Sorry Uncle Nic. I just can't resist rattling Dick's cage once in a while.
:-)

As far as I'm concerned, the EFDSS is not the centre of the folk universe. It's just a service organisation that is starting to get its act together (at last).

I'm just working on my radio show for next Sunday and as I do the diary it's absolutely crammed to the gills with folk events in and around West Yorkshire. They owe nothing directly to the EFDSS but possibly owe quite a lot indirectly and historically. The participants have mostly never heard of the EFDSS but why should they have?

I'm a believer in the natural transmission of our wide and diverse culture and as in the last couple of centuries, it has happened and still happens via oral, aural, published and commercial routes. The EFDSS has a small part to play in this large picture. If it crashed and burned tomorrow it would be sad but my own Ryburn 3 Step organisation, for example, would be unaffected, certainly in the short term.

Dick seems to think the Society has a large part of the responsibility within the large picture and I disagree very strongly. It has as great a part as its members want it to have and as its finance allows. Everything else is up to the likes of you and me (and we're doing quite a good job as far as I can see).