I have no wish to speculate on what is happening as far as staffing is concerned at the moment, but any organisation has to cut its coat according to its cloth, which is what EFDSS seems to be doing at the moment. I also don't wish to bring up the 'sell CSH' debate again, which is what lost the Society an awful lot of members in the '80s.

What I do want to do is to refute some of the statements which have been made.

"The difference this time is that they are actually getting rid of the staff. Previously, as far as I can tell, the Trustees have just moved staff around, prevented them from working and that's about it." Not so. When the Society was going through a hard time at the beginning of the '80s, initially two of the full-time regional staff were made redundant, followed a year or so later by another one who had been made up to National Events Officer, leaving only one full-time member of staff not based in London, who was the Education Officer at the time.

"Why haven't they made plans to replace their education director, who announced her retirement a year ago and whose last day is coming up soon, if I'm not mistaken." Because that post was funded by the Sports Council, who are no longer operating in the same way, and therefore the funding is no longer available.

"A rather parochial little magazine" - the last issue of which seemed to be rather more interesting than the last issue of 'Living Tradition'. At least, I found more of interest to an English person primarily interested in song, but also interested in other areas of the tradition.

"The only useful purposes efdss,appear to have now,are the library,insurance coverage for festivals and publications" And is that so bad? The library is an invaluable resource to anyone interested in English song, amongst other things, even when, like me, one has a pretty vast library of one's own. The insurance cover is not just for festivals (in fact, I'm not sure it's *even* for festivals), but it is of great value to organisers of small events. And as for publications, there are some great ones coming out at the moment, including the reissue of the 'Marrowbones' series. No-one else seems to be bringing out books of traditional songs these days, which has been a problem for newbies for years now - the only place they've been able to find songs has been from recordings, which isn't necessarily the best way to learn songs as there's a tendency to slavishly copy the style of the people singing the songs.

As for the person who didn't think this was worth £35 a year (less than the price of a decent meal out), have you ever thought how much more the Society could do if more people put in their £35 a year, and actually thought, in the words of JFK I think, 'Don't ask what EFDSS can do for you, but what you can do for the EFDSS!' and all things that they might be able to achieve if people joined it instead of forever complaining about it?

I'm not saying that I never criticise the Society - I do, but I hope from a position of some knowledge - but it makes me mad when people complain from a position of almost total ignorance. If you're a member, as far as I am concerned you have a right to criticise; if you're not, you haven't - it's not *your* money that's going into it!

There, I feel better for that!

Barbara