2007 was an interesting year. It began with the retirement of Ron and Jenny Day, who had been a major driving force behind the Network since its establishment in 1993. 'Volunteer fatigue' having taken its toll of many of our former activists, it seemed right to move into the background and pass on the baton. The 'South Riding' is, these days, quite the hotbed of activity in the Folk Arts and it is time for younger people to take the lead.

There were some regrets; although we achieved a lot over the years, we were never able to pursuade the regions 'folk entrepreneurs' of the value of acting together, so there is still a lot of wasteful duplication of effort and constant re-inventions of the wheel. The fiercely independent 'Little Mesters' mentality is traditional here, though, and that is unlikely to change.

Our core members are now engaged largely in projects of their own. Ron and Jenny are concentrating on their dance interests, particularly Triskele Sword, while Liz and Paul Davenport have launched Hallamshire Traditions. Gerry Bates continues to run the popular FolkTrain excursions, and Malcolm Douglas is working on revised editions of Frank Purslow's collections of songs from the Hammond and Gardiner Collections for EFDSS, providing design work for the Sheffield Folk Festival and continuing to run -as time permits- websites for Yorkshire Folk Arts, Folk Music Journal and Stirrings Magazine.

With the semi-retirement of the Network, we ceased publishing South Riding Folk Arts Network News; this is now combined with Stirrings Magazine, so the tradition continues.

March 2007 saw the loss of our website when the server on which it was hosted went up in flames. The site (originally established by Mike Stannett and later taken over by Malcolm) had grown into a rambling thing over the years and was due for some pruning. Several years' worth of archived minutes and lists of committee members is of limited interest to the general public, after all. Nevertheless, we had grown attached to just that rambling quality; a building, if you like, where odd little rooms, undecorated -and sometimes unvisited- for years, may be stumbled across almost at random.

Many of those are still here, and others will be restored as time allows. What with one thing and another it has taken some months to get to this stage, with the frameset re-vamped and up again. Do look in from time to time to see what else we have re-discovered, and try the links on the left hand side of the page.