Bryan (there are enough insults flying around without silly names)
Thank you for providing such an excellent example of "me, me, me" – or - if you insist "us, us, us".
"the woman who plagued you at The Singers Club forty years ago doesn't come to the Arms"
Well, aren't you the lucky ones – she came to our club for over a year, met your non - criterion more than perfectly by wanting to sing to the extent of complaining that she wasn't allowed enough songs. I know she went to other clubs (though I couldn't help but notice she wasn't offered a spot any of them - it seems they adopted the standards that you seem to find objectionable, or at least unnecessary).
You seem to have overlooked the fact that this is a general debate on the application of standards, not a discussion on the Lewes, or any other Club.
You skated neatly around the question under discussion, so I'll ask it – what would you do if she turned up at your club? What if she turned up with a handful of mates equally unable to sing but desirous of doing so? Would you turn over a substantial slice of your club evening to a group of non-singers?
Sorry, a rhetorical question – of course you would." That's what it's about" (isn't that what your committee said?)
Anyway; how do you know she never visited your club – I never named her or described her. Do you never get bad singers turning up and asking to sing?
Incidentally, I had no intention of criticising your club or its policy; I've never been there, and have always heard good things of it. I repeat – the idea that 'all it needs is the will to sing' is crass, whoever says it – that's as far as it goes.
"Every floor singer is a member of the audience. Every member of the audience is a potential floor singer. Every booked guest was once a floor singer."
No argument with this whatever as long as 'potential' is the operative word. Realising that potential by putting enough work in beforehand is the deciding factor for me, not practicing in public until you it right.
"I get the impression that some of the negative views on this thread come from people who don't like people very much."
I can't speak for those who wish to see standards established at the clubs, but personally I find this (once again – from you on this thread) deeply insulting. Can you please tell us what has led you to this extraordinary conclusion?
In fact, the opposite is the case; as far as I'm concerned, it is those who don't see the need of some level of 'quality control' who show contempt for the audience, the singers, and the music.
I believe that it is out of respect for the people who make the effort to turn up, for the singers who put the work in beforehand, and even for the wannabe singers who seem prepared to throw themselves to the wolves before they have got their singing together, that it is essential that club evenings are not allowed to fall below a certain level.
It is also out of respect for the music that I would suggest that it is brought up to a reasonable level of performance before it is presented publicly (and not laid open to ridicule, be it by the media or just by any stray passer by who might drift in (and who knows, who might just become a regular – and a 'potential floor-singer) – for me, the music is at least worth that.
Walter Pardon spent about forty years loving putting his family repertoire together, memorising and writing down the songs and recalling the tunes with the help of a melodeon.   When asked to do so, it took him about four months of fairly consistent work to fill a tape of songs to be presented to Bill Leader. On numerous occasions when he appeared at clubs in the south of England he stayed with us. He carefully prepared his list of songs and sang them through again and again till he was satisfied with them. If he gave what he considered a bad performance (I never saw him do so) it upset him – in other words, he applied standards right up to the point of his stopping singing in public. He stopped singing in public when he felt ho coul;d no longer maintain that standard.
One of the hardest parts of collecting was not getting the singers to part with their songs, but invariably it was persuading them that they had something worthwhile to offer and that by singing into the microphone they weren't going to humiliate themselves. They constantly apologised for "not being able to sing"; "you should have been here forty years ago when I had a voice", "You should have heard my brother, he was the singer of the family".
All of the people we met who passed down the songs to us valued them enough to do their best to 'get them right'.
If they thought it worth making an effort for, why can't we?
Jim Carroll