Howard said:

I wonder what the Society intends to do to make more attractive to all those people active in the folk world who aren't currently members. Perhaps it should run a survey to discover how it is perceived and what people would like to see it do. It can then (if it wishes) make the changes from within.

The recently departed and much discussed Nick Hallam did just that and you obviously missed it. I don't know how widely it travelled but I heard that the response was enough to be helpful.

I'm very much in agreement with your views about the society connecting with the grass roots and until recently there were some very encouraging signs, mostly from he who may not be discussed.

As to changing the society from within into something one would like it to be, that's exactly what I tried to do in the decade I spent on the council. Reasons?

a) There was no other organisation which was anywhere near what I thought should be supporting the folk arts except perhaps Folk Arts England and I didn't think that they were headed in quite the right direction, having quite a strong commercial side but no academic dimension and no publishing.

b) It had a library, a journal, a stagnant but potentially good publishing house and was vaguely perceived amongst the arts hierarchy, including the DCMS, that it was a lead body for folk academia (even though they never thought of funding it).

c) It had a history (somewhat chequered in recent decades) which could be built on.

I'm a society supporter but I still have some concerns about the way things are being organised. Yes, C#H needs to be a thriving centre and a showcase, especially for the young folk acts, but in a way that makes it something more than a North London Folk Arts Centre. I can't get there much myself, living in West Yorkshire, but then I can't get into the West End much or to the National Theatre, etc.

There does need to be a regional dimension. Dick keeps going on about branches and although he's not wrong, it's too late now. There'll be no EFDSS branch in our neck of the woods because we've done everything needed already with our own Ryburn 3 Step. Nick Hallam had some great ideas but he's gone so we must wait and see what, if anything, wings its way from the House in the near future.