Ringing Forums

what is needed is better strategic and more centralised invested and a proper strategy of how to invest in ringing nationally. In my opinion. — Simon Ridley

As each Guild and Association is a separate legal entity, it's going to be almost impossible to transfer the funds into a central resource. Also, the central initiative to invest more in recruitment and training (the Ringing Foundation) was shot down. However the Central Council could do far more to encourage best practice by Guilds and Associations.

It used to carry out a triennial survey of BRF's and encouraged societies not to sit on funds. When the last survey was carried out in 1995, they held an average of 4.7 years worth of grants in reserve. It has gradually crept up since and is now well over 10 years worth, as societies generally are raising more money than they spend.

What is more worrying is that much of this money is held in short term deposit accounts at low rates of interest. At least the G&B holds about 25% of its reserves in the M&G Charifund which is a long term investment. However like most other societies much is held in the CCLA or CBF short term deposit accounts. The factsheet for the CCLA deposit fund shows that it has seen a compound return of 4.18% over the last ten years, whereas CPI inflation has been 28.29%.

Over the last ten years interest rates and inflation have been low, but this is no longer the case and the value of these reserves that have been built up is likely to diminish far more rapidly, which would be a tremendous waste of resources.

In the W&P Full subs are now £15 per member (435 in 2020); £12.50 per over 60 member (669 in 2020); £10 for Ringing Members in full-time education (83 in 2020) and £2 for Probationary members (98 in 2020)

£4 of each subscription (other than from Probationary Members) goes to the BRF

£1 of each subscription (other than from Probationary Members) is transferred the Guild Training and Development Fund.

70% of the balance goes to the Guild General fund

30% is retained by the Districts

In my experience it can be very difficult to get Districts to spend the money that they hold in their District Funds. We've had arguments about whether we should sponsor young ringers who are attending the RWNYC, and whether or not we should pay instructors travelling expenses (the Guild rules state that each District is encouraged to maintain a list of instructors and that they may claim expenses for providing instruction, but it was argued that no-one has claimed these expenses for 50 years!).

The amount held by Districts, presumably in their current accounts earning no interest, rose from £18,382 in 2016 to £27,727 in 2020.

Surprising therefore that most first peals tend to be major, it would be interesting to find out why. Perhaps some of that market research stuff... :wink: — John de Overa

There's probably a very simple answer. When I learnt to ring, other slightly older young ringers were quite happy to arrange and conduct peal and quarter peal attempts. Branch and District meetings were also advertised in the Ringing World and by going along you met these people and got invited. At that time the gap between the top and bottom of the ability range was also much narrower.

As Michael Foulds of the Whiting Society puts it, as they have got older, those regular peal ringers have become 'risk averse'. I suppose it's not surprising really. If you've spent decades bringing people on you now just want to ring with your mates and ring something more challenging. You're not going to want to ring several peals of Plain Bob Minor. You're going to be more choosy who you invite to ring and what you ring. A quick look at this year's first pealers summary on Pealbase shows that out of 130 so far just 15 rang Plain Bob Minor; there were 10 Plain Bob Triples; 10 Grandsire Triples, 9 Plain Bob Major and 23 of Surprise Major. There were even 2 ringing Surprise Royal for their first peal.

Nowadays, if you ring with a band that regularly rings Plain Bob Doubles, that's as far as you are likely to get. Similarly, if the same person rings with a Surprise Major band most will sooner or later be able to ring it. (I've seen people who I thought would never get there, but 20+ years later they have). The more people around who can ring a method, the more people they can teach to do it. Back in the 70's and 80's Bristol Maximus was only rung in a few select places, nowadays there are far more people around who can ring it. Much of this more advanced ringing goes on outside the traditional Guild/Association/Branch /District structures.

Whether it's ringing at tower level, at Branch/District level, quarters or peals, it's about changing the whole culture, before it's too late. First peal 2015 showed that this was possible if only for a year. What is needed is a more long-term project throughout the next decade. A combination of surveys, and conferences and ongoing research projects could help with this.

do you know if there has also been a change in the stages at which they are rung, e.g. more Minor and less Major? — John de Overa

It's the other way round. First peal's these days tend to be in the higher stages e.g. more major and less minor.

The problem with a survey is that it is a snapshot at a particular point in time. By comparing it with a previous survey you can see that changes have taken place, or it provides a baseline for future surveys. However, there are a lot of underlying factors, and unless you know in advance what they are and structure your questions accordingly, it does not really shed much light on them. What I have been arguing for is far more ongoing research into these factors. This would be a useful function for the Central Council to commission. Everyone can see that there is a big problem without undertaking a survey, but there is no consensus about what to do about it.

For example, if you are a company making widgets you may realise from your sales figures that your customers are buying less widgets, but you need to do the market research to find out why your customers are buying less widgets and what you can do about this. e.g what are your competitors doing? has the market moved on and your customers now looking for widgets with whistles on?

My first peal, like many others in 1970 was the treble to Plain Bob Minor and my first four peals were all either Plain Bob Minor or Grandsire Doubles. When I moved to London in the late 1970's at that time there were many experienced young ringers like me coming to live in London. We thought nothing of working a full day, then catching the tube to ring a peal in the evening at towers like Deptford, Isleworth, Bow E3, West Ham, Bermondsey, Limehouse etc. We would go to the pub afterwards, getting home just before midnight and then go to work the next day. Quite a few of these were rung for the London County Association. However, with far fewer young ringers coming to work in London from the 1990's onwards, the LCA declined and has ceased to exist. Nowadays rather than weekday evening peals, quite a few of those ringers are still ringing peals, but they are now retired and have moved away from London. They now ring weekday attempts. As these peal ringers become even older, the number of peals rung will only decline further, as will the opportunities for others to reach this level. It would be good to make best use of their skills whilst they are still around.

Similar things are happening in the quarter peal world, although bellboard does not go back far enough to undertake a definitive analysis. However, a number of factors are at play. Not least a lot of quarters were rung for Evensong, but with far fewer evening services there are less Sunday evening attempts. With the squeezed middle, it is also more difficult than it used to be to find a band, even though nowadays communication is much easier and we don't have to rely on phoning round on people's landlines! It's also been noticeable that after Covid several people who I could rely on don't wish to ring quarters any more.

It's only by doing the market research and understanding what is really going on below the surface that we will be able to come up with strategies to turn things round, or as is likely to argue, slow the decline!

Actually, it went up in 2015 for the First Peal 2015 initiative, and it has fallen back since. What it and the other graphs on Drew's Pealbase seem to show is that ringing recovered quickly after WW2 back to pre-war levels, and there was a steady state till the 1980's. Ever since there has been a slow decline. In the case of peal ringing this is now quite marked, having reduced from around 600 new entrants per year for much of the 50's, 60's, and 70's. It is now down to less than 150 per year.

Many of those first peals were by grass roots ringers in methods like Plain Bob and Grandsire. Consequently, nowadays we seem to have a squeezed middle, with a missing generation or two of competent change-ringers, and lots of bands struggling to ring plain hunt, let alone steady Plain Bob or Grandsire doubles, and that is if there is still a band in the tower.

Method ringing will not die out, but without major surgery it is going to be confined to a limited number of active centres. The sad thing is that in my experience many of those who have recently taken up ringing are keen to make progress, and to become competent change-ringers, as they see it as a rewarding pastime. However nowadays many do not get the same opportunities to meet their aspirations, that their predecessors had.

2014 138
2015 387
2016 98
2017 113
2018 127
2019 139
2020 42
2021 32

The challenge is doing that in way that matches what ringer want. One purpose of a new survey should be to get a good idea of what that is. — Paul Wotton

I think that there is a danger of confirmation bias if you just ask the existing un-diverse group of aged ringers what they want. The existing structure is very good at maintaining the status quo and the response is likely to be more of the same. However, ringing has been in a slow decline since the 1980’s and many ringers still seem to be in denial about this. As Robert Brown points out eloquently above, there are serious issues that have not been addressed for decades, and from what I know about the rest of the country the situation in Devon is far from unique.

A thorough survey is just a starting point to convince those in positions of influence in Guilds, Associations, Districts and Branches and even some of those on the Council of the urgent need to do something effective. However, whilst the Central Council can do very little on the ground, it can commission an ongoing programme of research which it can use to share good practice, and help make Guilds, Associations, Districts and Branches far more effective in what they were set up to do. For example:

• Improved retention rates: Are towers that hold intensive training sessions more effective than those who do not? If so, by how much? What is the success rate of the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing and similar initiatives?
• Ringing Centres, Hubs and Clusters: How effective are they? What differences have they made? What are the benefits and what are the problems?
• Young ringers: What do we need to do to attract more young ringers? Where has this been done successfully?
• Financial resources: How much money is held in Bell Restoration funds in short term deposit accounts with low interest rates? Are there better ways of investing this money? What is best practice in this field? How does the current situation compare with the last CCCBR Triennial Survey of BRF's.
• Maintenance: How do we look after those towers that have no active band? Should we be investing large sums of money in augmentations and re-hanging bells in towers where there is little prospect of a local band, when we have too many bells and not enough ringers?
• Leadership and succession planning: Many people take on roles such as webmaster and public relations officer with little or no training. They often take on these roles because no-one else is willing to do this. Other roles are very difficult to fill and may remain vacant. What is the age profile of our current leaders and how long have they been in post? How extensive are these problems? What more could be done in other roles to compliment the success of ART in training new teachers over the past ten years?

Number of people ringing their first peal since 1914 - Source Pealbase

There are plans in the works for leadership courses; it's just a question of finding the right people to run and deliver them and getting people to actually go on them. Anyone with appropriate experience and skills, now is your time — Tristan Lockheart

I'm not sure whose plans they are, but whoever is doing this would benefit by looking at this from the perspective of history over recent decades. A lot of work has already been put in by a lot of people. About thirty years ago the CCCBR Education Committee ran a series of MTM courses (Management, Teaching and Maintenance). As a member of several CCCBR Committees over the years I was involved in running some steeple-keeping courses for the Towers & Belfries Committee. For the Ringing Committee I also helped run a series of residential courses for the leaders of new ringing centres, with generous funding from the Founders Livery Company. There were also several other initiatives to share good practice such as the proposed Instructors Guild and NRT (the Network for Ringing Training). NRT, the Ringing Centres Committee, the Ringing Foundation and the CCCBR PR Committee also held various conferences aimed at leaders in Guilds and Associations. There was also the CCCBR Wellesbourne conference in 2011.

The problem is that whilst there was general agreement on what the problems were, and even what needed to be done, every few years people changed. There was then a new initiative which ignored whatever had gone on previously and invented something "new". Far more would have been achieved if they had built on what had gone on before. The right people are around, and they have a lot of experience and skills to bring to the table, but I suspect that they would prefer to build on what they have done in the past, rather than go round another loop of the circle.

Being an Eyeore for a moment, I suspect the people who need to go on them the most will be the least likely to do so... — John de Overa

I think it depends on how you market them. Potentially they would not be sufficiently attractive to get the right people to go to them, but ART has been very successful in getting people to attend its teacher training modules. 41 day courses were in the first nine months of this year, spread around the country, with around 350 delegates.

I think this is a key point, without this follow-up it's a futile exercise. Although I think a survey is a good idea, I'm pretty sure I could write down the results now, on the basis that all the ones I've seen going back 20-30 years have the same answers. Yet nothing seems to have changed. Why? — John de Overa

I think that it's down to all the 'gate-keepers' in our ringing organisations. People often take on roles because no-one else is prepared to do it. There is no longer any competition, with people offering different manifestos. Taking on a role adds to an individual's prestige and standing in the ringing community, but putting in the effort to make a significant difference is a big ask, hence they become gate-keepers.

Whether it is a tower captaincy role or a District/Branch, or Guild/Association role there is little or no training. What we need is far more leadership training. ART has made inroads into teacher training, but we need leadership training for tower captains, District/Branch/Guild/Association ringing masters, chairs, PR and comms officers, webmasters etc. This would equip them with tools and help them be effective in their roles. There also need to be ways of sharing good practice and for this to find it's way down to the people who need it.

It's OK doing a survey, but you then need to turn it into action. Otherwise, it will just be ignored. In my local Guild to follow up the survey we held a 'have your say' open evening and got the people who attended to write down ideas on post-it notes, which we then placed on a wall, sorted under variuos headings and then prioritised. The results were quite interesting as there was a clear consensus about what needs to be done. This then left the throny issue of persuading the Guild heirarchy to implement these suggestions!

I think the problem was that under the old structure the CCCBR had a myriad of committees, each with a narrow focus. Also, the leadership of the CCCBR changed every three years, so there was limited continuity and the new leadership would start a new initiative without learning from the past, let alone building on it. There was little joined up thinking. Hence why today we still have CC recognised ringing centres listed on Dove and a Ringing Centres Facebook group.

The Education Committe tended to be focussed on the production of teaching material and the Ringing Centres Committee was set up to help establish and supporting training centres. When the Education Committee proposed setting up an Instructors Guild at the CCCBR meeting at Lincoln in 1999 there were concerns about certification of instructors. If introduced, churches and insurance companies might insist that ringing was only taught by certificated instructors and, where none were available, ringing would cease.

It was also argued that as the number of ringers was increasing despite the continuing decline in church membership, and nothing should be done to reverse that increase. Mr S J Coleman therefore proposed that “The Council asks the Education Committee not to pursue the question of certification of instructors until the Central Council Instructors’ Guild is fully established nationally and is working well.” Mr R. B. Smith seconded, and the motion was put to the vote and carried.

This put the concept on hold for ten years till ART was established by the Ringing Foundation, which was another of those initiatives by CCCBR, this time to bring more funding into recruitment and training. Many of those involved in setting ART up were either members of the CCCBR Ringing Centres Committee, or the Education Committe who were concerned about the glacial pace of progress.

Even after ART was established, I remember attending various meetings and joint working parties and it was evident that the old turf wars still persisted. Had everyone worked together we might be somewhere different today, but from the early days ART and the Ringing Foundation were both attacked, this causing the latter to eventually be wound up. Although things have improved significantly more recently, there are still some pockets where people still seem to live in two parallel universes, with people hanging on to the legacy of the past.

Perhaps because it is free from outside control, ART is able to concentrate on its core mission of training and supporting new teachers, and it has come a long way in the past ten years. Things are not perfect and there is still a huge amount to do, but at least things are moving in the right direction and there are a lot of new initiatives in the pipeline.

Here is a link to a Google spreadsheet that I did some time ago linking to Guild and Association websites and the e-mail addresses of their contacts. Also there is a second tab listing Branches/Districts and e-mail addresses for their officers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hV2NIFaiTA96kp-Gsb3A8TuPu6uN7vptOU-veqgIZJk/edit?usp=sharing

It was done for the Ringing Foundation and ART around ten years ago, so needs updating, if someone wants to take on this and make a copy on their Drive, and updated version would be useful for communicating with and sending out questionnaire links and other things to Branch/District officers.

One thing I have found is that generic e-mail addresses and website URL's don't change much. However, where contact is by webform these are not kept up to date, so any e-mails you send are often not responded to.

Attached is a copy of the W&P 2019 report in Word format. Phil Barnes or Doug Davis may be able to provide you with a word version of the KCACR one.

I've given you access to a copy of the original survey questionnaire. You should have received a notification to this effect from Google. Please feel free to make a further copy in your own drive and edit accordingly.

I would echo the use of Google or Microsoft forms which you can use to collect data by e-mail and export this to a Google sheet or Excel worksheet for further analysis. There are also some useful pre-built graphs on the results page of each application.

Do also talk to people beforehand to find out what the likely responses are, so that you can populate tick box questions. These are far easier to analyse than free form text.

You can also look at previous Guild/Association surveys to get a feel of what questions to ask and likely responses that you will receive. See the attached surveys carried out in Kent in 2017 and W&P in 2019. I still have the Google form from the 2019 survey and can send it to you if you wish, to avoid the need to re-key the questions.

Your modern concept, with which I agree, requires more effort from more people, not only Association and District officers. The first step in any change is to wake up and see that we need to do it, and we are still asleep on this one! — Phillip George

If only those who cling on and try to do everything themselves would learn to let go, it would make a huge difference. There are lots of talented people out there who could step in, they just need encouragement. They may make mistakes at first, and they may try new ideas, but in the longer term as more people are contributing, the workload for individuals will be less, not more.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are awake on this one and have been for some time. It's just that the existing culture is very good at reinforcing itself, and is averse to change.

"I am not sure if members have been canvassed about what ringing activities might interest them!

Have a look at this graph from our recent district survey.

I researched this a couple of years ago and found that in addition to Surrey, the D&N had introduced the LoveAdmin system. Rather than a fall in subs it actually increased the number of people paying subs. Perhaps someone from D&N could comment.

I think the important issue here is engagement with the total membership. My experience is that few people nowadays take up ringing as it is a service to the church. It is no longer seen as a duty to their parish which means that they have limited interest in anything other than their local band. They take up ringing because they perceive it as an interesting hobby. They are quite surprised when they find out about our antiquated ways of doing things compared with other activities that they could take up.

In addition, I know that many tower captains talk about how difficult it is to recruit young people, but just look at the response when we took the Charmborough Ring to the Cambridge University Freshers fair last week. Ringing could have a bright future if only it got organised, brought itself up to date and promoted itself better.

The problem with the traditional system is that too few communications get down to the ringers at grass roots level. Because posts in societies are dominated by long term ringers, there is also a fixation on peals, striking competitions and business meetings, which appeal to a minority. We have just carried out a survey in my local district and these are the bottom three things that the members are interested in.

Communication by direct mail is the #1 thing that they wish to see. Google groups and Facebook groups are only half as popular. However, it's not surprising that WhatsApp groups targeted at those with specific interests (e.g weekday ringing, training events, surprise major practices, handbell ringing, quarter peals etc) are significantly more popular.

If people can pay their subs on-line and receive regular communications about activities that they are interested in taking place nearby and which are of interest to them, ringing will flourish. Activity would be driven in a modern bottom-up way by the membership, rather than the old rigid Victorian top-down way. Certain activities will flourish, and groups may need to split (as in CAMRA) and new previously un-heard of activities might emerge. This might present a challenge to some of the arbitrary boundaries that we have but is something that should be encouraged and welcomed.

I think it's unrealistic to expect the keen learners who go on courses to go back and change the culture of their towers - believe me, I tried. I'm not saying it never happens, but as a way of fixing ringing's current problems, I think it's a non-starter. — John de Overa

I disagree. We need to spread good practice. It will be a slow process, but over time the techniques will find their way back into use in towers, even if this is when 'old Fred' retires and someone who knows about other ways of teaching takes up the reins. Just look at how gradually over the last ten years ART's foundation skills techniques are starting to become mainstream.

Since June I've been holding regular foundation skills practices on a Monday afternoon every 2 - 3 weeks. Quite a few learners from other towers in my District are finding out about these improvers practices. There are now about 30 people who have taken part in one or more of them, and it's becoming difficult to cope with their popularity. More attend them than the traditional District practices. I've had some very positive feedback from those that come, as they welcome a fresh approach to their struggles, and I am sure that they are taking the exercises back to their own towers. In fact, following a taster session held at one of these towers on Saturday morning, I've now got three tower captains/teachers from these other towers who want to go on ART M1 and M2 courses to learn more about the techniques.

Once we've got the teaching of bell-handling and foundation skills embedded, we can then concentrate on the teaching of method ringing.

Of course the commercial model isn't viable. We rely on the owners of buildings making them available and providing use of some expensive equipment for free, although we might contribute towards the upkeep of the latter. However it's interesting to consider what other inputs such as volunteer time are required to teach someone to ring. We can then consider whether we are making best use of scarce resources.

The model that I costed is based on the typical Guild/Association training day. However in 2 x 2 hour slots each pupil only gets 6 - 8 five minute touches of quality rope time. They may benefit form more practice in their own tower, but in my experience the majority come because they can't do what they want to learn in their own tower, and as these training days are often once a year, they are likely to come back to the same group next year (if they haven't given up in the mean time!).

The Hereford/Bradfield/Essex/NW ringing courses use a similar model, providing around three times as much quality rope time in around six or more sessions concentrated over three/four days. Whilst far less is forgotten between sessions, you probably need to go on two of these courses to to turn a call change ringer who rings with a weak local band into someone who can confidently hunt the treble to QP standard, or progress from this to ringing their first QP inside etc.

The longer courses at the Tulloch Ringing Centre, which make good use of simulators etc is pretty close to the ideal, and people are willing to travel there and pay, but it is not something that could be rolled out everywhere. However the Birmingham School and Bell Ringing and the Mancroft Ringing Discovery Centre are models that could be adapted for use elsewhere, but they do rely on the use of existing facilities and investment to improve them, which are not reflected in their charges.

A much smarter way of making best use of scarce resources would be to use these training days and courses to promote the use of some simple exercises to break down the learning process into easily manageable steps. Those who come from weak bands can then take them back to their own towers to help improve the tuition for the others there.