Banjiman:

Folk South West and TAPS (Traditional Arts Projects) have been Arts Council Regularly Funded Organisations for many years, so look on their websites and see what they've been doing all this time, for a start. SEFAN has, I believe, received Arts Council funding in the past, as has the Wren Trust, and Folkworks. If you go to the websites for any of these regional organisations (all Googlable) you'll see what kind of work is under threat. These organisations have supported some of our finest young musicians and singers in their development. Marilyn Tucker from Wren Trust points out that Jim Causley first heard a folk song at one of their events. He's not alone: many of the "bright young things" of folk will have had their first experiences of traditional music and dance through the work of these agencies.

Many festival organisations recieve bits of ACE funding, usually for their community work. My festival/venue has received ACE subsidy for outreach work in folk music and dance, which is ongoing in our community.

The Rural Touring Networks are subsidised regional schemes which bring the arts into rural communities, and as a result many folk artists have played village halls and community centres around the country: John Kirkpatrick, Chris Wood, etc. Not to mention the various ceilidhs run under the scheme. Naturally, lovcal promoters could never afford to bring these acts/events in if they weren't subsidised.


Purists who reject subsidy as somehow sullying the artform need a reality check. It's subsidy that keeps a lot of folk activity going.