Thankyou JIM. I agree with you, People should be encouraged to improve, mistakes are acceptable if you learn from them.
   Countess;[you should never sing or play out till you can]Ihave seen, even martin carthy make mistakes[ but no one would prevent him from singing his next song].The point is how you handle your mistakes, that is also the art of performance, and that is what aspiring performers should be noting, not to be embarrased,and not to make their audience embarrassed.
Elvis presley once forgOt the words to Are you lonesome tonight[ he laughed and said I must have sung this thousands of time] he handled it in a professional manner, NO ONE WAS EMBARRASSED.
Ina well run club[countess to make your point relevant ]if a newbie singer gets up and flops, what a good mc will do is put either his resident group on, or a strong, experienced ,reliable singer to follow which brings the evening up again . one of the best mcs I have encountered is clive pownceby WHO is associated with the Bothy folk club which has run for 42 years[ logically must be awell run club].what we should be looking at, is what are the ingredients of these long running clubs that are clearly well run.DickMiles