Folk clubs are rather unusual institutions. If you went to a football club 40 years ago in 1962, you'ld find its purpose was football. Go bck now, and you'ld find, broadly speaking, that is still the case. Ditto a Pigeon Fanciers Club,or a Billiards and Snooker Club.
But if you went to a folk club in 1962 you would find a place devoted largely to the performance and perpetuation of a certain kind of music, mostly created and nurtured over the previous 300 years by the working classes in some kind of quasi-collective fashion. Go to your average folkclub now in 2002 and you will find the central core of the material peformed was written by educated guitarists in the last forty years. That is a huge change. Whether thischange has anything to do with the decline in audiences, and the increase by 40 of the average age, is a matter for speculation.
The fact is, folk clubs have evolved so that they now bear no recognisable resemblance to what they were. Presumaably they will eventually die, and be replaced with something new and interesting, perhaps to do with the perpetuation and performancee of folk music.