You wouldn’t think of February as a month for singing songs around the campfire but that is, comparatively speaking, the scene.

It’s a Saturday night and the audience is listening to the sounds of finger-picked guitars and two-part vocal harmonies, provided by Mike and Karen Cove. The duo plays to the crowd, but they also play with the crowd at the Gordon Bubolz Nature Preserve north of Appleton. During several songs, the audience happily sings along during the chorus and provides the rhythm section via hand claps.

From the outside, it looks like a concert. There are rows of chairs, lights and a stage. But the evening has the feel of a gathering of old friends. Everyone seems to know each other and those who don’t are quickly made to feel at home in this casual, stress-free environment. It doesn’t matter what the audience members do during their everyday lives because for at least a few hours, they are all united through the common thread of folk music.

This scene is played out week after week by the Green Apple Folk Music Society, an organization that helps promote folk music in the area. Throughout this year, the group is celebrating its 20th anniversary as a provider of good music and good times. A little quick math will tell you that since Green Apple is 20 years old, it started in 1982, not exactly a year one would imagine to be folk-friendly. It was a time marked by glammed-out pop stars, synthesizers and other electronic instruments and, of course, the emergence of MTV.

While that trend was evolving nationally, locally, the old Gilmour Bros. music store on College Avenue had built a reputation as a gathering place for acoustic musicians. It was here that the two men credited with planting Green Apple’s roots, Pat Wiley and John Wilson, met. Wilson had moved to the Fox Valley from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where there was a strong folk scene. With that as an influence, he and Wiley began to develop an idea for a folk organization here. They came up with the name Green-Apple Friends of Folk Music as a means of joining folk musicians from both the Green Bay and Appleton area.

“There were still lots of folk organizations out there and, so, among folk musicians, folk music was alive, it just wasn’t playing on the radio stations,” said Peter Bartman, who is Green Apple’s treasurer and has been involved with the organization almost since the beginning. “So, we needed to make our own because there weren’t that many outlets. You couldn’t just go and find folk music someplace. We wanted to have a place where we could (play) and have it be a place where people could come out of the closet with their guitars and find other people who were doing it and let them know that folk music was alive and well.”

Green Apple’s beginnings were meager, to be sure. Some of the first concerts were held in what was then the Skyline Cowboy in the Between the Locks building. The venue was straight out of “Urban Cowboy,” complete with a mechanical bull.

As the cowboy craze of the early ’80s was beginning to wane, the club’s owner was looking for other ways to draw crowds and so Wiley began booking folk musicians there. There was one problem, though. Because the group was still in its formative years, Green Apple had no money to promote the shows and therefore hardly anyone showed up. Some concerts drew four people.

“We had no real way of reaching out to people,” Bartman said.

Green Apple’s membership is about 200, with many more nonmembers who come to attend shows. Virtually every week, you can find a Green Apple Folk Music Society-sponsored event in the area, and the organization has hosted shows featuring many notable folk artists, including Jez Lowe, Bill Staines and Eric Nassau. If you find yourself at a community event such as Art in the Park or any of the area’s farmer markets and notice the live background music, chances are it is provided by Green Apple members.

The essence of the Green Apple Folk Music Society is perhaps best illustrated through the group’s open-mic nights. Usually at these events, there are six 20-minute sets. You might find a mix of novice performers playing alongside experienced musicians. It doesn’t really matter how good you are, as long as you have something to share and are willing to take the stage.

“(We’re) just people I guess who are mostly interested in kind of real music, noncommercial, nonhighly produced music that we can make ourselves, and so people come out here sometimes for the first time they’ve ever played in front of people at all,” Bartman said. “And they get up on the Green Apple stage and sometimes they’re really shaky and sometimes they’re not too good, but they get better.”

“It’s hard to find a nicer audience,” said Dean Sauers, who organizes the open-mic nights. “If somebody screws up, they still give applause. Everybody understands. … We all remember our first time on stage.”

Steve Hazell, co-president and secretary, is one member who got his start on the Green Apple stage. Now he has released a handful of CDs and performs all around the area.

“It’s just like you’re involved in the performance,” Hazell said of the open-mic nights. “You get introduced, there’s a little stage, the microphones are set up and the lights are on you, so it’s really neat. It’s rewarding how many people have started out at Green Apple as total novices, myself included, and then you play a while and go to play somewhere else, you’ve sort of already experienced it. You take that stage and think, ‘Oh, this feels just like Green Apple.’ It’s sort of like a home away from home.”

While music is the focal point of the Green Apple, a strong communal spirit prevails throughout the organization. The members are young and old, male and female and come from a diverse mix of occupational and educational backgrounds. If it weren’t for Green Apple, many of the members might not have become friends, but their love of music has helped form an instant and tight bond.

“I’m not a musician, I’m just an audience member,” co-president Vivian Hazell said. “But what I get to watch is the dynamics of the musicians supporting each other. Anyone can sign up, so sometimes it’s the first time they’ve ever sung, and when they walk up on stage, they’ve got an audience and people pat ’em on the back and when they meet in the green room there’s a sense of support, so that’s one of the things I value. And it’s family-friendly here.”

Bartman considers Green Apple part of his family.

“When we first started, we called ourselves Green-Apple Friends of Folk,” he said. “And I remember saying to myself that I wasn’t that interested in being a friend of folk as much as I was interested in finding friends in folk. There’s just a certain feeling, I guess, that people who find themselves gravitating toward folk music (gravitate) toward each other as well.”

Eric Klister can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 423, or by e-mail at eklister@appleton.gannett.com.