""If this comes across in the way you describe - I cannot see that I can possibly have anything to offer to this forum - so perhaps I should leave you all to it
Jim Carroll""


There is absolutely no need to react in that fashion, Jim, especially as, had those whom you have addressed in the way I described reacted similarly, there would now be no forum for you to post to.

All that is needed, is perhaps to consider the feelings you would experience, had you spent your whole life trying to do the best for something you believe in, only to have someone categorise your efforts as hopelessly inefficient, and detrimental to what you have been trying to protect.

You come across as superior, patronising, grumpy and irrascible by turns, though this may not be how you intend to sound.

Many of us have been involved in folk clubs for longer than we care to remember, and it isn't nice to have someone telling us that we know nothing about running individual clubs which that person hasn't visited, and knows absolutely nothing about.

I don't wish to chase you away from this, or any other forum, and I do think you often have valid and important points to make. I simply question whether getting your point across can only be achieved by drawing blood, or whether some slightly softer option might be more effective?

Were you to show to those who have different ways of working, the respect for their expertise that you would wish to receive, it would, IMO, be a very good start.

Don T.