Today we have Susanne from Kindermusik with us. Can you tell us a little bit about your business please Susanne?
Yes, hi Deb. Kindermusik International is a world leader in music and movement. My business runs from Ponteland in Northumberland and offers music and movement to hundreds of families all over the region Northumberland, Tyneside, Newcastle each week. They come along for a 45 minute class where there is songs, bouncing, dances, twirling, whirling, leaping, flying through the air, star parachutes, massive amounts of fun, energy and totally unique to absolutely anything at all that there is out there. The whole basis of Kindermusik is that it is a really hands on programme where everybody gets involved, the whole family comes along so perhaps on a Saturday familes come along, mums, dads, grandparents along with their little ones and everybody gets involved. Shoes are kicked off, we are on the floor, we are jumping around and it is very hands on.
Wow, sounds absolutely fantastic. Can I ask did you always do Kindermusik or do you have a different background prior to doing that?
Well, to be honest I have always loved singing in choirs and I have taken always part in dancing groups, through school and my later years. I took a bit of time out when I had my children, I’ve got 3 teenage daughters who are now 17, my middle one is 15 today and my youngest is 13 so I stepped back and really enjoyed spending time with them when they were growing up, which is really important to do, they are not young for very long. I enjoyed spending time at home just doing playdo, painting, jumping around, all the things that mummy’s do and gradually as they started school I realized that there was a lot more out there for me. Perhaps to combine my love of music and dance and see if I could move forward with that, so I approached a number of local schools, playgroups and nurseries as my children started school with a view to take a dance programme in and they were all very kind and embraced me, and I took it from there really. It has just progressed, it spiraled and it got so huge that I went into children’s centre from all over the region as well. Then in 2005 I discovered Kindermusik, purely by chance just looking on the internet, seeing what else was out there and I looked at absolutely everything but Kindermusik was the one that immediately struck me as being such a warm, hands-on programme that families could really get involved with and that was the one that I picked.
Great, that is fantastic. Now obviously as being a work-from-home mum myself, sometimes I do find it hard to get motivated and to juggle everything. Do you find it like that?
Well, it is difficult isn’t it when you work from home. I do very little from my office at home just purely the paperwork side of things. To be honest it is really hard not to be motivated when you work with the programme that is so upbeat, it is so full of energy and the way it brings parents and children together it is really really difficult not to be motivated by that. I spend the majority of my week, literally 6 days of the week out in nurseries, in schools, children’s centres and again in my studio where parents come to me, classes are on there literally all week long Monday to Saturday. So yes, it is really hard not to embrace that, the warmness and the enriched programme that it offers.
Great. Ok, so obviously Kindermusik is a very large national franchise, do you happen to know are you quite well covered nationally now with Kindermusik?
There is a lot of Kindermusik educators out there in the UK, I think we are running into hundreds now. I know internationally it is thousands and thousands all over the world, it is massive in America, goes all over Asia, right over the whole world is covered by Kindermusik. In the UK again yes a large number but we are very thin on the ground up here in the North East which is a real shame, it would be lovely to have more people to work with. Yes we are always looking for Kindermusik educators to jump in and come on board. Absolutely, it would be lovely to have them all.
Sure, ok, so obviously before we finish the interview, I just wondered if you could tell us what your website is please?
Absolutely. My website is http://www.kindermusik-with-susanne.co.uk/. All the details about my classes are on there, how to register for taster courses, anybody can come along, there are loads of pictures up there, we have got a big facebook page with lots and lots of photographs of classes of children jumping, dancing and joining in. There are lots of people to see and look into on there.
Thank you, that is great. Now obviously with us being a site called What’s Good To Do, it wouldn’t be right to let you go without just briefly asking yourself what you do to rewind?
I just love to walk my dog and anybody who follows me on Facebook regularly gets to see lots of photographs of my doggie. He is a 2 year old lurcher so we are often to be found pounding the beach discovering lots of nice places. We live in such a beautiful part of the world so it is really lovely to be walking through fields of poppies at the moment and out on the hills. I have also just recently achieved Maestro status with Kindermusik so I am very busy doing lots of press releases and things for that right now, makes me one of the top 5% of Kindermusik educators in the world which is an absolute privilege to be part of. There isn’t an awful lot of wind down time at the moment but we finish our classes in a couple of weeks for the summer, so lots of time to spend with the family then. We tend to go off and do some camping and I am a huge fan of Zumba so I am regularly to be found Zumbering 3-4 times a week.
I must admit Zumba is a wonderful thing to do if you have had a bad day, because myself it just makes you giggle the whole way through so I cannot recommend it enough.
If you can find a good Zumba teacher, there are lots of them out there. We have actually had a handful of Kindermusik mummies have joined the Zumba crowd and they set up on their own as well so I tend to go to a couple of different Zumba groups but they are all very different and all fantastic fun, definitely a great way to wind down.
Ok, so thank you so much Susanne for talking to us today. It has been fantastic and very informative.
Ok, lovely to speak to you.