Please circulate and free to use the following.

Spontaneous: Acting or occurring without external cause, automatic, instinctive, natural, unconstrained.

Are sessions, as they are not to be considered as spontaneous, then considered by our Government to be, acting or occurring with internal cause, not automatic (or even manual), non instinctive, unnatural and constrained?

Sessions (and most folk clubs) in my view are about as valuable a spontaneous a show of public musical and cultural expression that in reality there is ever likely to take place in our licensed premises.

Even if they are accused of happening on a regular basis, all that is usually known for sure (or can even be publicised), is that some form of music making may occur in a particular place on a particular occasion. This may or not be made, on every occasion by a different combination of individuals or customers.

But there can be no guarantee, for if no one turns up, or decides not to play when they do, there may not be any music making at all.

Is this not a rather an unreliable and unprofitable form entertainment for a licensee to attempt to provide for the public? As they can provide no guarantee that it will take place at all, the difficulty presented would be the very spontaneous nature of the activity.

It all sounds pretty spontaneous to me. Perhaps that is exactly why our bureaucrats and politicians continue to consider the concept with such suspicion?

Spontaneity appears to be a necessary requirement under the new licensing proposals for unpaid participatory music making to be exempt from being considered as a licensable public entertainment and automatically making already controlled and licensed premises unsafe for the public.

Surely then these sessions (and most folk clubs) should be sensibly considered as being spontaneous?

That is not the way our Government and Civil Servants currently view the situation.

From a letter of 04/09/02 from Dr Howells to Rt Hon Chris Smith MP.

>We recognise the importance of having a reliable definition of what constitutes a public performance and it is clear that if a musician or other performer is accepting money for a performance then it would be regarded as a public performance.

Similarly, it can be argued that any performance by unpaid performers, which was publicised with the expectation of bringing in extra customers and consequently extra revenue to the licensee would meet the definition of public performance.

If a member of the public engaged in a spontaneous rendition of a song on the piano, inviting a sing-a-long [sic], it would not be considered public entertainment.

I must reiterate, however, that even where a performance is regarded as public, the main current deterrent of an exorbitantly set licensing fee would no longer be available and there should therefore be greater freedom for all musicians and singers.<

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