Taking the words with you? Never! Not allowed in my day, and I was horrified to find (when I began my 'comeback') that a majority of people at the folk club that I go to every Thursday have their 'songbook' with them and turn to the appropriate page before singing. When did they change the law to allow this?

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I don't have the words there in a folk club. I was talking about a band gig (barn dance or private event) where we usually have music with us. Because I have the music stand there, I may 'cheat' by having the words of a song I don't do very often - as I said, it may be a special request for a song we don't normally do. I can get away with this because of the setting - it's not like a folk club environment.

Beginners also usually don't know that many chords, so an Am7 or D9 or the like is a complete mystery.

If you see a chord like that, that you don't know, try substituting the 'plain' chord instead, e.g. Am instead of Am7, just for the purpose of learning the song. It won't sound exactly the same, but it will usually do to get you started.

Then if you want to you can look up the chords you don't know, and work those in as well. It's a good way to expand your chord 'repertoire' - and some of these chords are easy to play anyway.

If I'm asked to supply chords for a song, I try to keep it simple, on the basis that the person asking for them is probably a beginner or not very experienced. So I'll try to provide chords that give the bare bones of the accompaniment, rather than every nuance that you might hear by a good player. That will come with experience, and you can work up to that.