"I occasionally use a crib sheet as a prompt or safety net"
Fine - no argument with that whatever - have done it myself when necessary.
I really don't believe that to be the problem nowadays - it's people who patently don't know the songs well enough to sing them through that can cast a pall on the evenings, leaving the more proficient performers to pick up the pieces.
This doesn't mean the strugglers should be abandoned - there are ways of bringing them along without constantly putting them in front of an audience - I would go along 100% with Roger Knowles - if they don't know the songs, they aren't ready - if they continue to not know them and they refuse all offers of help, they probably never will be.
The idea of the £5 fine tickles me; beats the stocks and rotten fruit, I suppose!!
By the way, one of the other 'tricks' in memorising the songs is to sing it through at high speed a few times (in private, of course) - does wonders for training your memory to keep up with the important bits.
Telling the songs as stories (again privately) helps to establish the progression of what they are saying and reciting the words helps enormously with the phrasing in order to sing as you would say.
Jim Carroll

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