Case study - Live Music Now Scotland
Live Music Now Scotland (LMNS) supports and trains young musicians at the start of their professional careers to perform a range of musical programmes to people in community and health care settings. Although the charity currently shares a website with its sister organisation in England and Wales, LMNS director Carol Main says that the Covid-19 crisis provided the catalyst to bring forward her plans for a standalone Scottish website.
‘Because of the pandemic our musicians could no longer perform live so we set up a series of online concerts, Together at Home. This was so we could continue to connect with our audiences, particularly people in care homes or who were living in social isolation, and support our musicians by giving them paid work. With so much of our work now taking place online, it was really important for us to have our own dedicated website. But with just a blank sheet of paper I had no idea where to start so I asked the Scottish Tech Army for help.’
Mark Dawson, a programme and project manager heard about the Scottish Tech Army (STA) when it kicked off in April and joined as a volunteer not long after when he found himself temporarily out of a job. He’s been advising Carol about her options for setting up a new Live Music Now Scotland website. ‘I’ve pointed her in the right direction and given her some advice about the criteria to use when choosing a web hosting service. There are a few complicated aspects to the sort of website the charity needs such as live streams, downloads and social media updates so Carol and her team will need support to manage it. But once the tenders for the website are in, I’ll help her review the responses.’
Carol’s says without Mark’s knowledge and advice and the support of the STA she wouldn’t have got to the stage of putting the website out to tender. ‘I had just been thinking about a website but Mark flagged up that what we really needed was a coherent online digital presence rather than something in bits. A website is not going to happen overnight as these things take time if you want to get it right and fit for purpose. But once it’s up and running, being able to get our own story out without it being hidden on the other website will make a huge difference to us and everyone we work with.’