Music
I have been an enthusiastic musician for all of my life and have sung in choirs and played a strange selection of instruments. These days I mostly play English and French music on a Diatonic Button Accordion (If you're English you will know it as a Melodeon et si tu es Français: 'Accordeon Diatonique'). I also play Northumbrian (yes, it is different) and Irish music on the Wooden Flute. Over the years I have been playing I have collected a wide selection of fingerings for this instrument which you can see HERE. I also have a keyed flute from Mark Hoza. Mark only makes a very few keyed instruments, but you can buy the keyless ones from him in Australia or in the UK from Wild Winds
I really enjoy organising musical events. I regularly act as MC for festival events. I have played wooden flute in a folk band and acted as UK agent for a band based in the Netherlands. It is called Maalstroom and is really great. It has a very unusual sound .. you should buy a CD!!
Community
I have helped a number of voluntary and community organisations set up and improve their computer systems, these include Folkworks: a development agency for traditional music and The Children’s Warehouse: a Newcastle City-based play resources centre. Since moving to Leeds I have become a great fan of East Leeds FM, a community radio station that uncovered a wealth of untapped talent when it ran a 24-hour 'Musicathon', live music from local Leeds-based musicians.
I was Financial Director and Trustee of the Jesmond Swimming Project during its first five years. This was a community-run scheme that successfully re-opened a swimming pool closed by cuts in Local Government funding. It is a continuing success.
My Current Academic interest is in:
Developing better methods of evaluating Arts and Community projects. I don't think subsidies should be given out without any conditions, but I don't like to see evaluations that intrude on the work so much that they take over. I also think there are better ways of telling what happened without collecting strings of meaningless numbers that no-one is ever going to look at!