When we refer to ‘Glee’ on FSC we generally mean singing, dancing, and drama.
On camp, we sing collectively a lot. Around a campfire with the entire lodge, and in our age groups. When we go walking on hike, and in our clans when we cook and clean up. Everyone is woken in the morning by the camp chief singing an arise song. Staff often end the day singing around a fire.
Country dancing takes place on most camps, with ceilidhs often happening at other FSC events.
Drama includes Merrymoot (our end of camp cabaret), plus improvisation games and other dramatic elements (such as poetry, storytelling and plays) which tend to vary by camp.
The songs we sing
The songs we sing are predominantly British folk, with a significant American influence and some songs from other countries. The oldest songs date from the 1500s, and we sing songs written right up to the present decade. There’s a mixture from silly kids songs to beautiful traditional laments, from sea shanties to protest songs. The FSC songbook was first printed in 1968 with 130 songs; the latest 2025 version contains 220 songs.
FSC has a significant role in the UK’s folk history, we are probably the biggest organisation which regularly teaches traditional songs to new children. Singing collectively in multi-age and multi-gender groups is a rare and valuable thing in the modern world and is a hugely important and loved part of FSC for many people.
Songbooks and recordings
Virtual Campfire is our much-loved site for recordings of FSC songs, now available on www.glee.org.uk.
Over here, we now have our current and archive songbooks digitised at FSC Songbooks, as well as other Glee publications from over the years . We also have digital mixtapes, and how to sing harmony recordings.
Lyrics are available to songs both on the Virtual Campfire website (click to the right of the song you’re playing), and here on FSC’s website via the digitised songbooks and there’s an alphabetical list of all the songs which have ever been in our songbooks. As folk lyrics change and evolve over the years, you will find that different songbooks contain different lyrics.
Guitar chords are available in a lot of past songbooks, the 2017 and the 1997 are particularly well-supplied with chords.
A number of people have created Spotify playlists of FSC songs. Search ‘FSC’ and lots of playlists should come up.
Country dancing
FSC camps usually feature country dancing at least once, and we often hold ceilidhs at events. See the FSC Country Dancing page for more information and to listen to country dancing recordings, or download the manual of dances.
Drama and games
We do some impromptu drama on FSC camps. We also play a lot of games around the campfire, at rally, and in other places. See the Games Compendium for ideas of games.
Glee camp
A weekend for staff in summer or autumn dedicated to Glee (singing, dancing and drama), usually held at FSC’s stores in Haddenham, near Ely in Cambridgeshire. See Glee Camp for more information.
Regional Glee groups
If you’re a member of staff who likes to sing FSC songs with others when not on camp, there are now a number of regional glee groups who meet to sing outside camp.
At the moment of writing in 2025, they are mostly organised on the FSC Staff WhatsApp community (search for Glee and you’ll see the list). There are currently significant groups in London, Sheffield, Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol, Scotland, and North East but groups change regularly. People are often looking to set new ones up, so it’s worth posting on the FSC Glee facebook page if you’re interested in knowing more and can’t find one near you.