Ringing Forums

if you have done no surprise, you can't really rock up to a local surprise minor practice and ask to join in - there's just too much to learn — David Smith

I think too much fuss is made about Surprise, I found it was a bigger jump from Plain to TB methods than it was from TB to Surprise. I believe it's more important to teach people how to learn methods than it is to teach them specific classes of methods.

But the bottom line is that, if what you need is not available in your area, try to find some like-minded ringers and make it happen! — David Smith

You can't have 8 people all trying to get to grips with Major at the same time, more than 2 in at once and it's a struggle. You need a solid band.

One very small but helpful step that CC has already achieved has been to get the new North West residential course going, and one of the topics this course offers is "6 to 8", covering part of what you mention. — David Smith

I'm considering going on that this year, but the syllabus isn't available yet. I'm already ringing on 8 so I'll have to see if it's worthwhile, with all such courses, ringing something once a year is a waste of time unless there's follow-up in place. One of the things I've heard from people who taught at the last couple is that people are coming back a year later having made absolutely no further progress.

I also wonder why your local association is not offering anything to help. — David Smith

In the association as a whole it's mostly "social" events and there's no training at all in my district. There's an "8 bell practice for 'advanced beginners'" in a different district but it only seems to be running for the next 2 months, it says what they ring is going to depend on who turns up and for me it's a 3 hour round trip - I'm not inclined to spend twice as long as the practice travelling on an off-chance. My home association is a dead loss as far as training goes, and has been since I started.

The most active guild in the area is one that isn't associated with the CCCBR and people outside the area haven't heard about, which I think speaks volumes about the state of the associations around here.

This is the very situation that the Cast of 1000 had hoped to address. — David Kirkcaldy

What happened to that? It seems to have fallen my the wayside?

After attending a course the student needs to return to an environment where he/she can build on and consolidate what’s been learnt. — John Harrison

Yes, without opportunity for regular practice afterwards it's pretty pointless.

it does vary hugely geographically as to when you hit a barrier of not having enough ringers at a similar level wanting to make similar progress. — Lucy Chandhial

I agree, from what I've seen the situation is much better in some other areas. From what I've been told, things have not been good here (Greater Manchester) for many decades, I think it's therefore a poster child for how increasingly difficult it could become in other areas as the current generation of Surprise Major level ringers stop ringing.

Maybe there is one ringer near you who could persuade the band of elite ringers to host a supported practice for up and coming ringers even just four times a year? — Lucy Chandhial

There's no practically-accessible Major sessions in this area of my home association (Derby), most of the nearest towers are in Chester/Yorkshire/Lancashire.

There was a monthly Surprise Major practice in the Yorkshire Association which I found supportive & helpful, but that folded before Xmas. A Major QP group has started up in its place but I'm not at QP standard yet, so chicken, meet egg.

There's another fortnightly one in in the Chester Guild which I was going to but my fare was restricted to 2 half courses of Cambridge each fortnight. I asked repeatedly to ring Yorkshire as the ropesight is easier, one of my bugbears. I was point blank refused "Because the others wouldn't like it" (whatever that means). I always felt I was viewed as a bit of an encumbrance as the group was mostly people who want to ring spliced Surprise Major and not really a learning environment, so after Xmas I quietly dropped out. Nobody has been in touch, so I was right.

I'll probably keep chipping away at Bristol on the tower sim for my own amusement - the feedback I got at the weekend was that I clearly knew the method but needed to sharpen up the "wrong" work which I kinda knew already - it's the first method I've really rung with a mix of right/wrong work, so no big surprise, and getting to grips with it will pay off with Minor stuff. But as for ringing Major "for real", as I said, I've given that up as a lost cause.

Have you considered trying to organise a practice in the region for those in a similar situation to you? — Alan C

I have, it's not a practical option, unfortunately - there are just too few ringers who want to step up to Major, and too few inclined who are to support them.

I'm not suggesting it's watered down, I'm suggesting that it is hurried up. I'm a late starter, my ringing career is therefore going to be short. If all I manage to do in the time I can ring is to help keep things ticking over until ringing reinvigorates itself, I'll count it as a successful ringing career. But there needs to be something left to reinvigorate in the first place. The intent behind Ringing 2030 is laudable, the apparently glacial rate or progress is not. Time is running out.

Possible actions could also include giving larger grants, or widening the scope of work that the BRF will fund — Roger Booth

Yes to everything on your list. Sound Control funding seems to be uncontentious, but I don't know how simulators and CCTV for the bells are viewed by BRFs. We have both (installed during the rehang) and they are used regularly. We also have three roller displays about the church, the bells and ringing in general. We also hired a mobile belfry for the local carnival during the rehang. The funding for all those "add ons" came from the HLF rather than the Association, it seems ironic that it's easier to get funding for that sort of thing from external funding bodies than it is from our own sources.

in the current climate that is something to work through rather than a reason not to try. — John Harrison

Absolutely so. But I think it needs to be supported by a fully thought-out plan for how the reallocated money is going to be put to best use. @Roger Booth pointed on FB to what The Essex Association are doing in this area, it's an interesting read.

That doesn't follow. — John Harrison

You'd first have to persuade the majority of the members of the association that it was a good idea, get them to formally approve it, deal with the thorny issues of donations and bequests that were given specifically for bell restoration, rewrite the governing document of the BRF, get that approved by the membership, then after that you'd have to approach the Charity Commission to ask them to approve the change.

As I said, "That it will likely be difficult and time consuming".

The duties of a charity trustee include keeping the objects of the charity under review, so changing them should be something that is considered from time to time. — Roger Booth

That would require the agreement of both the association membership and The Charity Commission:

You must ask for Commission authority if your amendment will:
* change your charity’s purposes

That it will likely be difficult and time consuming. I think @Lucy Chandhial's suggestion of diverting funding from the BRF into a training fund would be easier.

Modern engineering is such that in 50 - 100 years only a minor overhaul will be needed, which will be far less expensive. — Roger Booth

Our installation is 100 years old and it cost ~£60K for the rehang - the wheels needed rebuilding, the steel and wooden frames need strengthening, a new ceiling/floor etc etc etc - refurbishment is always going to be an expensive business.

How do we want to recruit and teach bellringing in order to reach more people more quickly? — Lucy Chandhial

Recruitment gets most of the attention but it's pretty pointless without a solid, countrywide pipeline for people to progress along, and that's sorely lacking in many areas. That training needs to go well beyond PH/PB, which is about the outer limits of most people who start via ART. Relatively speaking, "fixing" recruitment is easy - indeed my tower has stopped at the moment because we don't have sufficient capacity to deliver decent training to new starters. Adequate training at the Surprise / 8 bell level is rare at best - once-a-year courses don't cut the mustard and I'm just about to stop going to the nearest fortnightly (!) Surprise Major practices which are almost entirely focused on extending the repertoire of long-term already-advanced-level ringers, I can't justify 90 mins of travelling for two half courses of Cambridge, which is all I'm "allowed" to ring by the person running the practice. Fair enough if he wants to ring Spliced DooDah with his friends, but it isn't an adequate learning environment for anyone trying to get to that level.

I completely agree that training and not bells is the biggest need, but as most BRFs are charities with a specific purpose of funding bell repairs, wouldn't reallocating funds to training require a change to a BRF's governance?

As for the cash mountain, I get the impression that some BRFs have fairly low limits on what proportion of a project they'll fund, perhaps they could be encouraged to be more generous?

I'd love it if there was something like that round here, well done!

I lived in fear for a long time because when it happened to me someone rushed over in what appeared to be a panic to grab the rope. — Judith Dennis

It's difficult to simulate losing control, you can't really recreate the "startle factor" when it happens for real. I illustrate that you can miss the sally, just ring backstrokes and still have control of the bell. We also go through the drill which is:

• If you miss the sally, don't make a second attempt to grab it, it's most likely already going up to the ceiling and if you grab hold, so are you.
• Keep hold of the tail end with both hands.
• Go up the rope a bit, step back if you need to and go into "ringing up" mode, something they practice from the first lesson.

The other key thing is for the teacher not to panic themselves, seeing them dashing across the room, madly grabbing at the rope and ending up half way up to the ceiling themselves is the opposite of confidence giving - I saw exactly that last week. For me, taking the rope off the learner is a last resort, not the first response to a fluffed stroke.

Therefore something as complex as ringing, without a lot of repetition, is difficult. The situation with the availability of rope time with good ringers in my opinion is the chief problem for beginners, but not a criticism. — Judith Dennis

Sufficient, appropriate rope time is a problem no matter what level you are at. My experience is that rope time is the biggest single factor in people's progress, far more so than age, for example.

exactly. I wouldn't necessarily be prompting them to do it, but if they were clearly hesitant and wanted to, fine. It's not uncommon for experienced ringers to have a couple of practice pulls to determine if they need a box or not, if that isn't a problem, this shouldn't be either.

If you want to instil confidence in beginners, I think one of the best ways is to teach them how to safely self-recover if they miss the sally, which at some point they will.

Another thing I find from teachers/tower captains is the habit of allowing a ringer to try the bell. Answer - No! — Phillip George

Sorry, I think that's a very unhelpful approach and shows a lack of understanding of just how nerve racking it can be for a learner to ring in an unfamiliar tower and/or with unfamiliar ringers. It doesn't matter how confident the teacher is, because it's not about them, it's about the learner. If a teacher can't appreciate the difference in between ringing on your own and ringing in rounds, I have to wonder if they should be teaching at all. A quick go takes less than a minute and as the person who'd have to end up fixing the stay, I'd much prefer than nervous learners had a try on their own. There's too much macho bulls**t in ringing as it is, this sort of mindset really needs to be consigned to the past.

Speaking of feedback, as you get on it tends to get both less frequent and sometimes more negative. I think that may be because more experienced ringers feel it isn't any longer their place to give it unless you've really stuffed something up. I still find feedback very useful and welcome it, when you are out of your comfort zone it's easy to miss issues that you'd normally pick up yourself.

When you start ringing longer touches, feedback is most helpful during the touch when you can immediately do something about it. And positive feedback is important as well, not for ego massaging but so you can focus on when you've made an improvement and keep doing it like that.

I like the scree analogy, it sounds familiar :grin:

I realise this is a biased sample but that's really the point - those people have a lot to offer, not just in their direct interactions with pupils but also in helping others do the same.

I think you are both right. Of course some people get to a level and don't want to progress any further, but I don't think anyone starts with a goal of being distinctly mediocre.

Obviously there's a point in people's progress where they need to do the equivalent of moving from college to university and take primary responsibility for their progress. The challenge is supporting that - in many cases the ringing equivalent is a bit like pointing them at the university library and telling them to come back in three years for an exam. And if that's coupled with John's point about lack of groundwork, it's no wonder so many people get stuck between PH and "proper" methods.

I spent a half an hour yesterday quizzing a very experienced ringer about his "mental model", rather than the mechanics. It was invaluable - some things I'd already figured out myself and it was good to hear I wasn't too far off the mark, other things I hadn't thought of but clicked as soon as he said them. To go back to the university analogy, it was like attending a tutorial. I know the importance of the pub to ringing is often joked about, it can fill the same role but it's very hit and miss.

One thing that stood out in particular is he said that introspection was key to sustained progress. That comes across very strongly from the people who post here - it seems to me that they spend at least as much time thinking about ringing as they spend doing it. I think imbuing learners with that mindset from the start is important.

I have the full set and Linda was waving the RW at me about an hour ago, although I didn't have a chance to read the review as we were all about to leave for the next tower :smile:

I am fortunate to be retired. Therefore I have time to give extra practises to my ringers. — Phillip George

I'm not so fortunate but I still run weekly tied bell + simulator practices. The difference it has made is significant. I think if you are serious about bringing people on, extra practices are vital. Nobody is going to learn to dodge properly with the standard 2 attempts at 2 leads of PBD a week.

Some might say it’s the district ringing masters role to keep an eye on the overall quality of practices but it’s probably not realistic to expect them to be able to support improvement in all towers that need it. — Lucy Chandhial

Most district have 10s of towers, I don't think this is realistic. If RMs pre-emptively step in to fix poor practices it's sure to cause conflict, even though it's those towers that need help the most.

Surely teachers need to find out why their learners are failing and try to work out how to help them? — Sue Marsden

no attempt is made to find out WHAT they are finding difficult or WHY they are going wrong. — Sue Marsden

Other times they have not been told HOW to learn a method or even told to learn anything at all - just told to catch hold and are 'talked through' bob minor without any explanation. — Sue Marsden

All of those are issues in my experience, for a whole number of reasons:

• It's easy for a teacher to see handling problems but they can't see what's going on inside the learner's head.
• Beyond the handling stage, learning theory is necessary. Many learner's won't.
• Beyond the handling stage, doing homework is mandatory. Many learner's don't.
• Teachers "help" by "encouraging" learners (often loudly) to use skills they don't actually have, like dodging.
• Many teachers learned so long ago they can't remember how they learned a skill and can't therefore teach people it. Ropesight being a particular case.
• Other ringers get understandably snitty if a practice stalls whilst someone gets a theory lesson. See "Homework" above.
• A lot of TCs aren't much further on in the book than the rest of the band and don't have the skills to teach.
• Some TCs are very status-oriented and won't learn themselves or take outside advice, even if that ends up killing the band.
• Learners are taught to ring by bell number, or do it anyway and that quickly becomes a lifelong, incurable, debilitating addiction. "Circle of Work" isn't much better.

That's just an immediate list off the top of my head, I'm sure there are lots more. Teaching of Method Ringing (as opposed to bell handling) is generally dire, to the point where I think a reasonable approximation is that it isn't taught at all. People who learn to ring methods competently generally do so despite the "teaching" they receive, not because of it.

None of this is new, neither are the solutions. But here we still are.