and/or therapy-sound gardens and accommodation of music students and visiting Master musicians for residential courses and Master Classes, with facilities for a live-in caretaker and security.
• A similar space in Wyong Shire might be the Old Dairy at Tuggerah and/or the Old Courthouse in Wyong Township
• decentralise and make funding fast, responsive, proactive and local

Legal aspects.

• A properly incorporated, legal, Charitable Trust or other suitable structure be set up that would allow tax deductible donations from business, community-support charities, service and sporting clubs, government and the public.
• Rules
• Only 50% of the investment income from such a fund be used in any one year. The remaining income to be put back into the principle of the fund. Thus, in years to come, the Fund may become self-sustaining and no drain on the public purse. The principle should at no time be spent or put in danger.
• The CC Music Fund should have a wide range of secure securities and investments as allowed by law. (preferably government guaranteed bonds) and quarterly, alternate accountant,-audited, funds management.

Governance -Central Coast Music Fund Management Committee.
Funds to be administered by a Director and Board. Initially, these will be unpaid voluntary positions, but should include people who are leaders in music, social psychology, social change, service groups and education on the coast and professional musicians (retired or still active).

Final composition of the CC Music Fund management will need to be discussed with legal experts and others who have set up similar trusts .e.g. Stephanie Alexander's Schools' Gardening Program.


The "Central Coast" to be defined as the City of Gosford and Shire of Wyong. If these boundaries should change or be abolished in the future, or at the Management committee's discretion and unanimous vote, the boundaries could change to include that area from the Hawkesbury River in the South to Swansea?the Hunter River? in the north.

At some future date, it might be hoped, that this scheme be so successful that advice and help will be able to be given to other municipalities wishing to emulate such a program.)

Support should initially be for people living in the Wyong and Gosford Shire area or, at the CC Music Fund Management Committee's vote, for those with strong connections with the area, or studying, teaching or composing music on the Central Coast and living elsewhere.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?
Albert Einstein

--
Michael Vincent Bailes

02 43940777
Wyongah.
10/08/2009
last edited 20/08/09