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1 nomination from readers

• Sue established Decoda as a social enterprise when hardly anyone knew what “social enterprise” meant. She is passionate about the concept of running a business while keeping in mind the needs of the end-users – in this case people with profound disabilities. Above all, she wanted Decoda’s main delivery vehicle – the Music Gym – to be run as a business in order to be sustainable and not to come to an end as so many projects do when the initial funding runs out. Through hard work and determination, this has been achieved over the past 3 years, and a project is now underway to make the Music Gym available nationally.

  Originally, Decoda ran live-music workshops for people with learning disabilities throughout East Sussex but became increasingly interested in those participants who were always on the edge of the group and who could not be engaged because of the severity of their disabilities. This led them to use sound technology and especially equipment which can translate movement into sound - and the Music Gym concept was born. The Music Gym is held every Friday in school term time in a sports hall in Hastings, where 35-40 people of all ages and with varying profound disabilities, move, interact and have fun to make things happen - be it music, images or vibration. This unique facility, which Sue hopes will not be unique for too much longer as it rolls out nationally, would not have come about or, indeed, still be running if it were not for Sue’s enterprise and inspiring leadership.

  Sue not only runs a very successful and extremely worthwhile social enterprise, she is also a champion of the social enterprise movement and is truly deserving of this award.

  Nominated by John Challis, 16 May 2008