One week in October: An accessible adventure

Attitude Is Everything

Attitude is Everything HQ, The Round House and Kirby the best boy on Thamelink

It was a very busy October which somehow got busier the closer I got to November!

Cheltenham Literature Festival, The Showman's Show, Inclusive Music Consortium, ATLAS conference in Austria - these things all happened before I popped down to London for a few days at the end of October to facilitate a strategic planning week for Attitude Is Everything, working towards a very exciting project that will be announced soon.

It was amazing getting to work with an *almost* exclusively neurodivergent team, and learnt so much about my own facilitation skills when working with a big old bunch of spicy brains like that. Aside from the project itself, my favourite part of the week was when we outlined a neurodivergent "code of conduct" to help us align our efforts, acknowledge our requirements and support each other to perform at our best - a process that platformed one of the most productive project planning experiences I've ever shared, and will be detailing further in a future post.

For now you can enjoy the ground rules we agreed to create a fluid and productive environment to work in:

Rules for a project planning session, as defined by half a dozen neurodivergent humans

I Know A Place

I was delighted to be asked by the wonderful Tony Eriera from Come Play With Me to speak at their inaugural London edition of I Know A Place about an emergent network of academics and music industry convenors who are looking to work together to build a research profile around LGBTQ+ experiences in music. After I'd got over the fact I was in the same room as legendary bassist Deb Googe I had a chance to nervously mumble my way through a speech giving an overview of the group and how we're working with the Musicians Union to provide additional support to analyse relevant data sets from their recent artist survey.

This was an odd experience for me as I rarely have any issues speaking publicly (!) but actually got a little choked up whilst talking because of the importance of - and potential impact - this network could have for so many communities around the UK and beyond. As stuttery as I was I hope the message came across as genuine as it felt - emotions can be strangers to me in many ways, so was a bit surprised to be flooded with them in the moment. I am very excited to see this project get underway and can't wait to see what we can produce from our collaboration with the Musicians Union

Me onstage at I Know A Place at Samsung KX, reading nervously from my phone