I am also a member and have been for a number of years now. Previous to around 2000, I did not feel that the EFDSS was worth joining. There was a moribund, internecine feeling that surrounded a lot of their activities (in spite of the glory that is the VWM Library). Much of their activities seemed to be around funding Cecil Sharp House which was something of a mausoleum.
I think that I was fairly fast and responsive in recognising that changes and improvements that were going on - mainly, I feel, inspired by Malcolm Taylor and his dedicated library staff. Twelve years on the EFDSS is virtually unrecognisable from the place that I first came into contact with in my student days in London.

CC writes
In all that time I have not seen one advert for the EFDSS nor been approached to see if I wanted to join.
My experience was quite the reverse. As a folk music activist, I was personally targetted on quite a number of occasions in the decades before I did join with the usual persuasion being something like "if you don't like what the society does, join it and work for change from the inside." On reflection, that is what I should have done but in days gone by it seemed like a lost cause. I was a member of the TMSA a much smaller but more active organisation during the 1970s.
The EFDSS in 1972 and the EFDSS in 2012 are entirely different animals,