Ringing Forums

I've come across many grass roots ringers who are on the verge of giving up because the support that they receive is so backward. Only about 50% of ringers have ever got as far as ringing a quarter peal. Only about 12,000 ringers rang one or more quarter peals last year (Coronation year) out of an estimated 30,000 ringers. — Roger Booth

As a grass roots ringer at a tower that for longer than living memory was just CCs and shaky PH + cover, I can confirm all the points in your post. Also, whilst QPs are recorded and therefore one of the few observable yardsticks we have, there's still a big gap to be filled between CCs and QPs - people may not want to ring QPs but still aspire just to be able to ring plain courses of simple methods at practices and services - and of course, once some of them have broken through that barrier, they will go on to ring QPs. That's exactly what is happening at my home tower.

The grass roots ringers that you mention though include, I fear, many who only ring at their own tower and who see no point in joining the association. Your quarter peal courses sound fantastic, but are irrelevant to someone who rings plain hunt by the bell numbers and regards methods as beyond them. — J Martin Rushton

My home tower was exactly that when I started - even PH was a stretch and nobody was in the association. Now everybody is in the association and everybody is working on ringing methods, albeit simple ones. That includes people who have been ringing CCs/PH for many decades. Why did that happen? Well, some of us "went abroad" and brought back ideas from courses, training days and more advanced towers. The breakthrough was when the band managed to ring an easy Minimus method in just a single practice. "Oh wow, so we can ring methods!" was the vibe. After that, people would come to practices with lines printed out and homework done, and there's been continued progress by the whole band since then.

I think it's worth stressing that these were not new ringers who had hit a brick wall, they were long-term ringers who "regarded methods as beyond them". There's a significant number of such ringers who enjoy ringing but feel that they've reached their limits, but with the appropriate support could break out of their rut and start progressing again. The great advantage of helping that group is they are already committed to ringing - arguably even more so than people who make rapid progress!

The point I am making is that in this day and age, if we could only communicate better with this group of new ringers, and make them aware of what is possible outside their own tower, we could have a far more vibrant ringing community. However I fear that if we sit back and do not adapt because of the tired old cliche that these people are not interested, these keen people are either likely to give up and do something else, or be ground down by the system and just be another ringer that only, at best, rings shaky plain hunt by numbers in their own tower. In doing so, we will be losing a lot of the more able recruits and potentially good method ringers. — Roger Booth

I agree, but I think the applicability is broader than just new ringers.

Take a look at https://www.hibberts.co.uk/recording-bells-for-analysis/

As intangible cultural heritage can only be considered as such when it is recognised by the communities, groups or individuals that create, maintain and share it, it will be these groups and people who will be able to nominate the UK’s cherished traditions to be formally recognised.

And:

The process for adding items to the Inventory will be to call for items to be submitted by communities, groups or individuals. We anticipate requiring information about the item, its location(s), categories, and practitioners. Then, subject to a light-touch approvals process, the new entries will be announced on a regular basis – probably quarterly. We will look to engage and provide support for those who wish to submit items.

So if it is "light touch" and doesn't take a huge effort to get registered, I can't see why not. But as you say, it's early days yet.

Despite the way it is reported in the press, the current consultation is to establish the criteria for inclusion rather than establishing an actual list. The survey is now open at https://dcms.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9MsgupKs6P9kxw2

See also https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/2003-unesco-convention-for-the-safeguarding-of-the-intangible-cultural-heritage/consultation-on-the-2003-unesco-convention-for-safeguarding-of-the-intangible-cultural-heritage

it would raise visibility and makes things such as publicity, and funding slightly easier. I think any effect on recruitment would be indirect.

I absolutely agree it's a marathon and not a sprint, particularly when it comes to ongoing learning. Relatively speaking it's quick and easy to get someone ringing rounds and CCs, progressing to method ringing is obviously much harder and takes much longer, and some towers can struggle to provide appropriate support. And of course not everyone who starts ringing will want to progress that far anyway. ART is great at the early stages, but unless you are at a strong tower, progress can often stall after around L3. I'm not sure how you address that, but I do think it needs addressing.

I think the point about capacity is an important one to consider. I know of one tower that ended up with 10 - 15 new learners as a result of RftK, which doesn't seem remotely sustainable. We've limited our learners to a maximum of two per training session as we only have one teacher, even if that has meant asking people to wait (which they have). The reasoning is that it's better to try to get a smaller number of people ringing with the band a s quickly as possible rather than giving more people a poorer experience. Plus a steady supply of new ringers is easier for the rest of the band to integrate.

Perhaps it means getting some sort of process in place for managing requests that can currently come in from multiple different sources, e.g.

* https://cccbr.org.uk/bellringing/learn/
* https://bellringing.org
* http://www.ringingteachers.org/

As well as the many related association pages, e.g.

* https://birminghambells.com/
* https://derbyda.org.uk/about/education/training-request-individual/

but that's just a guess...

it's both rather than one or the other - without ringers, towers don't get maintained and fairly quickly become unringable. Several of the towers in Tameside are unringable and the ones which are technically ringable but that don't have a band need inspecting and work before they can be rung. The diminishing number of ringers in the area can't justify that effort for 1 or 2 ringing sessions a year.

It is very possible that Wigan could be without change ringing within five years or a decade. — Tristan Lockheart

It's already happened in some areas:

http://www.tamesidehistoryforum.org.uk/bellringing.htm

That page was authored in 2020. For the 3 out of 10 towers that were listed as still ringing then, only 1 is a method ringing tower and the numbers of ringers at 2 of the 3 are down by 30-50%.

We certainly have issues in this area but I'm not aware of ageism being one of them. — John Harrison

Good for you.

Is anyone saying it is the cure for all problems? — John Harrison

Where in the 2030 policy does it mention addressing the needs of mature ringers?

It seems obvious that we need far more effective youth recruitment than we currently have — John Harrison

Yes, I've said that several times. But it needs not to be at the detriment of adequate support for the majority of learners.

I don't see the evidence. — John Harrison

Perhaps you are fortunate to ring in an area where it isn't an issue. But that's certainly not the case elsewhere.

without alienating older, experienced ringers — Tristan Lockheart

That is not referring to older learners. And that's from an an external report, the CCCBR Ringing 2030 policy document mentions "youth" or "young" ringers nine times and older ringers not at all. So as I said, it's seems clear that the official CCCBR policy is to ignore them, despite them being the majority of recruits.

I agree that there is no clear strategy for specifically improving the opportunities available to older (50+) learners, but without the interest of people willing to put the time and energy into it, such a focus won't happen. — Tristan Lockheart

The age is way lower than 50+, it's more like 25+.

You aren't exactly making a compelling pitch. Why would anyone put their time and energy into something that appears not to be considered worthwhile or valued?

Whilst youth recruitment is clearly important, that must not be at the disbenefit of the majority of current ringing recruits. Even if youth recruitment is successful, it is unlikely to deliver the numbers in the timescales required to prevent the extinction of method ringing in many areas. We need to maximise the abilities of the people we have already recruited to keep method ringing alive until the next generation can pick up the reins.

the point is that any sort of progress is a good thing, it doesn't have to be at or even lead to elite level ringing - but I think we are violently agreeing.

Youth recruitment is important for all the reasons you give, but believing that that it's the cure for ringing's current problems is ridiculous, not least because there's no chance we'll recruit 4,000 young ringers a year (@Roger Booth's estimate). Adult recruits are going to be the majority for the foreseeable future, yet "Ringing 2030" seems to have ignored them. And as you point out, addressing "quality issues" benefits all ringers irrespective of age or length of service.

it would be silly to reject or accept people because of a stereotype. — John Harrison

Yes, it would be. But ageism is pervasive throughout ringing and now seems to be official CCCBR policy. Not that I expect that it will actually have much impact as the CCCBR is pretty irrelevant to the grass roots. "Run by the elite, for the elite" I think sums it up.

from what I've seen, the towers that are in most need of help are the least likely to look for it and are the least likely to be engaged with the branch. There are multiple reasons for that - the band isn't interested in improving, they don't realise they need help, previous bad experiences, worried about loss of face and so on.

I think a push model will work in some cases, but can backfire and make things worse. Even isolated towers are aware of other ringing in their area so a pull model may be better. Ringers who want to get on often look for a second tower to ring at, supporting them and letting them "carry the good news" back to their home tower is a slower but possibly more effective way of moving standards on.

That's not without problems though, there's a risk of the second towers getting overwhelmed, and of the core band getting burned out.

I think this misses the point that we have lots of older learners and many of them still have 30 years of ringing ahead of them when they learn. — Lucy Chandhial

You are right, it does. I was part of the "focus group" for the Yellowyoyo / Ringing 2030 effort and I made that point and others about older ringers several times, as far as I can tell that has been ignored and my feeling is that I wasted my time participating.

Item 2 of the CCCBR's Strategic Priorities 2020 and beyond:

That no ringer should hit a barrier to their own progression

is a platitude that I see no signs of ever being delivered - well, unless you start ringing under the age of 25, that is.

I hope that the recent trial survey of ringers shows that we have many ringers over 40 and over 60 who have been ringing less than five years and less than ten years so there is no obvious reason to assume that if you don’t learn under 20 (or under 40) that you won’t become a regular ringer who builds experience and rings for many years to come. — Lucy Chandhial

I agree, there's no reason based purely on age. We have an 80 year old who is doing the "homework" to learn simple methods and seems to be really enjoying the challenge. Will they ever be ringing Surprise Major? Unlikely, but I don't think they are interested in doing that anyway and besides, that's completely missing the point - they are making progress and because of their participation, so is the entire band. We need them ringing with us. Yet the ringing "hierarchy" writes people like them off.

I think we should be careful not to focus exclusively on recruiting young ringers and be careful not to leave older learners feeling unwanted, uncared for or disregarded when we look at the future of ringing for 2030 and beyond. — Lucy Chandhial

Yes, you are right but that paragraph accurately describes my experience of ringing, with the exception of a few beacons of light who are the only reason I'm still participating. Ringing is permeated by age based apartheid and I see no signs of that changing. Indeed the opposite, it now seems to becoming official CCCBR policy. From the outside, it appears that ringing is managed by the elite, for the elite.

If an adult is looking for a socially-based hobby and is happy to just ring CCs & PH at their local tower then I think they'll be fine learning to ring. But if they have any aspirations to progress into method ringing, I'd strongly discourage them as it will be an incredibly difficult and frustrating process, where the expectation is that you are incapable of it and not worth supporting. The assumptions about the low potential of late starters is endemic throughout ringing and is a self-reinforcing prejudice, to the point where the exceptions are considered to be notable.

Did the trial survey show any trends in educational subjects? Should we be asking ringers about their other hobbies / regular activities? How do we know whether someone is more likely to definitely enjoy and commit to bellringing? — Lucy Chandhial

Speaking from my own experience, I think a predictor might be anyone who has a reasonably complex hobby or hobbies that requires continual learning and that they participate in regularly. But there are many other activities where they'd be welcomed as a late starter, my advice would be to take up one of them rather than ringing.

If the learner's bell isn't where it should be it might be more helpful to give advice on that, or on the need to change speed, both of which are likely to be valid for several blows. — John Harrison

Yes, and personally I find it very helpful to be reminded which place I'm supposed to be in and/or what comes next, as losing track of that is normally why I'm in the weeds in the first place. Telling me a bell number often puts me right for only one blow.

so much of this I want to say 'but it shouldn't be like that' or 'but we never do it like that'. Even teaching other kids in my teens with no access to books or courses I'm sure we did better than that, so I wonder why such customs have become so widespread. We probably need to understand that as much as knowing all the ways to do things better. — John Harrison

There are many supportive towers offering a good learning environment with happy learners making progress. However it is and miss and if you are unlucky to be in a bad tower, you likely don't ring anywhere else and therefore can't recognise the poor deal you are getting.

It only takes a couple of toxic ringers to cause issues in an area. As an adult it can be uncomfortable reverting to being a learner, I think one of the most common attributes of adult learners is lack of confidence. Under those circumstances, the continual put-downs I've seen (and been subjected to myself) can be very corrosive. I've become inured to it (I've just started to ring Cambridge Major largely as a response to it) but that's not the case for everyone.

I would however stress that I've also had lots of support and encouragement from many ringers, for which I'm very appreciative. But the others definitely didn't help.

There's a whole section about standing behind in The Tower Handbook, see: https://jaharrison.me.uk/thb/12-2.html#12-2 . There's probably a Learning Curve Article on it too, called 'Back seat driver' iirc — John Harrison

http://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/200011.pdf

All excellent advice, thanks for the pointers.