We have four directors Steve Kinsey, Garth Jones, Joyce Clavering and Karen Machin, each with a wide range of experience and involvement in music:

Garth Jones
I moved to St Helens from Basildon, Essex to study Music Technology at St Helens College. There I met like minds in music and decided to stay. I've worked for a number of years since as a sound engineer, musician and workshop practitioner, starting out as a volunteer at the Citadel Arts Centre.

As a commited underachiever at school I know only too well the difficulties that many young people face in finding a positive path in life. I am involved with music-net through a lifelong belief in music as a means to self-improvement and a desire to see opportunities put in place for those who seek them.

As well as my work for music-net, I'm currently employed as project co-ordinator for the Culture Company's Streetwaves project and Reverberate pan-Merseyside band development programme.
I'm a founder member of acoustic reggae duo the Nihilites and play guitar for Liverpool hip hop label Elemental Records.

Joyce Clavering
As an amateur singer and mother of young brass players, I found music-making is good for body and soul, and a great source of congenial company. But it helps to have a group of like-minded performers, and an audience, and somewhere to play and people to organise it.

So where to go to find what's happening, or locate a theatre group, or a decent singer, or someone who can play the saxophone/ piano/ accordion/ drums/ ukulele, or conduct decently, or has a room we can rehearse in, or will pay to hear you? And how do you start, learn, find a teacher, get gigs, do the publicity, get reviewed, get in touch with potential collaborators, cover the boring bits like insurance, performing rights etc? And how do you pick a date that won't clash with an event attracting the same audience?

This network brings us all together to help answer those questions.

Steve Kinsey
I'm a professional award winning Singer/Songwriter/Musician and Music Facilitator, I'm also a qualified Guitar tutor. I studied at north Trafford College in Manchester with 'Access To Music', that's where I met Tim Campbell and Adan Gimenez who are my fellow musicians in 'Bach To The Future'.

I have nearly 30 yrs experience as a musician and have also worked as a solo performer for the past 20 years. I've taught in schools , colleges and youth centres with 11-19yr olds and also worked for MENCAP running music projects for young adults with learning difficulties. Along with Tim we run a song writing workshop called 'Wheel For Tunes'.

In 2005 I received the Cultural and Diversity Award at the BAFTA Theatre in London from Sir George Martin. That's enough about me... I did win an award from modesty international but they don't want me to talk about it!!

My mission statement would be this... "Everyone should have the opportunity to make music.., I want to help this happen".

Karen Machin
My background is in organising events to promote mental health and wellbeing. Music has been a very important part of that – most people identify that music affects their sense of wellbeing whether it’s listening to a quiet, calming reflective piece of music or jumping wildly around to something energetic.

St Helens has great networks around mental health. We realized we created more opportunities by coming together – we weren’t duplicating efforts and we could all work together to give our projects more impact. But when it came to finding practitioners for music events, we found it much harder to find the right people – it was definitely about people’s personal contacts.

That’s when I became involved in music-net. I could see the value of a network where opportunities are advertised, both events needing musicians as well as musicians promoting themselves. I believe that if all these talented and enthusiastic people start networking, it will build more opportunities for us all to listen, learn and share in their skills.

Meet music-net members
Our members meet monthly - on the first thursday of each month 1.30 to 3.30 at the Citadel. Come along and hear about the latest opportunities. Tell us your news and meet others interested in promoting music.