Hi Laura

I'm sure you'll meet lots of other young folkies at Towersey. I have a friend who's 17 who is planning to meet up with her friends there, so there are other people your age out there! Get along to the Shooting Roots events, for sure.

When you start applying to university, look out for ones with folk/ceilidh societies, there are a few out there. I got into folk music through playing in a ceilidh band when I was at school and then didn't play much folk music while I was at 6th form because there wasn't really anything out there I could join in with (and there was the small matter of coursework etc. anyway), then went to university, joined the ceilidh society there, met lots of folkies my age and since then I've been playing more and more, and it helped me to find some other students who aren't only interested in clubbing. Here's a few to start you off: http://www.ceilidhsoc.org
http://www.warwick.ceilidhsoc.org/ http://gosh.ex.ac.uk/societies/folkdance/index.html

Also, you could try signing up to a Yahoo group called 'bigsession', it's a discussion group for young (and some young-ish) folkies.

Have fun at Towersey!

Charley