LEARN2SOAR NEWS: July 2013
Looking back over 10 amazing years!
It’s party time here at Learn2soar Music as we celebrate our 10th birthday! But where on earth have the last 10 years gone? Our managing director Stuart Ross says:
“When I think back to the summer of 2003 and what little we started learn2soar with, it’s a miracle that we have grown so much. My secondment as a music advisor had come to an end and I had a choice to either go back to my old job of being a primary school teacher (which I loved doing) or starting a new business producing music for schools. The business idea won and the rest is history… well sort of.
It’s a miracle we got through those first few years. At that time my wife was between jobs herself and we had 2 young children. We put the mortgage on hold, tightened our belts, prayed a lot and just scraped by! Only having five titles on sale at the time didn’t help and it was only by providing a high volume of school workshops, along with a grant from the Arts Council, which helped us to live from day to day.
As I was gradually able to produce more and more titles each year, the sales grew and the real turning point came in 2007 when I produced…
‘C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S Spells Christmas For Juniors’.
… The glowing feedback from schools was like nothing we’d ever seen before. It was simply overwhelming and then the icing on the cake was when the BBC broadcast a large section of it over the Christmas holidays. The following year, sales went through the roof and have been growing steadily ever since. One thing we’re particularly proud of is that we’ve never used a bank loan or overdraft. We only ever spend what we take in, never go into debt and give regularly to charity. It’s not the way most businesses work, but it’s really worked well for us!
We estimate that we’ve now supplied music to around 40% of the UK and Ireland’s schools and we regularly sell to customers in about 40 countries around the world. Hopefully over the next 10 years we can see Learn2soar… soar even higher!”
To all our customers, friends, family, supporters, helpers… thank you soooo much for all your love, support and encouragement over the years! (more…)
