used to be quite good

Well, I think that's the highest standard that anybody's admitted to so far :-) so I wouldn't worry too much about practising... if we do get anything going then it'll be more a case of "come along and hack through stuff for fun" rather than "you need to practise this stuff first". At least at first ... I suppose maybe if we get good we'll want to practise. I dunno, the whole practising thing is alien to me. ;-)