Personally I call all the venues and gatherings who put on acts who work the 'folk circuit,' who operate in the same basic ways as conventional folk clubs, who advertise in the folk press, or who do actually call themselves as such, 'folk clubs' - and all my comments refer to all of these in a sort of generically vague way. ... I think it may be song-gatherings (which quite often don't use the F word anyway) that stick in Jim's craw.

http://www.myspace.com/chorltonfolkclubChorlton Folk Club

"Chorlton Folk Club was started by Jozeph Roberts in 2002. Every Thursday at about 9 (usually a bit later), Jozeph MCs and a mix of young singer-songwriters and life-hardened old timers play all kinds of music. You could call it an open mic, except there are no microphones or amps."

F-word present and correct. And, though I love it dearly, Chorlton FC is emphatically not the place to go if you want to hear traditional music. In another thread somebody linked to Sandbach FC, which actually boasts of not hosting trad. music. Jim may have overstated the name-on-the-tin problem, but he hasn't made it up. As I've said before, I was blown away by the first few evenings of traditional song I experienced & rapidly decided I wanted more of this stuff. All well and good, except that this was after I'd been a regular at Chorlton for five years. Something not right there methinks.