Organisations like YFA should never be distant or anonymous. Despite our
natural shyness, we thought that we ought to let you know who we are.
Martin Bull, chair
Martin has been a dancer and musician since the late 1960s. He plays
anglo-concertina, single-row melodeon, bouzouki, bodhran and guitar,
and is just learning to play the Border and Scottish smallpipes.
He has been involved in several folk clubs, as "floor musician"
and committee member and, since the early 1980s, has also been heavily
involved in running Whitby
Folk Week, the country's largest traditional music festival.
In his day job, he leads a design and publications department and
has extensive marketing, purchasing, management and IT experience,
in addition to knowledge and skills in the field of print and design.
In his spare time(!) he's a bosun's mate and watch leader for the
Jubilee Sailing
Trust, the only organisation in the world to take disabled people
to sea on its purpose built square-rigged sailing ships.
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 Sue
Coe, secretary
Sue retired from her role as a Community Education Officer in 2001
and is a qualified teacher and Ofsted inspector with over 20 years
teaching experience. She has now developed her work as a dancer
and dance teacher specialising in teaching Yorkshire Longsword dances
in primary schools. She has been funding officer for Ryburn
3 Step since it was formed in 1991 and was a Folk Music adviser
to Arts Council Yorkshire from 1989 to 2002. She is a dance caller
with The Black Box Band and Sweet Liberty (which includes Gina le
Faux) ceilidh bands and is a member of Ryburn
Longsword and Sharpe Sword Rapper dance teams. She has been
a choreographer for Northern Broadsides Theatre company since 2000
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Jim Hancock, webmaster
A folk club, festival and concert organiser since the 1960s, Jim
appears with the trio Clarty
Sough and with the shanty group Roaring
Forties. Winner of the BBC Radio Lincolnshire songwriting award
for 2001 and 2005 and, with Clarty Sough, the MU best live performance
trophy. His songs have been recorded by other artists and his ballad
opera Icebound is regularly performed at maritime events.
He is a long time member and for ten years organiser of traditional
mumming team Coleby Plough Jag, and former Armitage Mummer. Jim
edits and publishes Folktalk
magazine, covering Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire, together with
web design and internet marketing for performers and events. Beyond
the folk world he acts as internet marketing consultant to a wider
client base including the visual and performing arts, tourism and
manufacturing industry. An experienced and highly qualified ex teacher,
he still undertakes the occasional workshop or lecture tour.
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Geoff Convery, treasurer
Experienced performer, folk club, festival and event organiser.
Long time member of mumming team Coleby Plough Jag and founder
member of Barleycorn Ceilidh band along with Sam Pirt. As a dancer
and musician he was involved in the formative years of the Tatterfoals
dance team. Writer of "The Fields are Burning" &
"The Big Mill" (runner up BBC Radio Lincolnshire songwriting
award 2004) amongst many modern "traditional" songs,
his "All to Build a Railway" was recorded by Whitney
Gin. Geoff currently peforms along with Jim Hancock and Keith
Brown in the trio Clarty
Sough.
Email
Geoff
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Pete Hayselden
Pete (Shanty Jack) has joined us : details to follow.
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Kathy Aveyard
Kathy trained as a classical musician playing piano and violin before
progressing through choral music to amateur operatics and, most
recently, playing guitar to accompany the hymns at her local church.
She has been involved in folk music for over 25 years, and was one
of a group of people who revived Uxbridge Folk Club, becoming secretary
to the committee for four years. She has now been one of the key
organisers of Cleckheaton
Folk Festival for 18 of its 22 years and has experience of most
aspects of organising a club or a festival, as well as being a singer
in her own right. For the last 30 years she has been Membership
Secretary to the South Tynedale
Railway Preservation Society. She is a Fellow of the Chartered
Institute of Personnel and Development and has a wide range of management
and administration skills, many of which have proved invaluable
in her voluntary work for the Folk world.
Due to other commitments, Kathy is taking a back seat for the time
being, but remains with YFA as a consultant.
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Paul Hudson, (chair 2001-2005)
Paul is a dance musician, playing melodeon with Morris, step-dance
and ceilidh bands. A choral singer (Royal Choral Society, Bradford
Festival Choral Society), he trained as a classical pianist and
organist, but prefers the inventiveness and freedom of the folk
tradition. Day jobs for many years have been in business consultancy
and project management; most recently working in economic and community
development in the Yorkshire Dales.
Paul and his wife are now taking a year out from it all, touring
around festivals and so on at home and abroad. They will be keeping
in touch, and we hope to drag Paul (even if kicking and screaming)
back onto the team when he returns, wanderlust assuaged.
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Past
Team members Include:
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Julia
Pollock
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Graham
Pirt
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Damien
Barber
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Jacey Bedford, development worker (2002-2003)
Jacey is originally a librarian working in local government, but
since 1989 she has been a full-time performer with the trio Artisan,
performing across the UK, Europe, America, Canada and Australia.
She founded the internet performer's networking group Britfolk
and the uk-wide folk business networking group Folkbiz-uk.
She runs a folk agency, a folk venue and a festival which includes
folk in its programming. She presents folk business workshops for
performers and is thoroughly conversant with the business disciplines
of folk arts.
Jacey has now completed her year's contract with YFA,
which was funded by Arts Council Yorkshire. She continues to do
all the other things listed above, and is additionally available
as a freelance development worker and administrator.
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