Good Grief! Go away to Chippenham for a few days and all Hell breaks loose. Slow down. I can't keep up.
Thank you to all those who have understood and supported what I am trying to say, especially Brian Peters who adds the authority of a great performer and one who actually knows us. Sorry I left you off the list of performers I failed to impress Jim Carroll with, Brian, but at least you were saved the humiliation of being told that you don't "ring his bell". (There was no need for all the flattery, we're going to book you again anyway.)
I particularly liked Tootler's -
The ethos is to encourage people to "have a go". I have seen people who have been persuaded to have a go after a little gentle arm twisting turn in a creditable performance.

and Richard Bridge's -
Do not prescribe to the performer. The will to improve must come from inside. Discourage the performers and you damage your rootstock.
which sum up our philosophy pretty well.

Jim Carroll
I apologise to 'Snail' if I have been heavy handed in my criticism of his Q&A; I certainly did not mean to give personal offence.
Thank's for that Jim. I was getting pretty close to thinking you were just a cantankerous old &%£* whose opinion wasn't worth having. A couple of points you have made have changed my mind.

singers who brought skill, enthusiasm and, most of all, love and respect to the old songs.

I have spent most of my life involved in folk song, mainly in the clubs, and I have got a great deal of pleasure, and some knowledge out of that time, but I believe that, along with that pleasure comes a responsibility to play fair by the Walter Pardons, Tom Lenihans, Harry Coxs, Sam Larners and the many others who gave us what we have.

With those sentiments, you would fit into the Lewes Arms Folk Club very well.

On the other hand, I thought -
Sorry, being old enough to remember when Lewes had the reputation of being a good club
was a bit uncalled for. If you ask around, I think you'll find we have pretty good reputation these days.
The problem with the Q&A is your total failure to understand the point I was trying to make so I'll try and make it a bit clearer.
FolkieDave's band from hell have never performed at the Lewes Arms and never will because they don't exist. They are a figment of his fevered imagination. He posed a hypothetical question describing an extreme situation which is highly unlikely to happen. If it did it wouldn't go that way anyway. If three blokes turned up with guitar, acoustic bass and bodhran they would obviously be hoping for a floor spot. They would get one. We wouldn't take them into a side room to give them a quick audition and interrogate them as to their musical qualifications, repertoire or role models before deciding if they were fit to appear. Once they had finished, one of the residents would go down to the bar to tell the audience that it was safe to come back in again. If they came back the following week I bet they'd have got better. The guitarist might even have learned another chord. If they kept coming and showed no sign of improving or, more importantly, no desire to improve, then yes, we would probably find ways of easing them out.
This would be a few minutes in three hours where all the other performers would vary between middling and brilliant. You seem to assume that allowing one bad act means that all the performers will be terrible.
As far as I'm concerned, a club stands and falls entirely by its residents
I think we have a group of residents to be proud of. I'm happy to stand up for Breton Cap's "artisitic integrity" against anyone and the rest of us aren't bad either.
Kevin Michell John Lyons and Len Graham
We book guests on personal experience. I'm sure we'd be happy to book Kevin Michell but he doesn't seem to be round this way a lot. I have to confess, the other two I've never come across.
So I am to give up all the bawdy and erotic songs, the transportation and poaching songs, those about soldiers, sailors, farmworkers, miners, mill workers, the highwaymen and hanging ballads, the songs about the press-gangs and recruiting parties, the love songs, the historical, supernatural, tragic and comic ballads that go to make up the Child canon, and all the other beautiful songs and ballads that have kept me enthralled and entertained over the last forty odd years, and which are inextricably tied up with our history and culture – and for what?
You will find all these being sung at the Lewes Arms by performers who care for that music. OK, you may have to put up with the occasional floor singer whose voice and memory may be a little shaky but even they will be doing it for the love of it.
Is the Lewes club for which The Snail presented that depressing Q&A, the same one that holds ballad weekends? If so, it doesn't make sense.
It makes sense to us Jim. This thread is called Collapse of the Folk Clubs. Lewes supports two folk clubs neither of which is showing any sign of collapsing.
We must be getting something right.