WoW, love that folk map, I wish we had one like it here in the US.
Well, I went to the Press Room (Portsmouth, NH) last Friday evening (see curmudgeon's post above) & told my daughter's best friends mother about it. I don't see her often, hardly at all & I've known her before our daughters were born, she's more of a dancer so are paths don't cross much but they used to & they did Thursday night & I told her about the session. Turns out she's now working in Portsmouth & her roommate plays a melodeon, quite well too. So the next nite they showed up & were quite shy about being there. Kim (her Welsh roommate) picked up on a couple of tunes she knew & that was that. I was very pleased how warmly they were received. Both being dancers Kim played while Debbie did a Scottish country dance, which doesn't happen much there but they were still applauded (I don't know if it was polite kindness though). The session as Tom has mentioned above is mixed, that goes for the singing too. There's a lot of singing of traditional songs & a bit of the modern too, shanties, Irish, Scottish & English songs along with the occasional bluegrass songs, cowboy, blues, 60's folk, leaning more towards chorus stuff.
Mostly though it's welcoming, everyone gets to sing or play & I guess dance too. Very light hearted & easy going so it's as enjoyable for the folks that come who don't sing or play or dance. If you're a stranger & it's noticed that you're singing along you'll probably be asked, discretely if you'd like to sing something.
Maybe next time Debbie will feel comfortable enough to give us a song she was a bit to shy this time around.

Barry