"Jim, do you consider the standard of performance at The Lewes Arms Folk Club to be poor?"
We both know I have never been to the Lewes Arms Club so I can only assume your question was a rhetorical one - on the other hand, it might be just to avoid answering mine - especially the ones I asked on (19 Nov 08 - 05:47) which you scrambled on your high horse to avoid.
I have no idea if The Lewes Club is good or bad - and (as you keep telling me not to rely on hearsay) I hesitate to express an opinion on such. I suggest that if singers who couldn't sing turned up and you regularly put them on - it isn't a good club - but you tell us that doesn't happen (and Brutus is an honourable man). But that - as I've said before, and had no response to - means that you are advocating something for the rest of us that doesn't effect you.
Howard,
Sorry, any good club I have ever belonged to has relied entirely on its residents, not its guest policy.
We were lucky with the Singers to have Ewan, Peg, and other excellent performers as residents, but I can't think of one club resident I have shared a platform with that I haven't been proud to perform with and who I was happy to put my trust in.
Your residents will be there next week when your guests go home; it's them you can plan feature evenings with, who you can work regularly with on things like accompaniments, choruses, harmonies etc, whose singing you are familiar with, who you can trust that what they are going to do is well intentioned, who can be confident that they will come to the rescue if you drop the ball. If you decide to tackle work above and beyond.... say to research the local repertoire, (or gather information on music, dance and song) in your area, or say, put together a collection of local songs, tunes or dances, or compile an archive, or run a workshop or seminar, it's your residents who will put their hand up, not your guest.
Guests should be the decorations on a well baked cake, never the main course.
And as I said, it's the feller or woman who turns up week after week, no matter who's on that you are responsible to, not somebody who only turns up to see Martin Carthy or Christie Moore - or whoever.
If you are going to rely on guests, you really don't need a club - you may as well rent the local church hall once a month.
It's true that residents performances are going to vary, but your residents are a unit whereas your guests are one-offs. Permanence makes a club, not stars - that is unless you measure your success by balancing your budget with bums on seats.
I don't accept that 'practicing in public' is the only way to learn - certainly not on club nights, there are other alternatives - your audiences, and the music are worth much more respect than that.
Jim Carroll