Welcome to the WIYMF interactive web forum!

We hope you like the new-look WIYMF website and interactive electronic Forum.

The benefits of this new approach to the Youth Music Forum are very considerable and we hope you will use it as an effective means of communicating your organisation’s particular activities and potential.

Being web based, there is virtually no limit to the range of organisations and individuals you as a member can now tell about your youth music making activities. Local, national and international links are all part of the plan, so let’s make the WIYMF site an indispensible resource for everyone looking for information on the range of vibrant and extensive youth music making opportunities that exist across the Western Isles.

In addition to effective information exchange the Forum also provides members with an important means of discussing issues of mutual interest, whether these be about professional development, resource sharing, funding opportunities, or anything else you think relevant. It is also intended to enhance collaborative working across the islands and with partners beyond the Hebrides.

Other features will include sections on up-coming events, local and national news about youth music, research information, funding opportunities, guidance on how to develop successful funding applications and all those other ideas you have.

WIYMF belongs to its members, so the more use we make of it the more useful it will become. Why not make this the 'one-stop-shop' for youth music making in the Western Isles?

A particular feature of musical life in the Hebrides is the variety of pathways that run from the school experience and allow individuals to progress to whatever musical aspirations they might have. Although much of this existed prior to the advent of the Youth Music Initiative, the additional resources made available by that means have created even greater possibilities for a rich and varied musical culture. The YMI forum has helped develop a shared understanding of that richness and is in some ways a model of how Scottish Arts Council would like to see YMI develop across the country. Western Isles Youth Music Forum leads the way!

However, busy people running busy lives, much of them centred around the very musical activity YMI is all about, can find it a challenge to attend evening meetings. Recognising these and other realities, this new web-based approach aims to be more efficient in terms of how members can engage with the forum and more effective in disseminating information and promoting discussion. The new electronic forum aims to be a high quality means by which individuals and organisations who are members can communicate, discuss and collaborate in order to achieve the valuable benefits we have all agreed can come from the forum. The advantages of an e-forum should be very considerable. Gone is the need to attend meetings on Lewis and Benbecula on Monday evenings, although we do intend to have a more extended annual meeting.

We hope ‘virtual’ conversations will take place across the ether as and when members feel the need; a better and wider range of information can be exchanged; it will give an opportunity for discussion and interchange 365 days a year; the forum membership can be widened to include all music teachers and instructors on the islands, as well as individuals and organisations off the islands who might feel they have something to contribute or gain. On such an electronic forum Western Isles Youth Music can be promoted and marketed globally! Of course, there is also a password protected area on the site accessible only to members, and this will enable all members from all geographical parts of the islands, for the first time, to participate and contribute on an equal basis. Essentially, the forum will have two aspects; an information exchange area and a discussion area. The information area will include at least the following:

• information from all youth music organisations that were members;
• a calendar of youth music events occurring across the islands
• news and information about national and international events of relevance to members
• success stories from the organisations
• details of funding organisations and opportunities;
• up-to-date information on local government and national policy developments as they relate to cultural activities;
• CPD opportunities;
• web links to key agencies, etc;
• articles on and web-links to topics of interest to members;
• examination board info and options

• contact details of all music teachers and instructors across the islands;
• support and advice on grant application writing
• message board for requests for help, sale of equipment, etc;
• discussion of issues relating to youth music as identified by members themselves.