DELINEATING folk music is difficult, even for its aficionados. Singer-songwriter and acoustic guitarist Bob Kirkpatrick, who heads the Sunray Folk Club, attempts to define the indefinable.

“The old traditional stuff was where you were having a drink in the bar and some guy would start singing. These guys would sing about life; they would sing about working on the land. Modern singers like Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell sing modern songs but they are still classed as folk singers. People see an acoustic guitar and think, ‘That’s a folk singer,’” he muses. “But then you get an unaccompanied singer or a guy playing a penny whistle, so trying to define it is tricky. Having said that,” he continues, “we have 50 or 60 people who, when we say, ‘it’s a folk club,’ will come along, so they know they like it.”

The club has 200 members in total. It all began in May 2007 when a room became available in the Sunray in Osmington for a few months. Bob, who has been singing for years, had run a club in West Knighton for a time in 2003, until room availability became a problem. But when the Sunray could no longer accommodate them, the club, and its name, survived and moved to Broadmayne Village Hall in November last year.

“I looked at school halls and village halls, taking into account the problems of licensing and availability and Broadmayne could give us the right day; the fourth Thursday of every month for a year,” said Bob. “Village halls these days do not have licences like they used to; they can apply for 12 temporary events a year and they quickly get filled up with 21st birthdays and other parties. The only way we could do it was to go to the licensing authorities for a licence so we could have our own licence. It’s a bit different, it’s a club premises licence.”

Bob and five others who make up the team behind Sunray Folk Club – Julie Walker, Roger and Alice Harrall, Bill Crump and Keson Muangin – work very hard to make the village hall atmospheric. Bob explains: “We hang a black backcloth behind the stage. We have our own bar, we do our own decorations.”

Julie who manages the bar adds: “We have tables, tableclothes, candles and subdued lighting.”

“We want to make it a club worth coming back to,” concludes Bob.

The terms of the licence are that the group must be a members’ club but at an annual joining fee of £1, it is by no means expensive, and entry each month is free. There is however a jug collection at each gathering which goes to pay the visiting artists.

“I do not want to milk the audience,” says Bob. “But if you do not put that much money in the jug, that affects the artists you can afford next time. The audience determines which performers we can attract. With a couple of exceptions, most of the musicians have not charged a fee; they’ve just accepted the jug collection. They want to promote their music and support the folk world.”

So far the club has done well with performances by folk musicians of the calibre of Tim Laycock and Cloudstreet (‘which would normally command an £8 entrance,’ Julie tells me).

“Most nights we have what we call guest nights,” says Bob. “ The guest does an hour or so and, around them, we have three or four floor singers and so far they’ve been really good and well accepted by the audience. We do not accept walk-ins, though; it’s all been booked, that way you keep the quality. Then we have two club nights a year in which we give the floor to the floor singers without a guest.” But he adds: “The ratio of audience to singers is quite high which is good because the audience is there to listen and not waiting their turn to sing. You can hear a pin drop.” Back to the problematic question of defining folk music: isn’t folk music about sharing, about interaction?

“Yes, the most popular folk songs are the ones that have a chorus,” says Bob. “The audience like that.”

Julie adds: “Along the lines of community, one of the things Robert is particularly interested in is getting people to come and see what folk music is really like. That’s why we have stuck to not having an admission charge; we have tried to take down all the barriers and reasons for not coming along.”

Bob expands: “Hopefully one or two people will find out they folk music and come again. It will benefit the wider folk community.”

Are there many folk clubs like Sunray in Dorset I wonder? “There are lots of folk gatherings with people coming together in a pub or something,” says Bob, “but there are about six formal clubs in the whole of Dorset, some weekly, some monthly.”

That would suggest that the folk scene in Dorset is fairly strong. How do they find it?

“Weymouth itself is very difficult,” admits Bob, “but Dorset itself has plenty of music festivals and morris dancing, that sort of thing, going on.” Swanage is a big festival.”

For more information, visit bobkirkpatrick.co.uk/sunrayfolkclub.htm