"budding singers can hone their skills and gain confidence"
Why should folk club audiences be invited to sit and watch singers practice in public when it's not necessary ?
Would you expect that from any other music scene - idf not, what is there about folksong that makes it acceptable ?
I've been involved is singing workshops all the time I've been involved in folk song and I've benefitted in numerous ways
I get a buzz out of watching singers improve and become butterflies
I have seen club nights improve with the addition of new singers who have been at the workshops
And, from a purely selfish point of view, I have never been in a weokeshop and not learned something about my own singing from working with others
That's how the Critics Group was set up - mutual help that we were all benefiting from simply by being forced to think about the problems in order to solve them - a win-win situation all around - for the newbie, for those helping him/her and for the audiences at your club
MacColl was constantly saying that he learned more from working with the Critics Group than he ever did anywhere else - he said that tight up to his death - even after the Acting Group broke up as acrimoniously as it did
This is why I hammer on as much as I do to at least look at and discuss the work we did before you bin it
Please don't worry about offending me Johnny - I have far too short a fuse and I'll let you now when you have

The clubs are where you go, not just to listen to music, but to associate with people who share your interests and possibly work together
I came away with a wife - hope her husband never comes looking for her:-)
Jim