Well, this thread certainly gets people going! I stand Full Square behind Captain Birdseye on this one.
I did my dues here in the midlands with the EFDSS serving on a district committee. Apart from designing a camel, I suppose all it did was hold the area together. So ask me what did the EFDSS do? Yes, scrap the district committee!
Same with what is supposedly the district rep. Goodness only knows who is the one for around here.
My point is that, yes, many good things were done perhaps twenty years ago, but perhaps now (from my perception) it now does "bugger all" apart from run a wonderful library…but all that is needed there is to preserve it for the nation!
Just what is the population of London? How many people in that area go to Cecil Sharp House functions?
As for tradition, perhaps the Folklore Society has done as much or even more. The people of Padstow, Abbots Bromley et. al. go their merry way without the EFDSS…and will continue to manage as well.
Folk Festivals are run very differently these days …and again with no EFDSS involvement …and they manage without them.
I (and I am sure the Captain) don't knock any society "just because we want to" I / We want to see a higher profile of the society, and not be "a minority sport" and I am sure there is some London "Bright Young Thing" who must know how to do it. Sadly my time, like the majority of EFDSS members, has passed but I see nothing at the moment that will rise "Phoenix like" from what is the society at the moment.

Sian, I admire your defence of the Welsh movement, but your idea of "Shakey" and mine are different. My observations (admittedly only of the Welsh Folk Dance Society) are that the WFDS membership has perilously small numbers. When was the website last amended?…and I (on a recent holiday in Caermarthen, popped into the local tourist office to enquire about things folkey i.e. Song, Dance or Twmpath. She hadn't the faintest idea what I was on about. "Shakey" or what?
Perhaps we should all look north at the Scottish Folk Dance Society and the profile that they enjoy. Run by a very small organisation, it appears to thrive.
And so should things here in England and in Wales!