Ringing Forums

Right now, in our villages, ringing is being kept going, our communities are flourishing, ringers are recruited, supported and trained to the maximum that they are capable of — Barbara Le Gallez

I'm happy to hear that things are rosy in your area of the ringing world, but the national data that we do have suggests the opposite is true in many other areas. Can you lay out how that was achieved in your area? If there are are areas that have this problem cracked, I think it's important to share experiences so that struggling areas can learn from them.

Has anyone done any research on what ringers want? — Alan C

I think the last national ringing survey was quite some time ago? In the absence of that, here's some data points from my home tower.

• What percentage of ringers actually want to put in the effort to ring more demanding methods?
  It's subsisted on CC/PH for the last 40 years, but now all of them want to move forwards. And "demanding method" in our context is "any method".
• What percentage of ringers will travel distance to attend local/regional training centres?
  Currently ~40%, and I expect that to rise to around 75%. Until recently, none of them rang outside the tower.
• What percentage of ringers see the art as an all consuming passion, what percentage see the art as a weekly social activity?
  I think most are in the middle rather than at the extremes, but we have people at either end. But in any case, why does that matter? If people have an unfilled desire to improve, that needs to be satisfied.

And of course, other towers may well be radically different.

So what?

Whilst a national survey would be interesting, I don't see it as a prerequisite for change, I think the issues are already well known. There seems to be an compulsion in the higher echelons of ringing to find out about everything in excruciating detail and then spend forever discussing it before doing anything. I don't think that's new, as far as I can tell that has been the case for decades and the consequence is where we are now.

There is a name for that - "Analysis Paralysis", the mistaken belief that if you just had a bit more data you could make perfect decisions. You can't, much better to pick the most likely set of approaches, try them quickly, pick the ones that work in practice, discard the ones that don't and keep iterating.

But at the moment this is all we have and without it ringing would fold ... They are loyal to their weekly routines, which is keeping ringing going — Phillip George

Without recruitment and training their weekly routine has a limited future. Round here, most towers either already have or are going to die anyway - 9 out of 12 in one area are already silent and I expect the remaining 3 to join them within a couple of years. Ringing is in an existential crisis, we need to stop kidding ourselves that because a few towers in an area are still clanking away at CCs & PH for services every couple of weeks, things are not really that bad.

ringers in my (typical?) local, rural area are concerned with weekly practices (often shared and on a tower rota) to enjoy their ringing. They have little thought for the future of ringing and don't engage much with the Association. — Phillip George

That was the case at my home tower for the last 40 years, CCs and poor PH and absolutely no contact with the association. Then we had a rehang and then a new TC (one of the existing ringers), now we are starting to ring simple methods, people have joined the association, attended events and we are even having a tower outing.

It's largely the same set of people that were ringing in the tower before. It's a mistake to believe that just because things aren't changing that people are averse to change and improvement. There are many reasons why towers end up in a rut; lack of accessible, appropriate training and support are some important ones. Some of that is available but it's often fragmented and difficult to access.

Once you reached the minimum standard of the next tower, you were moved up, and people from the more advanced towers would support one or two of the less advanced towers. — Tristan Lockheart

https://stmartinsguild.org/teaching/birmingham-school-of-bell-ringing/programme/

Do YellowYoYo have any ideas how to bring about change in voluntary organisations that are driven by emotional attachment rather than in organisations driven by career progression and money — A J Barnfield

As I understand it, their brief is marketing ringing and not organisational change, so I suspect it's outside their remit.

So for instance you get every experienced surprise maximus ringers teaching bell handling whereas it would be better if they were running surprise major practices, and those attendees were doing the teaching of those on lower floors. So the surprise major practices tend not to happen. — Simon Linford

This and the following paragraph are spot on, and are something I'm seeing playing out for real, right now. Someone in one of the associations I ring in has just started a fortnightly Surprise Minor/Major practice, which they've had to do by drawing in people from multiple towers as none of them have critical mass to do it on their own any more. The second session looks a bit low on numbers of experienced ringers, and in the ensuing discussion one of the branch's best ringers said he's happy to see the sessions happening but he can't come as it clashes with his tower's practice night - a tower that was Surprise Major until recently and is now CCs and PB5 and as he put it "is on a knife edge". That was echoed by another similarly experienced ringer. I understand the tower loyalty thing, but people at their level are a precious resource that shouldn't be squandered teaching handling and CCs.

My concern is that we are rapidly heading towards a situation (or are already in it) where we have numerous towers with 1-2 experienced ringers but with an overall low standard. That's a double whammy - not only is it a waste of scarce advanced teaching talent, it also means there's no progression path for the subset of ringers who are capable and interested in continuing up the skill pyramid.

I am not absolutely convinced by "prestige" of teaching, although there is certainly kudos attached to it — Simon Linford

I was trying to be diplomatic, clearly a mistake :joke: I've been looked at askance when I've told people I was teaching handling, the subtext being "Who the f**k are you to be teaching anyone anything when you can't ring X?" That usually goes away once I explain the context, but that should not be necessary. If we want to encourage more people to teach on the ground floor, that attitude needs to be die.

I'm not suggesting that top-tier ringers shouldn't teach handling if they enjoy it and are good at it. But we can't fix ringing's participation issues by trying to draw ever harder on the people in the already small and diminishing tip of the "ringing pyramid". Even if numbers weren't decreasing there, a "pull from the top" approach doesn't scale. If we somehow recruited 10,000 new learners we simply couldn't teach them. We need to broaden the base of the pyramid and that means both more learners and teachers at that level, then we could use a "push from the bottom" approach to replenish the tip of the pyramid.

I started teaching handling when I was just about capable of ringing PB6, and by then I'd already been assisting with teaching for quite some time - the branch ringing master who taught me to ring asked me to help with succeeding sets of learners, saw that I had an interest and aptitude and encouraged me to arrange and go on an ART Module 1 course. I wasn't the only person at my level on the course. Most people in my situation don't have any illusions about our abilities, but we are often the only person in a struggling tower who is in a position to train the new ringers we desperately need. And that's the case at an increasing number of towers. We can't draw on a pool of "experienced method ringers" to teach beginners, because they simply don't exist in the numbers required.

I rewatched this presentation by Ruth Eyles at the ART conference in 2014 yesterday, who explained how cycling in the UK had massively broadened it's participation, and the positive effect that had on the elite level as well. The presentation struck a lot of chords with me and I think there's a lot that could be fairly directly applied to ringing, but here we are 8 years on with things only just starting to change. We don't have another 8 years to faff around.

Recruitment might sensibly target, but not filter. The filtering comes later based on aspiration and aptitude. — A J Barnfield

I think that's right, I think it's very difficult to know who will "make it" from the start, because it's not just a question of raw aptitude, it's also largely about desire to do it well and commitment.

A mistake I made with my first two learners was to not make it 100% clear at the start that the deal was they would be expected to turn up on Sunday mornings as soon as they were competent. Despite how that may appear, it had absolutely nothing to do with anything religious, it was about assessing the level of commitment they were likely to give the band.

How long do you give someone to pass Level 1 (competent bell handling) before saying that they are taking up a valuable space and maybe ringing is not for them? — Simon Linford

Difficult one. I've seen teachers burned out by taking on too many lost causes and keeping them going for too long.

simulators and other teaching devices; much better than whatever you can get in a 1 1/2 hours practice night weekly (or less in some areas) — Tristan Lockheart

My ringing didn't really step up until I had access to a simulator whenever I was so inclined. They aren't a substitute for ringing with a band, but used appropriately they are a huge help - they don't get bored and want to bugger off the the pub :smile:

more emphasis on encouraging and selecting those who are well suited and likely to do well. — John Harrison

I'd be interested to hear thoughts on how such people could be identified?

So somebody who is "just interested in service ringing" ought to be very highly motivated to develop their God-given talent to the utmost. — Barbara Le Gallez

Which clearly isn't the case.

If bands perform badly, that reflects on their ability rather than their motivation, I can't see why you would support ringers differently based on their motivation rather than ability. — Alan C

I think that's overly simplistic. Bands may perform badly for a whole host of reasons. ability being just one of them, and probably not the most important one. And why wouldn't you support ringers based on their motivation? What would be the point of trying to teach advanced methods to someone who was just interested in service ringing, for example?

motivation will be a strong determinant of whether they try to improve their ability ... — John Harrison

Yes, spot on with all of this comment.

I don't think motivation is 'their own business' — John Harrison

And the same here too.

I don't suppose anyone wants to perform badly, but why people ring is their own business and their motives are not subject to the approval, or otherwise, of others. — Alan C

A couple of responses to that:

• Some ringing is awful and it's clear that the culprits have no idea - and that includes some bands ringing methods. Although they might not want to perform badly, the end result from outside the tower is indistinguishable.
• I think it's perfectly reasonable to want to understand the motivations of people who ring, as AJB says, how else are you going to know what support they might need? What isn't OK is passing judgement on their motivation, which I have seen happen, sadly,

My comments below are not directed to you personally — Phillip George

Don't worry, I didn't assume they were. I'm just a late starter who's found it difficult to advance, who sees others who started after me in the same position and hopes things could be improved for them.

Do the majority of ringers want to improve their ringing? — Alan C

I think they do, but that doesn't mean they all want to become Surprise ringers. Whatever support they are given needs to be aligned with their aspirations and abilities. I think @Simon Linford's promotion of Devon CCs is a good example of that - indeed my home tower is now regularly ringing 60 on 3rds.

Whilst recruitment is obviously key, it's unlikely that the ability profile of new recruits is going to be significantly different to the current ringing population. That means that around 10% of them will become Surprise level method ringers. Even with vastly improved training that figure probably wouldn't exceed 20%. We need to have structures in place to help ringers perform to the best of their ability at whatever level that is - "Excellence at all levels".

What is improved ringing, is it ringing what you can with greater accuracy, or ringing more complicated methods (obviously not in Devon and Cornwall), or a combination of both? — Alan C

Yes, all of the above, with the understanding that not everyone is going to aspire to be a method ringer. Those people need to be supported as well.

The best hope would be setting up a separate parallel organisation where the emphasis is on the development of method ringing. ART is part way there — A J Barnfield

I agree. Some sort of national body which could provide support and resources to promote method ringing. If only we had such an organisation already... :razz:

I think you are right that many towers and branches are blindly doing what they've been doing for years, a model that clearly doesn't work otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. I don't believe that the majority of ringers are averse to change, and I don't think age has all that much to do with attitudes. I think the issue is that there's often a big disconnect between "bog standard" ringers and the people who are branch/association officers - it's not that nobody's hungry to improve, it's that what's on the menu is not suitable for them.

For example, I've had an email via one of the associations I'm a member of announcing a series of fortnightly surprise major/minor practices - but as far as I can tell it's a standalone effort, rather than something coming from the association. Whilst it's great for me as I'm just starting to ring Surprise, there's nothing on offer to help people cross the gaping chasm between PH and Surprise, and those people make up the majority of ringers. As @Phillip George said, the potential of most ringers is not being realised. Yes we need new recruits but if we can't meet the aspirations of the ringers we already have, what's the point? Improving the support for and skills of existing ringers must surely be the first step - we don't have to recruit them and for goodness sake they can already ring!

A good question is "What would it take to start to change things?" I think it's less than you might expect. It's easy to be daunted by the size of the problem, but unless you start somewhere, things will never improve. I'm not a great fan of "big strategy" approaches to problems, much better I feel to pick something small, get things rolling, see what works and what doesn't and to use that experience to iterate towards a fuller solution.

I think the question we should be asking is "What things can we can do quickly that would start to improve matters?", not "How do we draw up a master plan to fix all of ringing's issues".

We are all famous :rofl:

Mentioned in dispatches! :grin:

https://cccbr.org.uk/2022/10/07/ringing-2030-planning-for-the-future-of-ringing/

Fair points. And I have no idea how you'd work you the alternate timeline! :lol:

Clearly it's not possible to 'keep getting better' indefinitely, so that simplistic goal is easy to shoot down by those who don't want to make any effort — John Harrison

I think we are coming at that from different starting points in the human lifetime :grin: As a late starter, I expect to "run out" before ringing challenges do, which means I'll be improving for all of my ringing career and I think that's going to be the case for most in my position - indeed, it's one of the main reasons why ringing was attractive to me. However I can see that if you start young that might not be the case.

I agree with you about different sorts of barriers and core skills - I think the teaching of basic handling is better than it ever has been but there's still room for improvement. From my experience, teaching of the level of bell control needed for method ringing (which is a lot about anticipation and keeping "ahead of the bell") is often poor, and nobody tells you how to develop ropesight, or how to learn methods, or anything much else. It's often "You just need to do it". No wonder that many learners plateau at that level. It's much harder to teach the more advanced stages as unlike handling, you can't see inside people's heads, but I think we can do better than we currently do.

Your points about belfry reform are interesting, and confirm a lot of what I've read previously (not really surprising as you wrote some of it!) Overall though I still think it's had a negative impact, at least at the present time, because the last four of your points appear to have completely eclipsed the first two.

I think my comment about life support hasn't quite been understood ... I was referring more generally to ringing — John Harrison

Sure, but I think a lot of what applies at the tower level also applies more generally? The lower the starting base, the harder the recovery.

Excellence at all levels is a good focus, and I would interpret it in terms of attitude more broadly rather than narrowly in terms of just striking. — John Harrison

I think that's right, you aren't going to keep getting better, no matter what level you are at, without it. Once you get to ringing "for duty" it's difficult to regain the impetus to improve - why would you need to? I think we are still dealing with the damage caused by Belfry Reform, historically change ringing was separate from service ringing, and I'm sure that's what drove innovation and standards, not clanking away on a Sunday for 30 minutes.

Do we want keen ringers who will ensure ringing thrives? Or do we want it kept on life support by well meaning people who aren't that keen? — John Harrison

I think the answer to that is complicated. I think to keep a tower on life support and still ringing requires a large amount of keenness, even if it lacks in technical accomplishment. My home tower had a near death experience - for quite some time the band was down to two ringers who would turn up every Sunday and ring two bells - "Our aim was just to keep the bells ringing". Off the back of that the band has slowly grown again - I only started ringing because I can hear them from the house and went along to be nosey. In 2018 we rehung them and the same two ringers paid a huge part in that, both in terms of fundraising and labouring! They're both in their 80s and ring less now, but we owe them a huge debt of gratitude, I'm not sure I'd have kept going when they did. We are just starting to ring very simple methods, which we think is the first time that's happened in the tower for around 40 years. The other two towers in the town are now silent.

Estimates are that only around 10% of ringers are ever going to make it to the red zone and whilst better later stage training might improve that percentage, increasing the size of the 90% is I believe going to be the most effective way of increasing the numbers at red/black levels, which needs both recruitment and improving retention

We need to keep keen starters keen by providing them with encouragement and continuing support, then more of them will keep progressing and not hit a wall. "Excellence at all levels" seems to be what @Simon Linford is promoting, if I'm interpreting it correctly, and I think that's absolutely right. I do think things are beginning to change - I looked at the BellBoard data and for the first time ever, this year there have been more CC performances recorded than PB. I know there are multiple things that have contributed to that but the fact that "bog standard" bands feel that their contributions are valued enough to warrant recording seems to be something new, and I think it's to be welcomed.