Kaleea: "Will all the Music be "Folk?" Make a list of works for "Folk" and a list of words instead of "club" & use an online thesarus if needed. From that list, I made a list of potential names & narrowed it down to a few & gave it to my friend. She loved them all, but chose the one which made the most sense for her goal.
For what it's worth, "Society" is a bit less exclusive sounding than "club."

I like that idea, thanks, and I'll do it. Maybe we can come up with something that addresses and advertises what we are and will be fresh, to boot. (What does "to boot" actually mean? *G*)

Kaleea: "What is the end goal? An open mike? A a regular jam? Weekly or monthly? Business meeting then Jam? Business meeting, informal learning workshops for the various instruments led by members followed by jam?"

The End goal: A facility for people to become better known, a place where young blood - not to say, older blood - can become comfortable performing for others, a place to hear good music, a place for workshops, perhaps a very mini-folk festival.

Jam? At this point we're not planning to jam there. We have our regular jam circles and don't plan to change that. However, as time goes on, who knows what else will be requested or required.

Weekly or Monthly? At this point, we're saying 'monthly', but reliably so. A regularly scheduled night, such as First Saturday of the Month, or Third Saturday- you get the idea. Our idea is to train people to keep the event in mind.

"informal learning workshops for the various instruments led by members followed by jam? Yes, that is what we want from the workshops, plus perhaps songwriting, even theory.

Acoustic? That is the beginning plan. We've already had a trial run in the hall and we think we can do without a sound system. However, there may specific performes or instruments that need to be miked, and we are ready with that. The main thing that we want to avoid is the fully electric, boom bang crashing that keeps some people - like me - from many events.

Earlier we were thinking of having a separate night for the young, with a youthful emcee, but have decided to mainstream the younger crowd in order to encourage up and coming ones to aim higher.

One of the things I am excited about is our plan to introduce the music community to members of it in a different capacity. We want to pull the 'professional' musicians out of their comfort zones. For instance, we already have the commmitment of two people in a full band that they will come up with material that they can do together in a very different mode.

We are starting in the summertime so that by winter we may know what we're doing!

The Villan: There's a fairly good reason why our planned format resembles yours. I extracted - and printed - many posts on the Mudcat about Folk Clubs to show the other founders and I borrowed heavily from yours. Thank you!