Seconded Betsy. In fact I proposed Folk Awards in an interview on Folk on Two many years ago and got flamed for it. I suggested that to gain a higher profile the folk community (in the broadest sense) could learn from Country music in America which organised and raised itself from the dead by using the media. I suggested a sort of team photograph of all the "famous" people who started in folk clubs, from Barbara Dixon to Jasper Carrott so that the general public would realise that a wonderful network of alternative people's entertainment existed across the country in folk clubs. I pushed the idea, so disliked by the entrenched as represented on many threads here, that folk, in its widest interpretation, is entertaining, otherwise it has no purpose. Martin Carthy is as entertaining in his speciality as any folk comedian, otherwise why would people pay to see him with such frequency?
Anyway, like Martin Peters, I was at least ten years ahead of my time. At least the folk awards exist now and on tv too. Unfortunately, the wonderful network of clubs that could have benefitted from such exposure is no more, and no one yet seems to foresee a second wave of young organisers building it again.