“It’s really nice to work in such a rewarding job, where you make lots of people happy every day, through music”
Name: Beckie Morley
Studied at CHS: 2001 to 2008
Current role: Community Musician, Musical Moments
Route after leaving CHS:
I gained a 2:1 in Music from Leeds College, with a module in Community Music.
After leaving university, I set up my own business, providing interactive musical activities in care homes in Congleton. This has won awards and grown and grown. My team of seven people now work with almost 300 care homes, day centres and community groups.
I'm not doing the job I thought I'd be doing when I was at school. Never in a million years did I think I would be the boss of my own company with several employees. But it's not all as it quite seems...my passion at school was music and I knew in Year 10 that I wanted to be a professional musician, so I could play every day and make people happy through music.
I've managed to do both in a way. I'm now something called a 'Community Musician', so I make music for people in the local community through performances and facilitating musical workshops. This is great as it means I get to use my musical skills every day, whilst involving others and getting them to make music too, which makes others really happy.
I set up my business when I was 21 after finishing university. I was on my own, delivering musical workshops to older people in care homes and the demand for my work became greater, meaning that I had to expand and start taking on employees to help. This has been great as I've been able to offer other musicians in the local area musical work, which is sometimes quite hard to come by in the industry.
We're now working on a project where we are trying to expand our services across the whole of the UK through franchising. I never thought I'd end up being a Community Musician but it was my passion for music and realising, at university, that I could use music to help others, was what inspired me to go for it.
What advice would give to your younger self?
If you find something you love, keep doing it. Even though you might not be the best person in your class, the cleverest, the smartest, the fastest at that subject, if you love it, keep doing it and your enthusiasm will carry you through. Your passion will help you to work on those other skills and you'll know that you'll one day be doing something that you love. And most importantly, if anyone tells you that you can't do it - make sure you get out there and prove them wrong!