Sound Therapy

Barring accidents and unforeseen circumstances, Lucas Neill, the West Ham captain will be visiting the Music Gym this coming Thursday, September 20th.
This is part of the Premier League’s Creating Chances initiative. We had to describe our project and what we would ask the player to do there. That wasn’t difficult as it’s very rare […]

On Friday we came to the end of our second year of the Music Gym and there was a party atmosphere at Horntye Park. People of all ages, from 8 to 70, turned up to try out the Music Gym.

Councillor Vivienne Bond paid us a visit. She turned out to be a special needs teacher […]

We’ve just heard that in September a West Ham player will be visiting the Music Gym. This is down to a new Premier League initiative called Creating Chances, designed to bring the country’s top clubs closer to their local communities.
We took part in the “Places for Players” schemes which will see 60 Premier League stars […]

Who’d have thought it? While caravans floated on rivers in Worcestershire, in Lamberhurst the sun shone and everyone had a wonderful time at the SwanFest. It’s the perfect setting for a small festival - in the garden of the pub that was voted best freehouse wine pub and beer garden in the South East of […]

Here’s the second of our occasional films showing in more detail what goes on at the Music Gym and how we set it up.
We call this section the Dancing Boards because we use wooden boards to locate the “hot” areas and that’s where people dance - so it does just what it says. Movement on […]

Before we became Decoda we were Count Me In, taking musicians into local day centres and homes. Count Me In was born one evening in a pub in Hastings. Everyone in the pub was watching Rag Mama Rag, the acoustic blues duo but I was watching Dave,(not his real name) at a table next to […]

Apologies for the delay in adding more information about this year’s SwanFest.

As you can see, there are some great local musicians playing. We’re living in trust that over the next few weeks these clouds will lift, the rain will disappear and by July 22nd summer will have arrived.
Tickets go on sale shortly and will […]

We’ve just heard that the popular music festival, the SwanFest, will this year be supporting Decoda and especially the Music Gym for the opportunities it offers to those with profound and multiple disabilities.

It takes place on Sunday, July 22nd at the beautiful Swan in Lamberhurst, near Tunbridge Wells. Lamberhurst is also easy to reach from […]

The search for the perfect T-shirt began with Kim, our designer, not wanting to wear the little black number the facilitators prefer. A trawl around the internet later she has a tasteful purple logo on white.
Thinking that others might prefer to mix their favourite colours our cafepress shop is now up and running. The […]

May 8th 2007:Did anyone else see the recent report that the Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis has admitted that the government is losing the battle to improve the lives of people with learning disabilities?
He has told the Association of Directors Adults Social Services spring seminar that because of the struggle with achieving the Valuing People […]