Ray
When I first got involved in the running of Whitby Folk Week in 1982 it was still a Society festival and as such all surpluses were the Society's. Responsibility for Public Liability Insurance and licensing rested with the Society.
In that first year the gang of four Edmund Jenkinson, Graham Pirt, Trevor Stone, Malcolm Storey returned a surplus to the Society in excess of the turnover for the 1981 festival - several thousand pounds.
The situation changed after the 1985 event when Nibs Matthews retired as Artistic Director of the Society and Jim Lloyd became the Director with a shift towards a more rigid business ethic - something which some, including myself, welcomed. Jim did a good job of bringing the running of the Society into a more modern era but one of his improvements was to announce that he wished to see Society festivals donate any surpluses to the Society but to absorb any losses themselves.
Edmund Jenkinson and I were by this time the joint volunteer directors of Whitby Folk Week and as such could not accept that - and why should we?
Fairly amicable discussions led to us taking the festival forward as an independent entity. For a number of years we did offer a discount to society members as gesture of goodwill.
We quickly discovered that when it came to the PL and other issues we had been largely relying on something that might not have been true but probably not deliberately so.
We therefore put in place measures to meet our responsibilities. Edmund was offered a conditional (give up Whitby) directorship with his employers, a major civil engineering company, about the time of that 1986 festival after which we parted company extremely amicably and remained good friends until his untimely death.
You seem to feel that there is some agreement between the current WFW team and the EFDSS regarding insurances but I would think that difficult to conceive - especially with the 500 limit on attendances. I stand to be corrected on that but not by you.

Finally I'm pleased to see you are a still a devout Yorkshireman - especially when it comes to the first commandment.
Pay Nowt and then only grudgingly!