"Isn't the point of this Folk Music, not who is or isn't Pacific northwest?"

Yes, that's what we think. There are many valid and serious web sites without an individual's name attached. You are right, this is from a home computer - why spend a lot of money on a commercial site when we can do it for free? Does that give it less validity? We don't think so. As to who we are - some of us were founding members of the PNWFS back in 1953, others are more recent to the folk music scene here.

There are other organizations here involved in folk music here. However, they have gravitated to the singer-songwriter genre, away from their traditional roots. Now that may not be bad - there are some very talented musicians coming here to sing the songs they have written just yesterday or perhaps a year or two ago, but that's not the traditional music we're trying to promote and preserve. There are local folk musicians from this area, some passed on, some aging (aren't we all), whose music will soon be forgotten if there isn't a group to keep it alive and to grow the tradition.

We would like to be responsive to those who visit our web site. At this point we can list concerts and other events, and recording, which relate to the musical traditions and folklore of the Pacicific Northwest. We would like to expand this in the future to posting some songs unique to the PNW, perhaps with a few mp3 files (our storage capicity is not that large yet); and perhaps some historical accounts of the folk musci scene in the PNW. And we will try to answer all enquires through our email address (I am still waiting to receive an answer to my email directed several weeks ago to the info@ addy of another organization's large impressive web site).

In short, I think our web site and organization will be validated in time over what we do, rather than who we are.

And I object to a certain ill-tempered remark ("What the @#$%! are you talking about, Mr. Ryan") to a good gentleman and friend of mine in Ireland. As Emjay said, "Somehow there seems to have been a lot of hostility raised by this and I don't get it." We're obviously not in it to get rich (we're not selling anything), nor to sabotage anyone's organization or to inflate our own egos.

Peace