I should perhaps have been slightly more specific. (This is just my best guess, ok?)

Participation Gatherings - up a bit

Performance Gatherings - down quite a lot

Total - down overall.

BUT this is very difficult to assess, because there's nowhere safely to draw any kind of line.

Top end of 'Performance Gatherings' bleed out into "non-folk-club 'folk' (whatever THAT means) gigs" - where the figures are healthy and even booming - (specially if we take it as far as Mumford and Sons - and some, believe it or not, do).

And at the other end we bleed out into acoustic nights/open mic territory, where the numbers are also up.

But taken in the round, sticking a pin into the middle of what most people understand by the term Folk Club, yes.

Dwindling.

Tom