The City of Cardiff (Melingriffith) Band has been asked to bring some extra rays of musical sunshine to help a fund raising campaign for a pioneering charity based in Cardiff.

Touch Trust

Touch Trust offers creative movement-based arts programmes primarily for people affected by profound disabilities and complex needs, autism spectrum disorder, and behavioural challenges. The majority of those accessing the services have underlying health issues, many with life limiting conditions.

Unfortunately, due to the health vulnerabilities of this group, Touch Trust was forced to withdraw services that utilised specially equipped session spaces after the Wales Millennium Centre closed its doors to the public.

However, Touch Trust has now got together with City of Cardiff (Melingriffith) as part of a fundraising campaign to help support the charity during the Covid-19 crisis.

Morecambe and Wise

The brilliant video features the band playing the iconic 'Bring Me Sunshine' tune (made famous by the comedy duo of Morecambe and Wise) alongside staff using Makaton signing with the lyrics and some of the charity's service users

Bev Garside, acting CEO of Touch Trust told 4BR: "This wonderful initiative is at the heart of what we do at Touch Trust. Working with creative and gifted people, we can make the arts accessible to those who are often excluded.

Collaboration, such as this brings together the talents of exceptional musicians, the creativity of the Touch Trust staff team and the unique contribution of our guests to create something truly special."

She added: "Touch Trust is the band's chosen charity for 2020 and despite the challenges of Covid-19 it has been a fantastic opportunity to bring our message across to the public in new ways.

We have engaged through social media and have used the pandemic as an opportunity to launch brand new online sessions! We hope the video will show just how important and enjoyable music making is for our service users."

This wonderful initiative is at the heart of what we do at Touch Trust. Working with creative and gifted people, we can make the arts accessible to those who are often excludedTouch Trust

Great fun

In response, the band's MD Christopher Bond, who arranged the music added: "We're delighted to partner up with Touch Trust to present this distanced video.

It's been great fun to make and we're so glad to have hopefully brought a little bit of sunshine into people's lives and support a quite wonderful charity."

Find out more

To find out more, enjoy the video and support the charity go to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8wKD2nEts4

JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/touchtrust/fundourfuture

How to access the Touch Trust services and find out more: Elizabeth.connell@touchtrust.co.uk