Compton, I'm an 'ordinary' member of the Welsh Folk Dance Society but don't attend meetings nor am I a member of a dance team, so I don't know off-hand what the membership currently stands at. However, I know that there are 21 or 22 teams which are members, and a number of those have teams-within-teams. Many team members are also individual members. I don't believe that school teams are required to pay membership, but they do receive advantages from the Society. Add to that the teams and dancers who aren't members but benefit from the publications, courses, etc that the Society produces and I think they're providing a good service, particularly for a voluntary society. From a presentation I attended at an AFO conference a while back, I get the impression that there's more folk dance in Welsh schools than in English schools. Unfortunately (from my point of view) it's all focussed on competition, but that's another question altogether.

I'm sorry, I must have missed your request on Mudcat for info re: folk activity in west Wales. There's usually something going on here and there, but it is 'folk' activity - i.e. something we do locally, and not necessarily as cannon-fodder for the tourist industry. As it happens, however, I'm on the Wales Cultural Tourism Partnership and I have been pushing for better awareness of those folk events which ARE open to the public. There have been folk festivals within driving distance of Carmarthen on many (most?) weekends this summer, some of which should have been known to the TIC. I'll take that up with the Carmarthenshire Tourism Association. However, I know of one major festival which receives marketing grants and consistently fails to promote itself beyond a 10 mile radius of its site; so, the folkie organizers are the ones to blame there.

Re: Scotland, they benefit from the strong support of the Scottish Executive, as well as regional bodies such as Highlands and Islands Enterprises. Interestingly, recent visits by Ian Smith (Scottish Arts Council) to Wales have helped raise the profile of Welsh traditional music in 'certain quarters' for which I personally am very appreciative. We may see progress ...

I continue to thanks God for the Societies which have preserved and published all the material which too many people ignore. And whose role in making it available to us is undervalued by too many.

Like Malcolm, I shall hie myself hence because I have more constructive things to be getting on with: i.e. a project reintroducing archive material in Pembrokeshire, a trad-based commissioned work for Rhuthun Gaol, a cataloguing project of songs of SE Wales, plans for a Winter Rituals project for Carmarthenshire, sessions this week at the National Eisteddfod, a trad music response to a National Assembly Arts Review, and ... oh, a few other things.

For a nation of a shade less than 3 million, over 20,000 km squared, without the governmental support available in Ireland and Scotland, we could be doing worse.

sian