MUSIC ROCKS RESPONSE TO COVID 19
Music Rocks is taking the situation surrounding COVID 19 incredibly seriously and is taking active measures to ensure the safety of our participants.
We are following the recommendations from the departments of health and education, and are in constant contact with senior members of the government for regular updates and recommendations.
For now though with schools remaining open Music Rocks will be continuing as per normal, just with some added precautions. We are disinfecting every guitar, stick, cable surface and object in Music Rocks every single day, with microphones being done in between each session as well just to be safe. Every single surface down to our staff's personal mobile phones are being cleaned and disinfected daily, and at this point I smell like a permanent pine tree from the amount of scrubbing Music Rocks is undertaking.
We are also temporarily stopping our usual hive fives to avoid unnecessary contact, and practicing social distancing wherever possible. In some of our ultra-high risk schools we are also rolling out our virtual lessons where your director will be able to give you the full Music Rocks experience with an interactive group lesson over the internet to prevent contact. We have been using the Zoom program (a much more interactive Skype like program) which allows us to work in real time, share charts and screens, play together and keep up the great work the directors have been doing with our musicians.
If you have major concerns for your musician please free to get in contact with me and I will be able to tee up a virtual lesson for you with your usual director working together as per usual, we have rolled this out temporarily during the crisis but have been really impressed by the success of the program.
Music Rocks HQ will also remain open to small groups and individual lessons, as per the recommendations from the department. We are taking every safety measure here possible whilst also screening our staff daily for symptoms, every sending staff home to quarantine if required. We are confident that MRA HQ is still completely safe to continue working from and we know that maintaining some normalcy in our valuable musician’s lives in these trying times is absolutely crucial for their wellbeing. To continue what is so essential is so important.
Music Rocks is so thankful to have such a supportive, understanding and encouraging group of musicians each and every week, and as you know we run have always run rail, hail or shine – we are so close to all our people and it is these relationships that make us so strong. Music Rocks has faced a number of challenges over the last few years with broken legs, stolen trailers, family tragedies and now COVID, but each and every time we adapt and overcome emerging even stronger on the other side and especially during difficulty – a triumph no matter what! This is almost completely thanks for our amazing parents, musicians and friends, and we know together we can continue the great work, and amazing community Music Rocks is proud to be a part of.
Please feel free to contact myself at any point of you have any questions and we thank you again for your continued support.
MUSIC ROCKS AUSTRALIA TEAM
Update 23 March, 2020 – MUSIC ROCKS COVID RESPONSE
To further protect our musicians, families and staff and to be ahead of what we see as government changes that are coming anyway, we are moving all our lessons to online. We will be in touch with all our people to set this up and if there are any people looking to start with Music Rocks please get in touch as virtual Music Rocks is easy and especially very cool! For some of our very special people we will be still allowing some very special 1 on 1 lessons at MRA HQ. Please stay safe and well, and although some of you are enjoying online so much they’ll keep that going moving forward, as soon as we can resume normal operations we will be ready – it is going to be amazing to pick up even stronger than where we left off
Director, Dean Blanchard