Ok, this thread needed to be dredged up. I contributed the story of my attempts to start a folk fellowship in the first part of this thread many years ago. Well, it didn't work, and these things happen.
4 or 5 years went by, my family moved to a new town, and I became active in a new church. I played a little guitar here and there, but didn't really have a place to play. Then a friend at church asked me to run a summer class on simple praise guitar, based on a book that her father-in-law had given her. 12 weeks, 12 chords, 3 strum patterns, 20 simple praise songs and hymns. I figured 4 or 5 people would show up. We had 20. Now, there was the normal attrition, (mostly, in my opinion, caused by people trying to learn guitar on just bad instruments. I would have had problems playing on some of these guitars… but I digress!) but a fair number hung on until the end.
Great. Now what do you do? Well, we did it again. Fewer students, but some repeat customers, who wanted to work on what they had learned. And it also turns out that while I was teaching those two classes, a few "real" guitarists showed up to play along, and to help out. They took turns teaching when I was on vacation, and they were a great resource with classes that big. So just for the heck of it, we kept meeting after the second class was over. And some of the students kept coming. People kept bringing in songs they wanted to play and learn. Most of it is that old -time Americana and gospel music. But there are blues songs, and bluegrass, and Clapton, and …Well, you get the idea. And a couple members of the choir started coming in early, sitting in, and singing those great harmonies. And one day I looked around, and we had a revolving cast of 10 guitarists, a mandolin/banjo player with a great voice, a 80 year old with a dulcimer and a ukulele (ya just gotta love the sound of a uke on I'll Fly Away) a bass player, a percussionist, 4 or 5 vocalists, and a monthly rotation in church services. And, mostly as a joke, because the classes in the adjoining rooms would kid us about how loud we were, we got ourselves a name. We've got room for everyone, we have a lot of fun, it doesn't matter how good you are because there is safety in numbers, and we are The Joyful Noise Acoustic Ensemble.
Who would have thunk it seven years ago?