Playlist update
On 12th March I attended a Playlist for Life (PfL) training day. Please visit their website to learn more about Playlists and their benefits or you could read my brief introduction to PfL here.
There is a real buzz around PfL. They have trained nearly 6,000 people and 357 communities have PfL Help Points – Reflections is one of these Help Points. We can tell you all about Playlists and offer advice and support on making and using Playlists.
The Training Day
We had a lovely group of people from London(and Southend) at the session in Euston. Rebecca, who is our regional PfL Communities Officer, ran the day and kept us all in order. We covered: Music and the brain; Setting up a Help Point; Being a Music Detective; Helping you help carers; Equipment; Spreading the PfL message; and a Q&A. You can find an introduction to these topics on their website and some of the touching videos we viewed.
We are fortunate to have, Peter (not me), as our local organiser in South East London. Peter’s job is to develop a PfL community in the area. He will be working with local groups, libraries etc. to raise the profile and explain the benefits of developing and using Playlists.
Equipment
We were able to assess a variety of ways to bring playlists to life. The equipment included: simple MP3 players; iPads; Record Players; and CD players. I was interested in this basic MP3 player, but not sure how useful it would be in practice. This record player looked good, but I was not impressed by the speakers. The web sites we looked at included: BBC Music Memories; Spotify (the subscription version) and YouTube. They even had printed song sheets. The group agreed all of the above had both pros and cons, and their use would depend on who planned to use them and the context. Based on experience, Rebecca suggested that working with young people (linking with a school or college) was a major help in understanding and using modern equipment and providers of services!
Next steps
Reflections will be considering how we will build on our Playlist work within our Friendship Group and our successful Musical Tea event.
Thank you to Rebecca and the team for an interesting and thought provoking day.
Reflections 