The Aloud Charity’s innovative business partnership with Cazbah has been recognised with an Arts & Business Cymru Award in the Arts & Small Business Category!
The partnership was formed during lockdown, when Covid-19 restrictions forced Aloud to deliver its rehearsal programme for Only Boys Aloud online.
We were looking for a way to better connect with participants and needed to adapt to facilitate virtual rehearsals effectively and required members to access rehearsal materials from a range of sources (YouTube, Facebook, Zoom, e-mail and Dropbox).
Cazbah worked with us to completely overhaul old methods of working, utilising their ‘eventbocs’ platform to create the Portal a single destination for Only Boys Aloud members, streamlining how they receive information and meaning Aloud could stay in touch equally with teenagers across Wales.
The project significantly improved the way Aloud communicates with our participants. It was important that Aloud members felt connected at a time when they were unable to meet in person, and that the charity could reach people living more remotely.
We are absolutely thrilled to have been awarded the Small Business Award at this year’s Arts and Business Cymru Awards for our partnership with Aloud. We are passionate about supporting music and the arts in Wales and will be continuing to work with the charity in the years to come. We are just so happy that our virtual event platform, eventbocs, enabled them to continue to meet and rehearse throughout the pandemic and that it is still being used as a portal for resources and information for all the Aloud choirs.
The Portal hosts all rehearsal information, sheet music, learning tracks, lyric videos, bilingual pronunciation guides, and accessible learning tracks including colour lyric sheets for young people with dyslexia, and large print song sheets, with plans to upload learning tracks in BSL. The Portal also contains information to support young people’s wellbeing.
Each participant now has their own unique login and accesses the bilingual platform through a private link on The Aloud Charity website.
Aloud has now rolled the Portal out across all Only Boys Aloud, Only Girls Aloud, and Only Kids Aloud choirs.
Photo credit: A&B Cymru 2023 Awards, photo by Glenn Edwards
