Send Project Weblog

SEND aim to provide enjoyable and engaging sessions where young people are able to develop transferable skills whilst exploring their creativity. We are committed to creating a positive environment that fosters improved self-confidence and self-esteem through experiences with music, arts and technology, encouraging young people to pass on skills and information to their peers.

SEND initially started out as an idea in the summer of 2003. Lee Marriott had recently moved to Sneinton from Corby in Northampton. Within a few short months of living in Sneinton, he was aware that the area had the same social problems as that of the area from which he had moved. At the time, Andrew Chester was working full time at HMV in Nottingham, having decided to leave the engineering profession and pursue his love of music after the loss of his fiancé to cancer. A chance meeting and a shared philosophy led to Lee and Andrew taking action to try and improve the community in which they both lived. The first group they approached was TRACS, a charity based in the Sneinton Hermitage area, for advice on how to go about forming a DJ tuition project for the young people of the community. The choice of DJing as an activity was a natural one as both Lee and Andrew have many years experience in this field, with Andrew in particular being a DJ who still plays regularly across Europe.

Initially, a handful of workshops were put on at the local Greenway and Oliver Hind community centres in addition to a stall at the Sneinton festival. These were used to gather information on exactly what it was that the young people that attended wanted from a project such as SEND. Alongside the DJing, which was popular, it became clear that they wanted to produce their own music and songs. So at the next workshop, Andrew brought his laptop and stereo amp to add to the DJ equipment, which had also been scavenged from Lee’s house.

Over the next few months, Lee and Andrew studied various music software programs – Lee at college through a sound engineering BTEC, Andrew in his spare time from work and his DJing commitments. They also spent some time investigating the viability of converting the basement of the TRACS building into a community studio as well as liaising with existing studios across Nottingham. It was during this time that Lee met Winston Williams, a former member of the pop group KWS. Winston was more than happy to join SEND and brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to the team. All three then completed the 10-week City & Guilds 7302 Certificate in Delivering Learning to help them deliver their music workshops more effectively. They also completed an access course in child protection run by Nottingham City Area Child Protection Committee. This policy of personal & professional development has remained a key feature of the SEND project, the most recent example being the team’s completion of a 12 week course on the ‘Introduction to Counselling’ through Enable.

By the summer of 2004, and after £3,000 of capital funding through Awards For All, SEND had stopped using most of their own personal equipment and were generating a small income through their work with bodies such as Charnwood Arts in Leicestershire. As the autumn set in, the project was demanding an increasing amount of time from co-ordinators Lee & Andrew. By the spring, the team had embarked on the comprehensive City & Guilds 7407 teaching qualification. During this time Andrew had chosen to move from working full time to taking up a part time position with a music distributor. Now the workload warranted more attention than a couple of days a week and so both Lee and Andrew moved to concentrating on the project full time.

We are approaching three years since Lee and Andrew (Moon) made the bold move to concentrate on the project full time and in that period SEND has enlisted the talents of a range of sessional staff to deliver Digital Music and DJing alongside new subject areas including MCing, Breakdance, graffiti and film.

The efforts of our sessional team are essential to the smooth running of SEND. We have also moved into a new office with three networked computers allowing Matt Hinton to get more involved with the administration of SEND, making Lee and Moon’s work that little bit easier!

Future plans for the organisation are to expand the outreach work and secure long-term contracts with our current working partners. We are also working towards building a Studio and Arts space in the heart of Sneinton; bringing SEND back to the community in which it began. Truly full-circle, I’m sure you’ll agree. We like to think of this as our Windmill scheme that will enable members of the local community to get hands on experience of the creative arts industry. We plan for this to lead to employment for many local people, some of which will be able to join the SEND team on our outreach work.

We have big plans and we want to keep you informed, so keep checking back for updates. If you require information from us or you are interested in working with us please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can find our contact details in the ‘Contact Us’ tab at the top of the page.