The folk club is a unique institution - I'm not sure any other genre of music has anything quite like it. However there seems to be a huge difference of opinion over whether a folk club should just be a support group for the untalented or whether there should be some quest for higher standards.

Perhaps this is just looking back through rose-tinted spectacles, but when I started going to clubs in the late 1960s there did seem to be a desire to achieve an acceptable standard. But this was largely self-imposed - our own self-respect drove us to try to do better. In my recollection the organisers of the clubs I went to were very encouraging to new singers but would not hesitate to refuse you a floor spot on a guest night if you weren't up to it. Being offered a floor spot on a guest night was seen as a privilege to be aimed for, and was an incentive to get better.

It's fine to have the sort of club that VirginiaTam talks about, "where we hope to be accepted regardless of talent, ability, stage presence, simply because we love what we are doing". That can be lovely, and there's a place for it - just don't expect to hear much good music. The danger is that these sorts of clubs become polarised - the good musicians get fed up with it and go off to find other good musicians they can play with, leaving the rest to group together for comfort and mutual admiration, but with nothing to measure themselves against.

The other sort of club, which puts on guests and presents itself as some kind of entertainment, has in my opinion a duty to its audience to put on a good show. That means only the best floor singers, and if the club doesn't have anyone capable, then book a support act.