Breedlove OF - you raise a very interesting set of points. I had no idea of the objectives of Folk21, so I took a look at the website and had a read - very enlightening. As you say, their emphasis is on sustaining a level of folk venues at which guest artists can be booked, with a network of club organisers, agents and artists at the heart of it all. I can't see anything wrong with that.

However, I note you use the sentence, "Their view was that too many of these clubs have disappeared, and if the current trends continue there will no way of passing Folk and Traditional Music to the next generation." [My italics]

Well, with respect, I think I might take a slight issue with that one. I think that the ways in which the music is passed on are many and varied - of course from clubs like those quoted by Folk21, but also by singarounds, by sessions, by open mics, by social gatherings and friendships, by virtual sources such as stuff on Spotify, by recorded music, and by printed and physical collections. I don't see it dying at all, though I think that we have to accept that folk music is and will continue to be a strand of music usually outside the mainstream, with occasional bumps and prominences into the briefly fashionable from time to time. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

The real passing on of music from one generation to another, IMHO, takes place at informal mixed gatherings of people. Our last session at the Bull in Ditchling on Sunday had people of all ages and skills, from a fierce young fiddler of 19 or so to a hoary old guitarist/mandolin player like me. We had a great time - and the most common sentence I heard throughout the evening was, "That was a great tune - what was it called?" To me, that's a really important way in which music gets passed on up and down the generations.

And, again with respect to the laudable aims of Folk21, not perhaps what an evening with Julie Felix would have done.