Doms musical marathon raises £4,000 for - TopicsExpress

Doms musical marathon raises £4,000 for Framework Img_9083_article_detail 01 Sep 2014 by Neil Skinner The Old Coach House in Southwell played host to a remarkable live performance yesterday, as a teenage musician played the 31st and final gig of his musical marathon for Framework. Seventeen-year-old Dom Stockbridge, helped with some heroic efforts from his musical mates, has been touring the highways and byways of the East Midlands over the last month, playing a different gig on each night and donating his fees (and any money collected) to Framework. Think about that for a moment: the many hours spent in preparation; the hundreds of miles driven; the sheer number of throat lozenges consumed…it’s a remarkable effort whichever way you look at it – made all the more fantastic by the incredible £4,000+ he has raised along the way. Before we go on let me put that into some kind of perspective…. It can cost us as little as £50 to temporarily halt an eviction or repossession – allowing us time to work on a long term solution. Potentially this money has helped us to prevent 80 cases of homelessness It costs us around £5 to process and act upon each call to our rough sleepers’ hotline. Potentially this money will help us to help up to 800 rough sleepers. I could go on here…but I’ll instead return to yesterday’s barnstorming gig at The Old Coach House. Now, you’d be forgiven for assuming that such young musicians would be – to quote a sporting cliché – a work in progress. Not a bit of it. Dom and his band, Platform, are superb musicians (annoyingly good if I’m honest!) and great showmen to boot. When I say the audience were dancing in the aisles by the end…I’m really not kidding. Indeed, these guys may be young but they sure are a talented bunch. Take, for example, Dom’s mate Joe “The One Man Orchestra” Lock, who ended up supporting Dom in the majority of his gigs – playing the piano, the guitar, the bass, the mouth-organ, the drums, the saxophone…and providing vocals along the way. It’s hard to say anything other than “wow” when you see that kind of thing live! I’ll leave you here by recalling a very special personal highlight to yesterday’s gig, which I attended in order to personally thank Dom for all his efforts. Ordinarily I’d have picked the performance of a specially penned song about homelessness…but for the interjection of one lady who sought me out during the gig. “I am so glad you are here”, she explained. “Ten years ago I was a heroin addict living with Framework. You gave me a place to live when I needed it and really changed my life.” It was a fitting end to a fantastic fundraising effort and we thank Dom, Joe and all those who have helped in this marathon effort for supporting our work. Well done to them all.