Solution: Find some people! ;-)

Maybe putting a note in the local music shop would work? Round our way they often have a "musicians wanted" board. Or ring round the local music teachers and ask them to put the word around.

Re the karaoke CDs, I guess it depends whether your strumming is at home for fun, or whether you're gigging. As something to do for a bit of fun, or to learn new tunes, of course they're fine. I don't think anyone should do a gig using them though, because there's a definite gap between live performance and a karaoke singalong, and for me backing CDs are on the karaoke side of the gap. That's just my opinion though.

Graham.