They don't teach you this at Music College, but maybe they should!

The winner of Our Pitching Event today in collaboration with @abcb_council in Portadown was @anne_clarinet from @UltoniaArts pic.twitter.com/L8LPXDjnkV

— socialenterpriseni (@socentni) March 27, 2018

I gave an altogether different kind of 'performance' the other day, when I took part in a 'Dragon's Den' style pitching competition on behalf of the social enterprise I'm involved with, Ultonia Arts. Ultonia Arts is a cross-genre arts company, which hopes to encourage collaboration between artists and art forms, and to improve access to the Arts for ordinary people. One strand of this is in our musical work. 

I was 'pitching' for £700 of funding towards entry-level musical instruments to help enable our workshops and a community ukulele orchestra. As a social enterprise, we are a business with a 'social conscience'. Any profits the company makes must be reinvested in the company for the benefit of the community (rather than going to shareholders), and in this case the objective is to help reduce 'arts inequality'. That is when people are only enabled to access the very real benefits of music and music education if they have the money to do so. This is an inequality which only deepens in times of austerity.

I must admit that when I heard the other companies giving their pitches, I very nearly walked out of the hall... Amazing companies doing incredible good in the world! Not only that, but we artists aren't exactly renowned for our business acumen, and we certainly aren't taught how to do a sales pitch at music college! 

However - when you really believe in something and you know it will do good for the community, that does make it easier to 'sell it'. I'll admit that having experience as a performer probably was helpful in making this presentation, but it's one thing playing music and quite another talking about it...  I was quaking in my boots! Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

I began by talking (with a little help from my ukulele) about the real good that accessing music & playing music can do for people. Not just for some people but for all people... Then I went on to explain what exactly Ultonia Arts would spend the funding on if we were successful in obtaining it. The most incredible thing about this experience for me (apart from the fact that I actually went through with it!), was that our company was chosen to receive the funding by popular vote. 

This means that people really DO believe in what we're trying to do and really wanted to support us. A number of people also came up to me afterwards to tell me that they'd voted for me/ us, and that they really felt music was so important to life. It was inspiring to witness how many of those in attendance valued the Arts in exactly the same way that we do.

So huge thanks to Social Enterprise NI, Armagh Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council, and especially Derek Browne at the Social Enterprise Hub. Can't wait to share more about our plans as we move forward.