John P., very well put. I agree and these are excellent suggestions.

John R., I very much appreciate your efforts in trying to make Folklife a participatory event and put the 'folk' back in it. The tribute to Phil Thomas this year and the Coffehouse Reunion last year were, in my mind, highlights of the festival. But, unfortunately, they were only a minor part of the big extravaganza.

For my part, I organized a workshop on the Irish Session with help from my friends in Fado's Irish Pub Sunday Session. I was successful in getting Folklife to post the workshop schedule on their web sit, even though that schedule was not part of the grid in the printed program and one still had to look in a different part of the print guide to find them. So I put out my own publicity - emails, flyers at Victory Music's and Seattle Folklore Society's booths, etc. etc. It paid off, as we had about 40 people show up - about 25 musicians playing and about 15 others listening. I had several hand-outs, and we talked about the Irish Session (history, how it operates, etc.), in addition to playing tunes. Since we were the last scheduled workshop in the Orcas room on Monday, we just continued to play tunes after our alloted time. The Center staff quietly came in and removed extra chairs and tables, but let us continue. Finally when we left at about 6:15, I thanked them for letting us continue. One of the Center crew said "you were making such fine music, we didn't want you to stop". This is what Folklife shoud be about - ordinary people involved in making good music.

Cheers, S. in Seattle