None of this latter has te slighters to do with English langage folk song and it underlines everything everything that has gone wrong with the English scene
English folk singing requires only one instrument - the voice - and everybody can afford one of those
Flooding the scene with electric paraphernalia not only changed (in my opinion spoiled) the singing but it excluded everybody who couldn't afford or didn't want to lay out for equipment- it also demanded more space
I saw a gang of eight Irish building workers once come into a pub in Kentish Town, obviously straight from the site, stand in the middle of the bar and sing to each other for an hour - some of the most exquisite traditional singing I have heard, off-the-cuff.

We have a proliferation (some say infestation) of 'Singing Circles' here
A landlord throws the pub open to singers or someone with the space throws open their home - and a night of singing is had by all - there are a dozen (I am told) within half an hour's driving distance of my home
We don't go to them because they tend to have an anything-goes policy and you have to sit through half a dozen songs you don't like to hear one you do
I want to sing and listen to FOLK SONGS

I see no reason why a small group of like-minded people can't operate on the same basis, agree between them on a type of song they all want to hear and operate on the same basis, expanding by word-of-mouth rather than by open invtation.
Maybe the days of the big, organised clubs with guests are a thing of the past - they were great while they lasted (some of them), but time to move on seems to be a general consensus.

Singing in a social rather than forman session was the way the tradition operated - maybe it will work again (with a pinch of organisation and sense of direction thrown in)
Jim Carroll