January 2023 - “All The Local Talent” Showcase spots for our ‘Residents & regular local talent*

I’m writing this just a few weeks after a very successful Tenterden Folk Festival 2023. The long-awaited appearance of The Wilson Family was rewarded with excellent attendance and a lot of great harmony singing. All our guest artists gave great performances over the weekend. We are very pleased to say that ticket sales were well over budget. The weather was wet on Friday night but stayed dry for the Morris dancing and procession on Saturday and was then wet again on Sunday morning. Despite a high turnout of supporters, street collections were lower than expected over the weekend. This could be at least partly due to the fact that people are less inclined to carry cash after the Covid pandemic or the general economic climate. With The William Caxton closed, the popular sing-a-rounds took place in other venues and mostly worked well despite the odd hit-up. We would like to say a big thankyou to everyone who helped to make the festival a success including, guest artists, stallholders, venues, Morris sides, dance teams, singers and musicians and especially the volunteers and workforce who all worked very hard over the long weekend. A special thanks goes to the people involved in responding to a medical emergency and saving a life at the end of the procession. They know who they are. We are now starting to plan for the 30th Tenterden Folk Festival which will take place from Thursday 5th to Sunday 8th October 2023. We want this to be an extra special weekend so are seeking more sponsors, grants and of course more volunteers. 2022 has been another very hard year for the local and national folk scene with the aftereffects of the Covid pandemic and the increasing economic problems still set to effect professional folk musicians, venues, folk clubs, pubs, festivals, floor singers, dancers, etc. for months or years to come. Most folk clubs have now reopened but some have stayed online or closed their doors permanently. Others have had to find new venues when pubs have closed or changed over to doing more food rather than being traditional wet pubs. As I am writing this the government is in chaos and the news is suggesting that we may have another new Prime Minster at any moment. What the future holds we will have to wait and see. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and good luck for 2023.

Alan Castle (Editor)

PS: You can make a donation to Tenterden Folk Festival or this magazine via our websites or by post (see payment details on last page). Thank you. www.tenterdenfolkfestival.org.uk www.aroundkentfolk.org.uk

Find us online at www.aroundkentfolk.org.uk and on Twitter as @AroundKentFolk, where you can always find a link to the latest and past issues of AKF.

Please pass this link on to your mailing lists and place it on your social media so that as many as possible of our regular readers can find AKF online until we are able to get back to a full print run and physical distribution of the printed magazine.

Stay well and take care in these difficult times

Dear Alan, It was good to get my copy of AKF today, interesting as always. I enjoyed Pete the Punters article on Broadstairs Folk Week, it was indeed a great week. I was surprised however to read about him hearing “Malcolm Ward reminiscing about the first knockings of song” because Malcolm wasn’t there at the beginning – I was. There was always song at Broadstairs right from the first show in 1966. Every evening in the Old Retort House in Albion Street car park (now an Escape Room!). Clive Bennett and friends ran the Song Spot. My sister and I, as teenagers, actually plucked up the courage to sing there. True there wasn’t singing in the pubs ‘til later years, but there was always singing at Broadstairs. – Clive worked really hard, and seems to have been forgotten about. Yours sincerely Anne Hilton

Hello Alan Firstly thank you for such an excellent festival this year (Tenterden Folk Festival), Julia and I especially enjoyed the performances in the church with Morrigan on Friday, Folk songs of the upper Thames on Saturday and Paul Walker and Karen Pfeiffer Auf Wiedersehen Me Duck on Sunday. With regards to AKF Bob Kenward wrote about how unifying chorus singing and Morris singalongs were ( last paragraph Scene and Heard) and ended “Your views welcomed”. As I don’t have an email address for him could you pass on the message that I started singing with the Morris after their dancing at pubs and Julia and I both think there is nothing to beat a good old sing song in a pub or at a folk club so we wholeheartedly agree with his last paragraph I think about 99% of my songs are chorus songs !!! Many thanks, Chris Griffin

Broadstairs Folk Week

Broadstairs Folk Week seemed to go very well in 2022 and we’ve received loads of positive feedback which is marvellous – thank you! Of course, there were some issues that we faced and we’ve listened to a lot of suggestions about the format of the Souvenir Programme, the mix of artistes at the festival and addressing the thorny question of venues in Broadstairs. They’ll be more updates soon on our website www.broadstairsfolkweek.org.uk In the meantime – there is still time to support our Crowdfunding campaign! It ends on 20 December 2022, and if successful, it will release match funding from Kent County Council. https://www.spacehive.com/broadstairsfolkweek So if Broadstairs Folk Week is an important part of your summer – then please pledge – the minimum amount is £2 – so not too much in these financially challenging times that we’re all in. Thank you and hope to see you in 2023 11 – 18 August 2023.

Can you help?

Have you got half an hour to spare to talk to someone about folk singing to help with some research? We are looking for people - just like you - to talk to people who aren’t already involved with folk singing to find out what they think about it all. It’s part of a bigger project looking to increase and diversify the people who get involved in folk singing, called Access Folk. What we need you to do is invite a friend or acquaintance to have a chat with you, talk through some questions (that we supply), record it and send it back to us with some notes about what you thought of the conversation. Absolutely no previous ‘interviewing’ experience is required from you, and they don’t need to know anything about folk singing, we just want to know their thoughts. We’re gathering a lot of different experiences to build a picture of what ‘outsiders’ perceptions of folk singing is, what’s putting them off getting involved and what might attract them, so we can think about ways of making what we know to be so brilliant open to more people. We have a lot of students involved, but are looking for more interviewers from the folk singing community. If you think you might know someone to talk to and have a bit of time to spare we’d REALLY appreciate your help. Feel free to get in touch for a chat if you have any questions. We know it can seem a scary thing, even if you want to help, and would like to help reassure you that YOU ARE exactly who we want to be involved. We’re running this til the end of November, so there’s just a month to get it done and sent in. There’s lots of information on the website here, but please don’t hesitate to call for a chat to go through it all in more human terms! Thanks for reading, and hope to hear from you soon.

Fay and Esbjorn accessfolk@sheffield.ac.uk

BOUGHTON MONCHELSEA FOLK CLUB THE COCK INN

(in the restaurant)

Singers Nights dates are Thursday 22nd December 2022 & Tuesday 24th January 2023. Heath Road, Boughton Monchelsea, ME17 4JD Audience, Singers, Musicians, Poets, All Welcome

For more details call Nigel White on 07793 076827