Music Session Volunteer - Crossings Community Group

Crossings Community Group (CCG) is a free music development programme running sessions across Gateshead and Newcastle.  We work with voluntary and involuntary migrants beginning again in the North East.  We exist to provide a safe space for creative expression and development both as a musical person and socially within a new community. 

CCG delivers 7 hours of weekly, free music sessions across Newcastle and Gateshead.  Sessions include guitar, keyboard, choir, drumming, and ensemble.  Our membership consists of voluntary and involuntary migrants, who have resettled here in the North East.  They all have experience of starting over, sometimes with a mixture of trauma and relief, sometimes during periods of grief, and whilst establishing their lives here; many continue to experience insecure situations.  CCG uses music to bridge gaps between individuals and communities, when people are creative it lights up many positive aspects within them allowing for friendship and peer support.

Team activity can inspire friendship and the confidence to try new things.  Our members can come together in our artist development sessions, working in a band formulation to rehearse songs and take their musical performances out into the community. By performing at community events involving the wider local population; our members and their stories can challenge negative stereotypes and enable them to express their creative value.  We have recently performed at Dance City, The Cumberland Arms, the BALTIC as part of the Michael Rakowtiz exhibition. 

The power of shared experience, music, and conversation over biscuits cannot be overstated. We work to support healing through creative expression and social connections, facilitate a support network and provide a space for people to make life-long friends.

We are looking for volunteers to:

• Provide a positive and non-judgemental welcome to members coming to sessions. 
• Sign members into the sessions, helping any new members fill out joining forms, and handing out member cards. 
• Reimbursing any travel expenses and managing the petty cash. 
• Help set out refreshments and tidy away at the end of the session.