Karl Meyer: Crafting a Brighter Future for Plymouth Music Zone

Last year was almost a bitterly tragic one for music programme director Karl Meyer and the team at Plymouth Music Zone (PMZ). In November, they were preparing to close the door on the beloved city charity after its funds almost ran dry.

However, we’re just six months on from those dark days and PMZ has — for now, at least — been saved thanks to new funding boosts from a variety of national organisations and big donations from the kind people of Plymouth and beyond. Meyer says he is ‘unbelievably relieved’ and that the charity is now focusing on ‘securing its future’.

PMZ is a community music charity based in Devonport. It runs a wide range of music-related sessions and workshops for disadvantaged, disabled, vulnerable and underrepresented children, young people and adults at its one-of-a-kind home in Raglan Road and in outreach at many other venues across the city.

The power of music

Founded in 1999, PMZ is a charity that believes in the power of music to ‘reach out and bring people together’. It provides ‘high quality, life-changing musical experiences giving everyone a chance to feel good about themselves in spite of any challenges they face’.

The charity runs a multitude of sessions and workshops. In fact, it’s one of the few organisations in the South West to offer such a diverse programme for children and adults — but, following two decades of growth and success, it hit hard times during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meyer says it has been a ‘traumatic time for everyone here’ at PMZ over the past few years — particularly the latter part of 2024. “PMZ turned 25 years old last year,” he says. “It opened in 1999 and has been a huge success ever since, helping people and communities across the city. At one point, our youngest member was three and our oldest was 103!

“We grew in the 2000s and 2010s and we are so proud of the amount of people we have been able to help through music and creativity. But the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed what we do here at our Devonport home.”

Meyer says that the pandemic ‘made a huge financial impact on the entire organisation’. All the people and groups that used PMZ suddenly couldn’t take part in the regular in-person workshops, meaning that only video meetings and sessions could be organised by the team. He says that provided ‘a lifeline, although it didn’t work for everybody’.

“These changes,” says Meyer, “and moving everything online meant that the charity’s earned income was dramatically reduced. And since the pandemic, we’ve all seen a staggering drop in grants and funding that help fund and keep charities like ours going. It’s always been a challenge to source funding but now it’s incredibly tough. Charities up and down the UK are closing.”

NPO: a ‘proud moment’

Meyer says that in 2018 PMZ became one of the few South West-based music charities to gain National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status — making it a cultural and creative organisation funded by Arts Council England. He says becoming an NPO was a ‘proud moment in PMZ history’ that would have taken it ‘to the next level’. However, he says that PMZ lost its NPO funding in March 2023 during a ‘countrywide refocus for Arts Council England’.

Karl (on the left) PMZ & Highbury Trust May 2025

“PMZ is really strategic about how we get and spend our money,” admits Meyer, “but when the funding doesn’t come in, eventually you need to look at other options, including closing your doors. And as we entered 2024, with only minimal funding and many financial issues, we had a choice — make some really difficult decisions or close altogether. It was the charity’s belief, along with our participants, that Plymouth needs us, so we did not want to close after 25 years.”

Meyer says that PMZ ‘has always been an ambitious and innovative organisation’ but ‘perhaps had flown too close to the sun, managing a huge programme and big team’ thanks to a circa half-a-million turnover. He says ‘we managed many of our issues and problems well but not all’ and that the charity, following the pandemic years, ‘had to eat into our reserves’, particularly ‘after a couple of knockbacks on funding bids’.

“Sure, we cost-cut and streamlined internally but it wasn’t enough,” says Meyer. “So by September 2024, we accepted that we might have to close. Barring a miracle, that is.”

Well, a miracle did happen — and that came in the form of generous Plymouth people. But not before PMZ cut its programme and lost some of its board members. Meyer says that some staff chose to take voluntary redundancy, including the CEO. He says the charity ‘did everything it possibly could’ to ‘maintain as many grassroots services as possible’ by saving money with a smaller team.

“It was such an emotional time to see so many colleagues go — colleagues who, like me, have given their all for this charity,” says Meyer. “But we still couldn’t go on, so in September last year we announced that we were facing potential closure at the end of November. We couldn’t see any other way.”

However, by the end of October, PMZ was able to announce news that donations from the public as part of its #SavePMZ campaign — which is still live — would allow the charity to ‘go on until the end of March 2025’. Then, in the second week of November, the team heard that PMZ’s application to Arts Council England for a grant of just over £86,000 had been successful.

Meyer says: “This — along with sustained funding from Youth Music, the UK’s leading youth music charity, and other successful bids — meant PMZ could at least carry on until March 2026. It was such a relief. Sad, of course, because PMZ had lost so many good people along the way but incredible too as our programmes and essential work would continue.”

MZ Moving Sounds Performance March 2025

Sustainability is key

Meyer says that, going forward, sustainability is the key word for PMZ. The funding in the coffers now allows the charity to continue delivering its varied programmes across the city until March or April next year, he says. And that means the new-look team has ‘a lot more time’ to reshape how it delivers its work, bids for grants and uses its funding.

Meyer, who admits he was ‘looking around for a new career last year’ due to all the difficult circumstances and unsure future, says that running a charity on less money is ‘now feasible’ — a radically different future, he notes, ‘to the one we were all facing last year’.

“If I’m honest,” says Meyer, “PMZ is a lot smaller now. There aren’t many of us after we lost so many team members. So, sometimes, I’m a little on my own, running a smaller, scaled-down version of the charity. But those of us who are left are doing whatever it takes to keep PMZ going. We are a lifeline for so many people in the city. A safe place. An important place. A place that needs to continue.

“I want everyone to know that we are still here. That, above all, the people PMZ can help through music are still being helped. It’s just the scale of what we do has changed and we are learning to be far more sustainable. It’s been hard over the past few years, for sure. Of course, there’s still a lot of work to be done but we now feel really hopeful and excited for our future.”

PMZ & Highbury Trust May 2025

“Nothing like PMZ in Plymouth”

Like many of PMZ’s current team members, Meyer says that there’s ‘nothing quite like PMZ in Plymouth’. He says it’s essential and also praises its Raglan Road building, which has been the charity’s home for the past 20-plus years, ‘for its community value here in Devonport’.

Meyer also praises all those who have helped with PMZ’s programme. He highlights one workshop — the Sing Out group for adults living with neurological conditions, such as stroke survivors and those living with Parkinson’s and other conditions. It runs every Wednesday and sees members ‘bring in food and refreshments for everyone rather than PMZ paying for it’.

“Like so many of us here, past and present,” says Meyer, “PMZ is my passion. It’s incredibly important to acknowledge the team effort since 1999 that has enabled PMZ to be here for the past 25 years. PMZ is only here because of the actions of so many other people. I will never forget that and I’m so proud to have learned so much from them. Our #SavePMZ campaign is still live and we are still accepting donations — every little helps us continue.

“If you can help as a volunteer with our groups or if you’re an agency, business or organisation in Plymouth that wants to partner with us or help in some way, then please get in touch. We still have a long way to go and we need more staff to achieve the next stages of PMZ now that we’re gently rebuilding. So, if you’re interested in becoming a trustee or music leader for PMZ then, again, contact us. You will be part of this reshaping of PMZ.

“We also have spare office spaces in our building — and our facilities are wonderful — so do get in touch if you’re looking to hire an excellent space in Devonport.

“It has been — and continues to be — a challenging and emotional time but now PMZ is looking forwards at an exciting and sustainable future for a charity that continues to use music to make a difference and help so many people in our fantastic city.”

To find out more about PMZ, to donate or to contact Meyer and his team, see the website: here.

Story by Matt Fleming