My experience (15 years of Arts Council England funded arts organisations) is that no lobbying will reverse the decision. WE SHOULD STILL DO IT but it won't change the decision - its wrong to go down without a fight

One quarter of all funding is under threat, get as paranoid as you like, but its NOT an anti folk/traditional music thing..... its a government directive in order to fund the Olympics.

Admittedly, many music and arts projects have a focus on wanting to fund "new" work, so the folk arts have to be imaginative and creative in their bids - and they often are.

But NO funder is going to fund organisations who want to carry on doing what they have always done unless they are going to add to their value - more people, different people, new approaches, imaginative collaborations etc etc etc