Bad manners come in all shapes and sizes. It used to piss me off no end when 'booking seekers' turned up, left their names at the desk, then went down to the bar, making no effort whatever to find out what the club was about. On numerous occasions when I did the door I was asked to page such people when it was 'their turn to go on'. Invariably they had nothing to offer the club and we had nothing to offer them, so they were not booked - arrogant prats.
"One of the good things about Folk clubs is the fact that you get a wide range of abilities"
In the light of a currently running thread thread 'Folk music ridiculed again', while it is true that abilities can vary, unless you set a reasonable standard, and if you allow your club to be used as a place to practice in public, it will never raise above being 'amateur night at the Frog and Ferret'.
It is unfair to those who have put in the work, an insult to the perception of the audience and a contempt for the music to encourage people to perform if they have not put in enough work to make an acceptable job of a song. Clubs should be places for 'the finished article' and not 'work in progress'.
When I was involved with The Singers Club we were regularly visited by a young woman who was totally incapable of producing two notes which related to each other. She invariably asked to sing and was allocated one song (not by me).
Over the year she attended she never improved; she was invited to attend our singing workshop but felt she didn't need it.
After a year the audience committee received a letter of protest from her and her friend complaining that she was only allowed one song.
If you are serious about encouraging new singers run a workshop.
Otherwise folk music will roundly deserve all the ridicule it receives.
Jim Carroll