You are not going to solve the problems of folk clubs by asking quite a few of the participants not to attend because they write their own songs! It's complete stuff and nonsense. All you'd do is thin the ranks even further speeding up any possible demise. As for the acts of yesteryear well surely the mid 60s and early 70s had their own posse of singer songwriters anyway - and of course there are plenty of comparable bands around nowadays! The problem for small folk clubs is that the amount we can pay acts pretty much ensures it is normally one person or at most two we can book. £250 is maybe worthwhile for one person; less so for two people; but probably not worth the bother for a larger band. The only time we have booked a band of three or more in recent years was for North Sea Gas and even at that we had help from the pub itself. As to singer songriters all being morose and introspective well that sterotype simply isn't true. The best laugh we had for many a year was when we booked Dave Gibb who was hilarious and provided a great fun evening.