Since this email debate seems to have had some amount of success and has certainly stimulated some interesting discussion, I have taken it upon myself to begin procedures to start a new USENET newsgroup called uk.culture.arts.storytelling. At the moment, the creation of the group is still under discussion, but it is hoped that there will not be any serious objections.
Why a newsgroup? Well, the main advantages to newsgroups are that they encourage free discussion, take up less bandwidth than email discussion lists, are not exclusive as mailing lists tend to be, and such a group could help attract the odd casual browser into storytelling. Newsgroups do tend to suffer from spam (advertisers, flames, irrelevant discussions) but since the group will be within the uk hierarchy, this makes for less attention than does the existing storytelling group, alt.arts.storytelling which tends to discuss writing as well as storytelling and is mainly used by American and International users. If spam does become a problem, then moderation is a possibility.
These are but technical details, the main point is that if successful, the creation of such a group will provide a one-stop point for all storytellers with access to the internet to talk about storytelling within the uk, advertise events and festivals, offer services and so on. The advantages to my mind are obvious. And it means that many more discussions such as this trad debate can be held, with the possibility of printing a round-up of discussions in Storylines.
If you would like to see the group created, offer your support by pointing your newsreader at uk.net.news.config, look for the topic "RFD uk.culture.arts.storytelling" and post some positive replies.
Thanks for your attention.