This is mainly a repeat of the message I posted to Alan's thread. Saves you having to swap threads!

I have long thought that it would be useful to have some organisation for folk clubs to share ideas and discuss common problems. Festival organisers have the AFO but there has been nothing at club level.

The danger is fragmentation and I think it's essential that we don't duplicate effort or end up in competition with one another. I know that the EFDSS have plans for club directories, event listings and so on on their new web site. It may be worth making formal contact with them. They do seem to be getting their act together at last.

I started the folk diary site www.SimplyWhatsOn.com to provide a single point of reference for all folk events - clubs, concerts, sessions, etc. Most existing lists are either regional or limited in coverage - sessions, dance, song. SWO needs a lot more entries to be effective but it's a start and there are lots of ideas for the future. (I am aware that it needs to be more user friendly for artists - watch out for Version 2.0!)

I would be more than happy to work with this project on club listings to avoid having another on-line listing and another place clubs have to enter their data (and save a lot of work!).

I'll have a little display for SimplyWhatsOn down by the river at Chippenham next weekend if anyone wants to come along and bounce ideas around.

Bob Hawkes