The EFDSS is not what you think it is Lizzie.
The EFDSS has nothing to do with folk clubs.
The EFDSS exists both to preserve what we have, and to encourage what we can have. Both.
The EFDSS is open to all and I have never, ever in twenty years encountered the attitudes that you describe. Some have: the Society is changing all the time.
The EFDSS does not exist to support the careers of any one musician, it is more important than that. However, it has helped me and countless others, professionals and amateurs, discover music and ideas they could not have found anywhere else.
The EFDSS will be able to do its job better when those who care (that's you) support it and enrich it.
I am thrilled for you that Show of Hands brought you into traditional music. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about.
If the EFDSS went bust and the Vaughan Williams Library were to close, where would you have the material go? Hundred year old unique recordings and manuscripts, thousands of stories about ordinary peoples' lives, people that are now dead and will never be in a history book, never be recognised by the establishment. Would you look after them at your house please? Would you find somewhere else for them to go? What kind of an activist are you?
Bob Marley said that you cannot know where you are going unless you know where you have been. I do not understand why you don't think there is a place for this in the world. Why on Earth should we not have it all? Everyone I know that works in the Society believes we can, and that is a cause I can stand behind. You know the kind of music I make. The EFDSS and the Society have helped me do that.
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