>Subject: RE: What's Happening with EFDSS?
>From: Captain Birdseye
>Date: 20 Apr 07 - 04:51 AM
>TO guest Robbie Thomas,does the EFDSS still have branches.if not >why were they disbanded.
>CCEstrength lies in its branches getting involved in the local >communities,which they do in Ireland,America,andEngland.
>when Iwas living in nottingham circa 1989,itwas CCE notEFDSS,that >was teaching local nottingham [english as well as Irish]childrenhow >tyo play musical instruments.

Captain - sitting here at home, I don't know the exact answer as to why the branches were closed, although I understand (from the time when I often visited the Liverpool EFDSS Branch office during my Silly Wizard days when we were thesping at the Liverpool Everyman with Julie Walters, Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Nighy et al) that it was a decision taken by one of the past Chief Officers of the EFDSS (but others will know better than I).

I am in total agreement with you about CCE - it does a great job - I've been to many a CCE event and back in 1975 SW regularly had a couple of Liverpool CCE hard-shoe dancers joining us for encores at our Liverpool concerts (and this was 20 years before Riverdance)... We also went to the Liverpool CCE events a lot back then ... and to a lot of very good sessions. Nowadays I go to a fine CCE session in Northampton whenever I can - it's great to sit next to a 12 year-old who can play like Martin Hayes, but it's even better to sit next to a 10 year-old who has just taken up playing guitar behind tunes and showing him a few of the "old dog's tricks" whilst learning tunes from a white-haired box player who has a repertoire of tune variants and tunes that I haven't heard before... and then there's a really good English session not a milllion miles from where I live now that I must get to soon.....

However I don't see the two organisations (EFDSS and CCE) as mutually exclusive or that one is "better" than the other. Each works according to its own lights and each fulfils a different and no less important role in their communities.

CCE is is a cultural movement concerned with the promotion and preservation of the music, dance and language of Ireland. Its goals are:
To promote Irish Traditional Music in all its forms;
To restore the playing of the Harp and Uilleann Pipes in the National life of Ireland;
To promote Irish Traditional Dancing;
To foster and promote the Irish language at all times;
To create a closer bond among all lovers of Irish music;
To co-operate with all bodies working for the restoration or Irish Culture;
To establish Branches throughout the country and abroad to achieve the foregoing aims and objects

EFDSS is a UK national folk organisation and the Trustee of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, whose goal is to develop its resources, to:
•maintain itself as a centre of excellence for the study, practice and dissemination of traditional English folk song, dance and music;
•provide national and local outreach services that enable and increase access;
•celebrate diversity and promote equality.

These are two very different approaches to the teaching and preservation of the traditional music of the UK and Eire and I would argue that each are equally valid, each are of equal and immense importance and each are equally deserving of the utmost respect for the work that they are attempting to do.

As a piper, I am a member of Na Piobhari Uilleann, whose aim is the promotion generally of Irish music and the music of the uilleann pipes in particular... I'm also a member of the Country Dance and Song Society in the USA - both these organisations have different aims and promotional/teaching approaches to EFDSS and CCE. I don't see any conflict in these differences and I don't regard one as being better than the other. I pay my subs to them all as I get something I want from them and/or I believe that they should be supported.

Just as an aside, I've seen a lot of "complaints" about the fact that CSH is in London. It is! That's a fact. CCE headquarters is in Dublin as is the NPU's. CDSS's headquarters is in Massachussets - so what? If I want information, then I call, email, write or phone. So, to me, the location (from the point of view of contacting the organisation) is irrelevant. No matter where the organisation is, only a limited number of people will ever be able to physically get to it - so let's just drop that argument. London is easily accessible from all over the UK - it's just a matter of cost if you want to go there in person... which is the same argument you'd get if it was in Newcastle, Birmingham or Leeds.

On the "events are only for Londoners" side, I suppose that the only solution is to close CSH to events, and just treat the House as a rental income generator supporting the Library... if I can be persuaded that that will encourage those based in the provinces to join or rejoin EFDSS and pay their subs I'll happily put it to the EFDSS NC financial sub-committee for consideration.

Of course, that means that all this folk activity will have to go somewhere else or disappear (This is the May programme- but most months are pretty similar in number and scope):

1         Tues        Cotswold Morris
                Sharps Folk Club
                Salsa and Latin
                Clog Dancing Workshop
2         Wed        Various Latin
                Fiddle Class - Irish Traditional
3         Thur        Thursday Beginners Plus, country dancing)
                Irish Set Dancing, all levels,
4         Fri        File Gumbo, Cajun dance and music
                Friday Feet
5         Sat        Hellzapoppin' - Lindy Hop, jive, swing etc,
6         Sun         Baroque dance
8         Tues        Cotswold Morris
                Sharps Folk Club
                Salsa and Latin
9         Wed         Various Latin
                Fiddle Class - Irish Traditional
10         Thur         Thursday Beginners Plus,)
                Irish Set Dancing, all levels,
11         Fri         Scottish Ceilidh Club
                Friday Feet,
12         Sat         London Barndance Co,
                Balkanplus Group
13         Sun         Breton dance
                 Beyond Marrow Bones: Hammond and Gardiner
                SIFD Social, International folk Dance
14         Mon         Slovak Dance
                Monday Musicians:
15         Tues         Cotswold Morris
                Sharps Folk Club
                Salsa and Latin
                Clog Dancing Workshop
16        Wed        Wednesday Workshops (
                Various Latin Dances
                Fiddle Class - Irish Traditional
17        Thu        Thursday Beginners Plus,
                Irish Set Dancing, all levels,
18        Fri        English Ceilidh: Knees Up
                Friday Feet,)
19        Sat        MAY FETE
20        Sun        Quadrille Club
                Chantraine School of Dance festival:
21        Mon        Let's Really Dance!
22        Tue        Cotswold Morris
                Sharps Folk Club,
                Salsa and Latin Dance
23        Wed        Various Latin Dances
                Fiddle Class - Irish Traditional
24        Thu        Thursday Beginners Plus,
                Irish Set Dancing, all levels,
25        Fri        Scottish Ceilidh Club
                Friday Feet
29        Tue        Cotswold Morris,
                Sharps Folk Club
                Salsa and Latin Dance
30        Wed        Wednesday Workshops English/American social dance
                Various Latin Dances
                Fiddle Class - Irish Traditional
31        Thu        Thursday Beginners Plus,
                Irish Set Dancing, all levels,

Other people's mileages may vary, but if we are to pass our folk heritage on to our children we need to support every organisation that tries to do just that. I'm sick to the back teeth of the carping that goes on about what happened back in the last century - we've only got this life to make a difference... and if I don't make that difference by singing, playing and supporting this music now my grandson may never hear Joseph Taylor singing Unto Brigg Fair....

Having said all that and getting back on topic.... as I said in my earlier post - I do have criticisms of the EFDSS (which is why I am involved in trying to help it sort itself out) however I do passionately believe that if EFDSS isn't a strong organisation then we may well lose the open access to the VWML - just think how much a university would pay for that treasure trove!!! - and we will lose the one organisation that holds the single most important collection of treaditional English (and plenty of other - you should see the Jimmy Shand collection) language folk music song and dance.

The Scottish equivalent of the VWML is, I suppose, the School of Scottish Studies.... I don't know what would happen if you pitched up there at 11am on a Saturday morning looking for the verses of Child 33 because you had a recording session down the road and you'd left your copy of Child at home.... but I'll bet that there isn't a Malcolm there to make you a cup of coffee and sit you down with paper and pencil...

Unfortunately, English music hasn't yet found its Riverdance that pulls its diaspora and audiences seeking a theatrical night out into a massive, multi-national tourist generator where the millions of tourist Euros that come into a nation of 3.5m people can be linked directly to the music itself. England doesn't have the tartan history and heritage of Scotland that fascinates its massive diaspora and a relatively massive tourist industry that brings millions of pounds into a nation of 5.5m people.

What we seem to have in England is a country that sees no value in its national music (Cecil Sharp was hoping for an English Bartok, for God's sake), has a media that lampoons it at every turn and a society in general that turns its back on its national customs unless it's a quaint little hobby horse at Sidmouth. Contrast that with the way that the Scots and the Irish have put their music at the heart of their countries' marketing plans. Back in the late 70's Silly Wizard did a stack of gigs for the Scottish Tourist Board promoting Scotland to tour operators, airlines and the like. We did dozens of gigs on BBC and Independent radio and TV stations in Scotland - it got to the point where in one week we played to sell out audiences in both the Playhouse and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh...that's how much the music of Scotland was valued in Scotland..... I've never seen anything like that down in England - at least not since the Spinners were on BBC TV in the days of Black and White.....and even in those days the Corries sold out the Albert Hall faster than the Spinners and sold a damn sight more LP's....

Personally, and alongside my EFDSS National Council colleagues, I'm doing everything I can to get EFDSS into a position to be not only/just the guardian of the VWML, but also to become a relevant, proactive organisation. While the carping and internal and external back-biting has been going on inside EFDSS since 1986, other organisations (as you pointed out earlier)have sprung up around the land doing much of what EFDSS might have done if things had been different. Things weren't different so we are where we are.   

Some of these new bodies are commercial organisations relying on grants to pay their way, some are charitable bodies relying on grants and donations, some are a mix of the two. All of them are doing great work. However, none of them has the responsibility of maintaining the UK's only national, public access, traditional music archive - and this responsibility is the EFDSS's challenge, burden and privilege. If there were no Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, EFDSS could sell CSH, have a nice little office somewhere in the middle of nowhere, run a wee webshop and organise the odd summer camp. But there is a Library, EFDSS holds it in trust for all of us, and it has to be paid for with very little in the way of external grant funding, just the profit from CSH, surplus from membership subscriptions and profit from publications.

Unfortunately, core costs don't easily attract funding in this era of projects, goals and outcomes... it isn't easy to get a grant when the only outcome possible is that the library will still open its doors in 2008 - that doesn't get the funder a big headline or a tick in a box on some governmental performance measurement scale.

So Captain, please try to understand where EFDSS has come from, where it is now and that it genuinely is trying to develop and to work towards its future. There are huge challenges ahead for it. I hope that everyone who values the traditional music, dance and song of England will get involved and help the Society. If you genuinely want to help - at the very least, join the Society and pay the subscription which goes towards enabling the Society to achieve its mission. If you can't afford the sub (and also if you can), then come along and help out as a volunteer. Failing that, send a donation or send us constructive ideas for income generation or things that we could or should be doing and suggest ways that we can find the resources (people/money/places) carry them out.

EFDSS needs to change, EFDSS wants to change and EFDSS needs help to change.

EFDSS needs effort from all of us who value our traditional folk arts to preserve, promote and disseminate a vitally important archive of our national heritage .... but even if we don't agree with everything that EFDSS does or how it does it, the most important thing of all is that we all do something, no matter how small or how big, to ensure that the music, song, dance and traditions that are the most important jewels in the various national heritages of our islands survive to be passed on to future generations....

For the remaining 5 years of my(maximum)term as a EFDSS National Council member I know what I'll be working towards. I hope that many more people will join me (and the other Society members and volunteers) by joining the Society and/or by actively getting involved in the Society. If we can make the necessary difference, then we will have ensured that that a great and unique archive remains freely available to everyone who comes to its door for generations to come ... my task for the next 5 years is to help ensure that that happens...

I hope that the length of this post hasn't bored you all to death - as you might have guessed, the subject is fairly important to me :-)

Robbie