About the organisation
Music Broth is an inclusive social enterprise dedicated to shared equitable access to restored musical instruments and connecting people through music learning opportunities. We run an open and vibrant library of world instruments in Scotland.
Our ethically designed project reduces social and financial barriers for anyone to interact with music and explore their musical creativity. We offer memberships to individuals, bands, families and organisations to access our library of musical instruments. We deliver music workshops and online music tuition as well as offer a musical instrument delivery service to the community. We subsidise membership for people who cannot afford or are experiencing hardship and create volunteer opportunities for local people to develop their skills and be part of a bustling musical community.
Our main library is based in Glasgow, but we support communities across Scotland. We also have a monthly pop up library in Edinburgh in partnership with the Edinburgh Tool Library, and a fledgling small library in Fort William in partnership with The Buzz Project.
Recent projects and activities we have delivered or been involved with include:
- New Scots Refugee Integration Delivery Project - supporting 200 people with musical instruments and community connections
- Delivering workshops with Families Outside – a national charity in Scotland working exclusively on behalf of families affected by imprisonment
- Shift the Power - empowering women, non-binary and gender expansive individuals in the music industry
- Guitar, ukelele, drum, DJ, beatboxing, voice tuition, music production and music industry workshops, and open jam sessions
Our work is based around the following principles and aims:
INCLUSIVITY
We aim to remove barriers of access, and conduct outreach in ways that honour the idea that everyone can benefit from a relationship with music. We prioritise respect for individuals to define their own approaches to music, by striving to host relevant materials to support our members' needs.
SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE
We aim to divert instrument and equipment waste from landfill by catalysing community exchange of instruments. We accept donations of instruments, renew their usefulness, and redistribute them to our members.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Our organisation relies on volunteers, donors, grants as well as monetary relationships to subsidise our service costs. We work in partnership with third sector, government and community groups to build musical bridges between parts of the community that wouldn't normally connect.
EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS
By encouraging access to musical relationships, we aim to support individuals to self actualise. Our memberships are relationships that we approach with care for an individual's expressed goals. Our access fund is used to support membership costs and educational experiences for those who would not otherwise be able to afford it.
DEVELOPING CREATIVE PRACTICE
We support people at any stage in life, because we believe people are creative throughout life. We aim to support diverse community resources needs by using innovative responsive approaches to resource sharing.
GATHER AND REDISTRIBUTE RESOURCES
We continuously pursue gathering the best music performance, education and community building resources to share.
About the role
We are looking for a volunteer to work with our Board of Trustees and operational team, to support Music Broth to thrive and be financially stable. We currently have a Treasurer in place, as well as an Independent Examiner to review and sign off our annual financial accounts prior to submission to OSCR (Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator). We are looking for someone to review our current financial practices, support us with future financial planning, and provide some tuition/mentoring to our current Treasurer and staff.
We expect the role to require 1-5 hours per month. We would require you to attend meetings at least with our current Treasurer and Director, but possibly also board meetings and meetings with the wider team. Our board meetings are held bi-monthly on a Monday evening, and we can be flexible with other meetings to suit your availability. We would ideally like to hold sessions in person in/around Glasgow, but remote working will be considered.
Provided the relationship is working well we would be delighted to receive support on an ongoing / periodic basis, but at a minimum we would be looking for someone to commit support for at least a period of 6 months starting February 2023.
Our ideal candidate
Our ideal candidate would have experience in finance/accounting, good interpersonal skills, and would enjoy working with a small team. The ability to share their skills and knowledge with the Board of Trustees is essential. Previous experience within the charity sector or social enterprise would be beneficial. Ideally we would be keen to find someone who has a personal interest in Music Broth’s aims and activities, i.e. in the areas of music and/or environmentalism and/or breaking down barriers to access.
What’s in it for you
By joining Music Broth as a Financial Volunteer, you will have the chance to be part of a small vibrant organisation enabling access to music, supporting community connections, and saving musical instruments from landfill.
We are a small team so you would make a big impact! You will be able to use your skills to help Music Broth to grow and develop and to support more people in the future.
We offer diverse services to reflect our community needs; our library of musical instruments, music workshops, tuition, instruments and equipment cataloguing, gigs, events, instrument repairs, restoration and upcycling, music production, marketing, event management so there are lots of opportunities for different experiences and skills.
Apply for the role
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Please provide a cover note if it is requested in the role description. Applications which are personalised, setting out your motivations for volunteering for the organisation and relevant skills/experience, are far more likely to be successful.
