A message from Jo Whiley

I can't believe it's been five year's since Mencap first approached me with the germ of an idea, to curate a series of acoustic gigs called Little Noise Sessions. How could I refuse? Here was the chance to organise my own mini-Glastonbury. I was irresistibly drawn in.

Looking back over the years, I'm immensely proud of what we have achieved, and rightly so. Little Noise Sessions has brought some of the biggest names in music - Bono and The Edge, Coldplay, The Killers, Noel Gallagher - to one of London's smallest, most intimate venues, the Union Chapel in Islington.

I am an ambassador for Mencap partly because my sister Frances has a learning disability. Frances, who's three years younger than me, has Cri Du Chat syndrome, which is a condition with lots of complicated symptoms. She couldn't speak until she was ten. We're very close and like me, Frances has a huge love for music. She can spot a hit a mile off and likes anything with a massive chorus – from ABBA and The Spice Girls, to Show Me the Way to Amarillo.

One of my biggest achievements over the past few years has been helping my mum set-up The Rockin' Roadrunner Club, a club night in Northampton for people with a learning disability. It's just like any normal club night with loads of people dancing and having a great time, but for many of the people the club is a totally new experience - they've never had access to anything like it before. Mum has had such moving thank you letters from parents and carers – I'm so proud of her. Frances Djs at the club. She really looks forward to it and takes it incredibly seriously. It's totally her gig – in fact I can barely get near the decks to put a record on!

It's projects like these, that money raised from Little Noise Sessions will help fund, so huge thanks to everyone who has supported the gigs, whether by performing on stage or buying a ticket for the shows.

We hope you enjoy watching them as much as we've enjoyed putting them together!
Big love,
Jo Whiley