You know the first rule of ukulele club?

There is one in Newcastle at the Cumberland Pub in Byker and I should see a member next Tues and can ask . Or they may be contactable via the Cumberland website .

I've been along to the Ukelele Wednesdays club in Tottenham Court Road a few times. Its held in the basement of a pub (the George).

The basic premise is that there are song and chord sheets available on a website that people print off and bring along. Requests get shouted out and then everybody (40ish people) strum and sing along.

As you can imagine, as the evening progresses, people lose inhibitions and really go for it!

Good fun.

I go every fortnight to one near Darlington in County Durham. Very good fun it is too. Our group meet in a pub, which is a good idea - particularly when just starting up. Have a few spare ukes about to cover any that want to try but don't have their own. We have an old fashioned OHP projector with the songs on acetate so we can all play along together - it's community singing with Ukes. We have solo spots as well that really encourages you to practice and learn from others.

Don't discount songs because you don't like them - sometimes the ones I actively dislike are the ones that work when played in a group. Try and make it as democratic as possible. I've been to others that are run as vanity projects for musicians and they take the egalitarian charm of the ukulele and squeeze the joy from it entirely.

Feel free to ask anything in particular - or ignore me entirely.

Happy Strumming.

We have two in Moseley in Birmingham. One is quite well organised and they appear to be quite professional about it. I don't know much about that because I'm part of the self proclaimed "second best ukulele group in Moseley", Moselele.

We didn't know how it would work to begin with but a year and a half on it's going well. It came about initially through a bit of chatter of like minded people on Twitter.
One of the guys set up a website - http://www.moselele.co.uk and put together a songbook of a handful of songs. Some of these were "borrowed" from the Hull Ukulele Group (HUG). You don't need many songs to start and you can build a repertoire over time.
We meet every two weeks in the upstairs room of a local pub, The Patrick Kavanagh. This is OK with licences and the like. Because it's a workshop/rehearsal and whilst I'm no expert in licensing laws, I think that's OK as long as nobody is entertained.
Ability is not a pre-requisite. It's about having some fun. There are a couple of people in our group who are suspected to practice between sessions, but nothing has been proven yet.
Like Mike Todd says above above a loose democracy works best. We have a few extra ukes knocking about to foist into the hands of curious people who turn up. It's just a bit of a sing song but with ukes.
Over time we've gained a Facebook Group in order remind 'members' of the meetings.
Sessions last a couple of hours. Because it's in a pub we have a drink and a laugh. We usually get about 10 people out of about 15-20 regulars so it's free and easy. I think that's a good number because it keeps it relaxed and encourages participation. Newcomers do tend to come back so we're doing something right.

Don't be sniffy about picking 'cool' songs. I'm constantly surprised how much fun I have with songs that I would normally hate. Summer of '69 is a current fave and normally I can't stand it.

I take a little digital recorder along, pop it on the back bar and record the results. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
I've put some of the times that it has worked on Soundcloud.
http://soundcloud.com/noysrus/sets/moselele-1/

If you need any help then get in touch either here or via the website.

Remember though - the point is just to have some fun. These are ukuleles we're talking about. They sound bloody awful really so nobody should be treating it as a serious musical instrument.

Some very useful advice there. I have the added disadvantage that the 'room above the pub' doesn't seem to exist in Munich (well it does, but it's called an apartment). And I may have to address the club in German, which should be interesting.

Couple more questions:

1. Is there much opportunity for teaching? I appreciate it's good for the beginners, but is there much for the intermediate players other than having fun?
2. Do people generally feel inclined to do solo turns? And should this be encouraged?

..of repeating my last blog post which had my current fave Liverpool Band The Big I Am and their set up of Uke, Quatro and keyboards - fab sound.

I've been to two ukelele clubs - including Moselele see posts above, and both hold meetings in pubs.

Choice of songs is important try picking
a few slow songs with 2 or 3 easy chords for complete beginners,
some old time pre WW2 songs (watch Oh What A Lovely War for ideas),
a contemporary hit or two (eg Fratellis)
and some rock classics eg the Beatles or the Stones that everyone can sing along to whilst competent players do the fancy finger work.

And it's quite good to have another instrument or two to hand like a bongo, bass or kazoo.