"Does Whitby Folk Club take any part in organizing Whitby Folk Week? In several years of going I've seen nothing to suggest it"
Whitby Folk club did used to be part of the whitby folk festival, Jack I was going there in 1976 and was booked throughout the 1980s and again occasionally in the nineties, and Iremember clearly that it was part of the festival.
Jack, you see you are wrong in your statement , I will give you the example of Towersey village festival, this festival was started by denis manners[ a socialist] and was a community based village festival[ hence its name] that grew gradually in to the present Towersey festival.
Then we have festivals such as Sidmouth.. founded by the EFDSS
Sidmouth Festival was founded as a folk dance festival in 1955 by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), but gradually expanded to cover ceilidh dancing, music and song, as well as related folk crafts.[2] Over time, the scope also broadened to include performers from abroad, and the festival was renamed the Sidmouth International Folklore Festival.
Jck Campin the reasons the festivals were started by EFDSS ARE STATED BELOW, they were not intened originally as commercial exrcises money making was not number one priority, they slowly evolved and grew
The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS, or pronounced 'EFF-diss'[1]) was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society.[2] The EFDSS, a member-based organisation, was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee (no. 297142) in 1935 and became a registered charity (no. 305999) in England and Wales in 1963.

The Folk-Song Society, founded in London in 1898,[3] focused on collecting and publishing, primarily folk songs of Britain and Ireland although there was no formal limitation. Participants included Lucy Broadwood, Kate Lee, Cecil Sharp, Percy Grainger, Ralph Vaughan Williams, George Butterworth, George Barnet Gardiner,[4] Henry Hammond, Anne Gilchrist and Ella Leather.[5]

The English Folk Dance Society was founded in 1911 by Cecil Sharp. Maud Karpeles was a leading participant. Its purpose was to preserve and promote English folk dances in their traditional forms, including Morris and sword dances, traditional social dances, and interpretations of the dances published by John Playford.

One of the greatest contributions that the EFDSS made to the folk movement, both dance and song, was the folk festival, starting with the Stratford-upon-Avon Festival in the 1940s and later festivals in Whitby, Sidmouth, Holmfirth, Chippenham and elsewhere.
PLEASE NOTE
Its purpose was to preserve and promote English folk dances in their traditional forms, including Morris and sword dances, traditional social dances, and interpretations of the dances published by John Playford.