The Ugie Folk Club started its days in Longside at the Bruce Arms. The club was known as the Longside Folk Club at that time (early 1990s). Club nights were usually packed in the lounge at the back of the pub and the community fun day was held in the car park for which the club provided entertainment.
The folk club had to move to a new venue because the Bruce was being sold, so we ended up at the Pitfour in Mintlaw. We were there for a while and organised a Dick Gaughan concert in their large function hall, as well as our community fun weekend (with stalls on the Saturday, at that time) and a ceilidh at night. Circumstances changed again and we ended up moving to the White Horse Hotel in Strichen, where we held a few festivals and hosted a Jim Reid concert. It was sold on and due to disagreements with the new owners, we moved to Crichie. We spent many a happy folk night there and organised ceilidhs and a slow jam in the hall next door. The club moved to the Station Hotel, in Strichen, where we've hosted a Johnny Handle concert and some excellent club nights. The club now currently meets in the Crichie Inn, Stuartfield.
The constitution explains that '......The object of the club shall be to provide a platform for, and promotion of the Folk idiom in Buchan and the surrounding area.' The club has always had an open door policy. We welcome new audience members and new musicians alike and we are not formal and restrictive in terms of how we operate the club e.g. people are free to participate in the 'concert' part of the evening (and folk are free to join in) and then we finish the night with a session. A wide variety of musicians and singers come along to the folk club e.g. playing guitar, mandolin, accordian, fiddle, flute, whistles, bhodran etc and we always welcome new additions!!
