In response to Folkie Dave:-


Competitions at Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann and Scottish (TMSA) festivals - I have entered those in the past - and DERT are an entirely different thing from the Folk Awards. There is something genuine and inspiring about young people developing their traditional music, song & dance and trying to display them in competition to the best of their ability and then being judged by those that are correctly regarded as experts in their fields.

The Folk Awards nominees are drawn from a very small pool of professional performers and they are there because they have "product" to sell.

The Lifetime Achievement awards are a joke. They are usually given to prominent Americans for publicity purposes. Usually these people have had a very minor role in the development of Folk Arts in this country.
How about recognition for what the likes of Stanley Robertson for what he contributed in a glorious life that ended last August?

Folk Club of the Year? The concept is a joke! I am a friend of Sam Lee and a great admirer of him but really The Magpie's Nest is just at the beginning of what it can achieve. How about, for example, Ted & Ivy Poole who have now been involved with the running of the weekly Swindon Folk Club for 50 years? No, Sam and The Magpie's Nest have a more "sexy" media-friendly appeal.