Ringing Forums

thanks, those suggested speeds are helpful. I have briefly tried getting them to ring at speeds corresponding to hunting in/out, but I wasn't really sure of what speeds to use - I believe on 6 bells there's around a +/-16% difference between rounds and in/out, does that sound about right?

We need recognition of the challenges ringing is facing in areas like mine, which means listening to what we are saying and accepting the truth of it. It's hard to keep being tolerant when that doesn't happen.

I don't think "poached" is right, they'll just have moved somewhere where they preferred to ring - there are more bells than there are ringers, so people can choose. As Simon says, the incumbent has the legal power to appoint a new TC, in fact TCs are supposed to be approved by the Incumbent although that doesn't always happen.

Have you talked to the ringers who moved? If they aren't interested in coming back even with new leadership then I don't think there's much you can do, other than join them.

I agree Oxford is easier to reuse elsewhere but Kent did help with learning how to make wrong places, and that helped (a bit) with Stedman, although I still need to work on that (p.s. Diary Method is my choice :wink:) And learning the structural relationship between Oxford and Kent was also an "Ahah!" moment. The first time I rang an affected touch of either Oxford or Kent with "real" ringers was a couple of weeks ago, when we rang them both together, laminated rather than spliced I believe. Knowing the relationships between Oxford & Kent was essential, as was the kindness of the conductor!

I rarely get to ring on 8 round here as there are very few major bands and they are populated by black zoners, so out of my league. The minor band who have kindly taken me in have a fairly eclectic repertoire, they can all ring Cambridge but it's not a mainstay, so there was no pressure put on me to learn it. Because of the mix of methods I've rung, when I did decide to finally learn Cambridge it was more a case of "Yeah, I think I can probably hack my way though that" rather than "OMG!", so not rushing into it has I think been the right thing for me as I felt that I was making continual progress all the while. Hopefully I'll get a chance to ring it "for real" within the next couple of weeks :grin:

I disagree — Roger Booth

Yes, I half expected you would. A fresh learner who is still in awe of the existing ringers in their home tower is simply not going to go back and start telling them how things should be done, and if they try they'll either be ignored, or shoved out. And we don't have until 'Old Fred' retires, let alone 10 years. We have 6 months to engage learners, tops, after that most of them will at best get stuck ringing poor CCs in a poor band or worse, just give up. Which they are doing.

I'm not doubting for one minute you are getting the results you describe but it appears there's a huge amount of confirmation bias going on. Claiming that what works for you, from your lofty and well-connected position and in your part the world of ringing world, is applicable to struggling serf ringers in areas like mine is insulting. It makes it sound like you think we just aren't trying hard enough or something. We don't even have 30 ringers in total this side of Manchester, let alone 30 who would come to such sessions.

How about climbing down from your ivory rower and ringing somewhere like I do for 6 months? Then we'll talk. Because at the moment, you are coming across to me as part of the problem, not the solution.

The advantage of using the sim to "pace" a helper for the learner to follow is you know that the striking will be right, particularly coming off the front/back. The first time I did this with someone who was already PH-ing with the band, they were all over the place and they were astonished at how big the speed changes were supposed to be. That's because the rest of the band weren't doing it correctly either, and they had just learned what they saw...

I agree, ropesight and rhythm are two sides of the same coin, once I could strike in more or less the right place by "feel" then I had enough spare brain cells to look for the next bell, which helped me strike better - a virtuous circle.

I know a few experienced ringers who claim they can't hear their bell and ring solely by ropesight, but as soon as you put them on a sim they certainly can, because any mistakes are theirs. I think perhaps with real ringers it can be difficult to decide if it's you or the other guy who is out, on the sim it's only ever you.

With the sim, my learner gets an hour of dedicated practice every week, with a perfect band. It's not a substitute for ringing with a real (imperfect!) band but it's much easier to schedule, and I think regular shorter sessions are probably best for learning ringing motor skills. My view is that the using the sim means that when they do get to ring with a band they can make maximum use of the opportunity, which is more satisfying both for them and the other ringers. Using the sim is in effect physical homework :grin:

I think I've found some related slides in the Meeting Papers, pages 18-25, but not the ones from the pictures you linked to. And I'd still like to hear the presentation :grin:

Thanks for the reply, I think your second paragraph applies to a lot of areas in ringing :wink: I'm looking forward to reading through the PPE articles in order, I've just dipped in and out so far to try to find an answer to my question about Cambridge.

I'm interested to see your Minor methods list. Pre-COVID I'd got about as far as PBM with forays into Grandsire, St Simons & St Clements. During COVID I still had access to a tower simulator, but had to figure out what to ring myself. As I recollect, the first thing I chose was Double Oxford Bob as it was a plain method with the same frontwork as St Cs so I already knew 2/5ths of it, but it had lots of dodges and places, which is what I was struggling to ring accurately. Then it was on to Oxford TB as it felt like an achievable extension of trebling to TB methods, which I'd already done. Then Kent, then Woodbine, because I'd seen it on peal boards round here, and in the "Forbidden Methods" book, and I already knew the front work via Oxford/Kent and other parts were adaptions of parts of Double Oxford. Then I wanted to learn how to learn multiple similar methods, so I learned the Oxford Group (Capel, London Scholars, Kingston, Capel) and how to ring spliced touches of them - that was mostly about learning to think "on the fly" and remember the differences between each of them. Then ringing resumed, and the "Grown ups" were given Norwich as homework so I learned that - it seemed similar to stuff I already knew, I've since learned Woodbine is Oxford below the treble and Norwich above, and Woodbine has been given to the band as homework :grin:

So looking at your list, it's very similar to what I've done blundering about on my own. Learning Cambridge has taken 4-5 simulator sessions, the main "oddity" being the 4 bits of PH which feel rather strange, the front/back/middle work was tweaks to stuff I already knew. However I think if I'd tried to go straight to Cambridge I'd still be struggling, like lots of people I've seen pushed in that direction.

I feel I've come out of the blundering around that I've done is a set of patterns I can glue together into different methods, so rather than "Learning Cambridge" I've "Leaned how to learn Cambridge", and lots of other methods as well, if that makes sense. I must be one of the few people who thinks their ringing has benefited from COVID!

So far so good, I've explained to the learner why I want to try this way and they are happy to give it a go. It helps that they are a recently retired music teacher so used to small steps and individual skills.

She rang briefly 40 years ago as a teenager, one interesting comment she's made is how organised and well structured ringing training is now compared to then. I can't take any credit for that as I'm religiously following the ART scheme, which I've been through myself. But it's good to know that the changes are appreciated by learners who have experienced "The old ways".

As for your comment about ringing with good ringers, I couldn't agree more. I've been lucky to find a Surprise-level band who took me under their wing pre-COVID, even though it's a bit of a trek there. With their help I've progressed from "Struggled with PBD" to "Starting Surprise", the main surprise being that I got there at all! Without their help I'd probably have given up ringing entirely.

I've just stumbled across this thread - our current learner has only had a couple of attempts during practices at CCs but I've already started them on PH - but not in the way suggested above. After 2 sessions they are making a reasonable job of ringing PH on 5 & 6 bells. I've done that by removing everything except the bell handling component, because that's what learners struggle with the most initially. I am running individual simulator sessions for them and a helper has kindly offered to ring PH against the simulator while the learner "shadows" them on a completely silent bell, so they can concentrate solely on bell control. I also count places out loud as they ring, we've already looked at blue lines so they understand the concepts. Once they can control the bell well enough to PH reliably via shadowing we'll move on to ropesight. As a wise ringers said to me when I was struggling:

Ropesight is always easier if your rhythm is right, and gets harder the further out you get. No; it's not fair. If you ring at the right speed, you get to the right place at the right time, and, hey presto, the rope you should be following will be the rope you are following, and will be easy to spot, even though you don't need to, because you've got the bell in the right place anyway.

I'm not really convinced by the suggested 2/3/4/5/6 bell progression, because you need a very willing band to do it - otherwise the learner will only get a short go each week. And in any case, we don't have a band who can ring the suggested methods, so it's a non starter for us anyway.

thank you, I'll wait for a link to appear on the CCCBR website. The RW P/QP etc presentation looks particularly interesting, as a measure of how things are post-COVID.

From the 2022 Meeting Papers:

Strategic Priorities 2020 and beyond

2. That no ringer should hit a barrier to their own progression

If a ringer wants to progress, they should always be able to find a pathway that helps them, although it will probably not just be at their own tower.

So, 2 years on (yes, COVID, I know) and still a dismal U grade?

I can't find anything on the CCBR website either. Even if it's "too complicated & expensive" to livestream, there's no reason why the sessions couldn't have been recorded and stuck on YouTube, and the slides put on the website.

From the CCCBR 2021 Executive Report:

The Executive has met monthly online either using Zoom or Teams, having benefitted from the experience of using online meetings to reduce travel and increase efficiency - one of the few good things to have come from the pandemic.

Oh, the irony...

Of course the commercial model isn't viable. — Roger Booth

I agree, but I've seen it suggested.

these training days are often once a year, they are likely to come back to the same group next year — Roger Booth

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. — Roger Booth

So two years before they are able to treble to a QP? No wonder there's a 95% drop out rate between ART L1 & L5.

(if they haven't given up in the mean time!) — Roger Booth

Which they do, in droves. Or if they don't they never get any further than CCs and poor PH. From observation of my own cohort of learners, they've either given up or got stuck after CCs. Once they get into that place it's comfortable to just keep turning up on Sundays and ringing CCs. There's nothing wrong with that if that's their target, but by making that the easy option there's little incentive, let alone support, for people with the aptitude to become method ringers to make the effort to do so.

in my experience the majority come because they can't do what they want to learn in their own tower — Roger Booth

Those who come from weak bands can then take them back to their own towers to help improve the tuition for the others there. — Roger Booth

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.

My experience is that as a learner you "ring up" to the standard of the people you ring with, and in many areas, mine included, there's no longer the critical mass of experienced ringers plus keen learners in most of the towers to make that happen. I think in parts of the country, the "tower band" model is dead as far as method ringing goes. Of the 3 towers in my town, only 1 is now ringing and in nearby Tameside, 7 out of 10 towers are now silent, and at the remaining ones the elderly bands don't get much beyond call changes.

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

It's great that there are still areas where that isn't the case and there are thriving bands bringing method ringing learners on, but works in those areas isn't viable in areas like mine. I'd be sad to think that method ringing has effectively died out here, but that seems to be the inescapable conclusion.

I think that's a good illustration of why a fully commercial model for teaching ringing is unlikely to ever be viable. It looks like that number doesn't contain any costs for the bells & building as well, other than some broken stays, is that right?

15 minutes per learner per week doesn't sound like enough to be honest, at the tower that's kindly taken me under it's wing I get 30-45 mins a week with a Surprise-level band. On top of that I'm putting in around 2 hours a week on a tower sim + moving ringers, which has allowed me to move all the way from PBM to Norwich & Cambridge during the period when there was no "real" ringing to be had. Simulators take investment both in terms of installation costs and of time to learn to ring with them but I'm surprised they aren't used more. I know arranging access can be an issue, but they do seem like a more effective way of delivering rope time than a "live" band, and for me at least, it's rope time which has been the rate limiter on progress.

Good to have some hard data. But I'm not sure you can extrapolate costs from L1-L3 to L4-5 as the nature of the learning process changes significantly and you need a competent band to support the learner - you do note that in your reply - plus progress tends to get slower at the higher levels. However I think your estimate is a good lower bound on the costs.

I don't know where the 70 years came from, and the guidance related to safeguarding record retention seems to only be relevant if there has been a SG issue, not "Should we keep this non SG data just in case someone raises a SG issue in the future". Also, note that it is a problem if you retain personal information related to SG longer than is reasonable.

https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/media/1442/child-protection-records-retention-and-storage-guidelines.pdf

that's an impressive set of courses, and shows what can be done. A shame the approach isn't more widespread.

What we are doing is working for some of our members, but not all of our members want to be helped. — John Harrison

It's interesting to speculate on why. Taking the QP week case, towers that regularly ring QPs already might bung a couple in as a show of support, but it's pretty pointless in terms of their progression. For towers that aren't already ringing QPs, that's most likely because they aren't capable of it. Offering to parachute in some ringers (as my branch has) is almost guaranteed to fall on stony ground. You aren't going to get a band to sustainable QP standard that way, and in many cases even if there are keen newbies in the band who would like to give it a try, it's likely that the TC and the bulk of the band are long in the tooth and short on skills and won't want to be shown up.

I vividly remember one TC who, when informed by a keen new ringer that they were applying to go on a residential ringing course, for multiple weeks actively tried to dissuade them. "Why are you going to pay for that when you can get it for free here?" He was completely wrong, on multiple fronts - he might have been able to ring methods himself, but he sure as hell couldn't teach them.

"Helping" by offering to "take over" is very unlikely to succeed. People with potential but who are blocked need rescuing from their band and moving into a context where they can progress. So why aren't we seeing (say) locally based weekend "Methods for the Mystified" mini-courses, followed up by fortnightly sessions for several months, spread across 3-4 towers in a branch to ease travelling?

I see our branch purpose as to help provide the opportunities and services that members can't get from their own bands — John Harrison

I think that's a laudable goal. But running yearly QP weeks falls a long way sort of providing adequate opportunities - and to be clear, I can only talk about my local situation, your branch may be on the case and providing effective support.

Sadly we rarely get such requests, presumably because only those towers that can organise their own quarters are interested in ringing at all. — John Harrison

The problem is achieving that purpose in the face of (a) limited resources and (b) low desire of many members to avail themselves of such services, even when offered. — John Harrison

So it seems clear that what the branch is offering isn't working.

If it isn't working, why are you still doing it?

You've exactly illustrated my point, branches / associations carry on doing the same thing over and over and are apparently puzzled why something that didn't work for the last 10 years still doesn't work this year.

If you are in a hole, a good first step is to stop digging and take a good look around.