The month of February was a busy and highly educational month for the Field Band Foundation (FBF) staff members.

February kick-started with the Tutor Programme workshop, which was followed by the Social Officer workshop. Both workshops were organized and facilitated by the PULSE South Participants with the help of FBF Education facilitator Peter Maluleke. The workshops were hosted at the Container House in Parys next to the Vaal River.

The tutor Programme commenced on 14-02-2021 and it promised to be a week filled with music and the learning of productive skills, which enhances the tutor’s ability to do their work. There were 20 participants from 10 FBF bands, excited and ready to be engaged through music and leadership activities. Sessions started every morning with team-building activities to strengthen friendships and build trust amongst the participants. Other activities and lessons learned during the workshop were music arranging which was led by Khaya Benela, music theory led by Peter Maluleke and Khaya Benela, full-band session led by Tebogo Ntshole, and concert production led by Jacob Mhlapeng.

Previously, the goal of this programme was to upskill the newly appointed tutors with leadership skills and artistic knowledge, but in the most recent workshops, we also added topics like concert production, communication skills, creative writing, and events management. These topics will assist tutors in doing their work better in the FBF, as well as preparing them for work outside FBF.

Different follow-up tasks were given to the participants to do at home and when they get to their respective bands. These tasks will enable the participants to put everything they have learned into practice. Participants are expected to read their music theory, write and record a music piece that they will present in the next tutor workshop, as well as to create a ten-minute facilitation session based on everything that they have learned during the workshop.

The Social Officer(SO) workshop commenced on 28-Feb-2022, it was held at the Container House in the Free State. 11 participants from 10 bands were represented in this workshop, and after many years of having female SO, we were proud to have a male SO within the group. The workshop was facilitated by Tebogo Ntshole and Jacob, assisted by Khaya Benela and Peter Maluleke.

Various external facilitators were invited to facilitate several topics that will enable the SOs to be more effective and knowledgeable when executing their duties. Topics that were covered are coaching, life skills planning, doing and reporting sessions, team building, creating community resource lists and community mapping, how to facilitate LGBT+ guides, and most exciting; there was a Marimba playing session. In this session SO’s were allowed to learn how to play Marimba. This session pushed them out of their comfort zone as many of them had no musical experience.

Overall this workshop proved to be productive, as there is a big and visible improvement in the way the SOs report on the work that they did, and we are planning to do weekly virtual meetings to assist and give support to all the SOs.

Author: Jacob Mhlapeng

Photos: Tebogo Ntshole and Jacob Mhlapeng