According to Chambers it means:

Apathy: noun, lack of interest or enthusiasm

This thread has wandered off into speculation about why folk clubs fail, and some valid points have been made about issues such as an unwelcoming atmosphere, bad floor singers etc. All well and good, but I can assure you that none of these shortcomings could be applied to the Friday 13th Club. The first time I went there I was made to feel very welcome, and after only a couple of visits I felt like an old-timer. The standard of the floor singers is pretty good, and there's certainly no sense of a clique. What exactly was Ray Black doing wrong?

Perhaps it's a facile excuse to blame the apathy of a town's population, and it's easy to opt for vague rantings about the public's descent into indifferent chav-dom, but I maintain that most Harrogate dwellers are decidedly lethargic and complacent. Increasingly it and nearby villages are becoming bases for Leeds commuters. They get a nice house, find a nice school for their kids then buy a nice big TV and spend most of their leisure time planted in front of it. A folk club depends on a vibrant and participative community, and Harrogate has no such thing