cheers Dave,

no I know, he's not on the organising team - what I was trying to say was I can't see why not seeing as he's obviously keen to expend a lot of energy on thinking about it - playing devil's advocate to a certain extent may be but surely that is a valuable role? If Steve's site is true then a) various people have said 'anybody who wants to get involved in helping can come along and take part' and b)various other people have said to Steve 'no you can't come to meeting on 23rd Oct and no there aren't any other opportunities for you to come and get involved either'. The two things contradict each other. But when I've asked nobody has come forward and said 'that is something from the seered site that is factually incorrect' so I'm left to believe that despite Steve actively trying to get involved he hasn't been allowed to.

Something which occurs to me though is: on one level, for us folkies & festival enthusiasts, the issue is about 'are we going to have something to go to in Sidmouth next year?' and that has obviously been answered with a resounding yes and all the info that has been put on mudcat and on the festival site and in press releases _is_ as much as we need to know and that is fine by me.

However, there is a deeper (and more political, I guess) question which possibly is not being addressed at all by the organisers of _next_ years folk week - which is 'how can the festival be run for the foreseeable future in such way that it is financially viable?'. Its this second issue that I think a lot of the questions on Steve's site are aimed at, and it does bear some thinking about. And it does get down to politics and personalities at that stage because the extent to which EDDC puts its neck out for the festival makes a big difference to what other people can do or need to do. The thing I would be worried about is a small group of people ending up in the same position as Mrs Casey had been previously with not enough funds to cope if the weather turns bad and they don't get the people through the gates that they were expecting. A lot of the questions on Steve's site are trying to explore the issues that get bandied about when people start talking about this side of it, be they myths or hard facts. And these are issues that need exploring to _support_ the long term future of the festival and I guess its a bit galling for Steve and is certainly frustrating for people like me who also think these questions need exploring to effectively be told 'asking those questions is negative, you are not supporting the festival'.