[[The only real solutions involve 1)critical mass..enough to form several groups, 2)a structured session led & directed (I know..) and 3)an open, painful discussion setting out some guidelines.]]
Bill, there's one other issue: space.

At camps like Getaway and RainyCamp, and Singtime Frolics, there are not enough usable spaces to accommodate everyone who wants to form a select group of 4 or 6. And if you have 50 people who want to participate in an unscheduled song circle but only 6 or 7 places to form one, something's/ someone's gotta give.

Mary, I like your concentric circles idea. Even at scheduled circles like the Friday night one at RainyCamp and Singtime, the circle gets so big that there's an audible time delay between one side of the room and the other.

As for the Blue Books, I'm not wild about having them used in song circles, but I think the absolute banning of any form of lyric sheet can be equally oppressive.   Sometimes the only real way to get good group singing going is to use a lyric sheet; otherwise you're limited to songs everyone already knows and/or those that have simple choruses. That leaves out a helluva lot of good music.


And, as has been mentioned above, "chaos" mode often ends up with 25% of the participants doing or leading 75% of the songs.   I like chaos mode as long as people are willing to share the lead instead of always jumping right in without regard to the less assertive participants.

Also, I'm not so sure song circle participants can be neatly divided into alphas and betas. : )

But if "betas" include people who either have no sense of rhythm or have no idea how to follow whoever is leading a song (e.g., watching that person's mouth), I think maybe a bit of instruction at the beginning of the camp or circle would help. Some jam sessions have a list of "the Ten Commandments Of Bluegrass Jamming," for instance. It can help.