Ringing Forums

I think that's a very sound idea and certainly would help, particularly the step by step part. My home tower is going through that sort of transition at the moment, with a mix of longer standing By The Bell Numbers ringers and newer recruits who I relentlessly remind that Places Are The Only Way from the very start.

There are materials out there already that could also be referenced as resources, for example The Whiting Society's How to Learn Methods booklet. Whilst there's lots of "How to learn X Minor" material available, there's much less available for how to set about learning methods in general, both as a group and individually.

I think what you propose would probably enable towers to get to around the level of touches of Oxford TB Minor and similar. From personal experience, it can be a big step up from there to Surprise Minor, and then Major. For that I think you'd need a band of at 7-8 Surprise Major ringers, two learners in at the same time is about the maximum, and you need a lifeguard standing by as well. Ringers at that level are getting harder to find, here at least - but then again, the proportion of "improvers" who want to take on that level is lower as well.

Looking at the Volunteering & Leadership Ringing 2030 Plan I see tasks titled:

Development: Material Resources, Teacher Support, Course packages

which certainly looks like duplication with ART to me...

People are being asked to provide input on finance for projects. If the project status information is out of date, how can people form an opinion? It needs to be updated, or removed from view until it has been updated. Either would be fine.

I think use of '2030' infers no need to act until 2030 — Ken Webb

From the CCCBR project page:

Ringing 2030 is about considering what we need ringing to be like in 2030, what we need to change in order to get there, and then making sure we effect that change.

But if you look at the Product Roadmap, the earliest entry is dated 1st April 2023 and none of the projects have been delivered yet, with many of the In Progress ones being past their due date. That may be because the plan isn't kept updated, but if it isn't there's not much point in having it.

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right that currently the bedrock of many towers are going to be mature recruits, the challenge is how to ensure they form a good "seed bed" for the next generations of method ringers. That is going to require a minimum standard of ringing that I suspect many towers are going to struggle to provide unless existing bands are helped to up their game. My belief is that there's a lot of untapped potential in existing rank and file ringers, not all of them for sure but from the "Room at the top" articles it's clear that advanced method ringing has always been a minority pursuit. I'm a late starter and certainly not a "ringing natural" but I expect to be able to ring simple spliced Surprise Major within the next 6-12 months or so. That's taken a lot of persistence and effort, spurred on in part by several "old soaks" telling me I wasn't up to it because of my age. I wonder how many more there are like me, and how much further and faster we'd get with better support?

interesting, thanks for the information. My concern around funding is not it being discussed, it's that it seems to be the primary focus at the moment, along with branding, marketing and so on. I don't think those should a priority when the fundamentals - increasing the numbers and competency of people at the end of ropes - seem to be getting far less attention. It's the prioritisation that I'm concerned about, not the long-term task list.

The benefits are that the project is funded quickly and time isn't dedicated to protracted discussion. — Jonathan Frye

Where's the fun in that? :joke:

ART's model of paid administrative support seems to have been extremely successful. — Jonathan Frye

It does but I suspect that was the administrative cart following the successful horse rather than the other way around. At present the focus seems to be about how to fund things that don't even exist yet. Something, something, something, indians, chiefs...

Your subsequent comments make it clear that it is. — John Harrison

Repeat it all you like, but no it isn't. I don't know what the problem is, I haven't disagreed with anything in your approach, indeed I do all the same things. What I've said is that in addition to those, myself and the people I teach find the visuals helpful.

I agree with all the benefits you list — John de Overa

yes, everything you say is right. There's nothing wrong using simulators for sound control (we are using ours for an all-day practice this month) but there are a lot of other uses that are often left untapped. I think you are right about dumbbells as well - I know of a ringing centre that has 2 to make up a ring of 10, but they are never used. I think you could make the same case about many augmentations as well...

Your comments suggest a lot less agreement than the headline comment. — John Harrison

That's not the case, I just didn't think it was necessary to repeat all the points you'd already made.

The core skills of a ringer are to be able to ring with a reliable rhythm — John Harrison

Yes, I ring at least 50% of the time without looking at the sim screen at all, for the reasons you list. I can ring a bob course of Cambridge Major that way, but the striking is better if I have the screen on so I have vision to help - as is the case for people when ringing "for real". Ropesight in real ringing is different to the sim, it can be quite hard to make rhythm your primary reference when ringing for real as traditional training has such an overwhelming emphasis on "ropesight". Indeed it's currently the most discussed and agonised over topic on the learner's Facebook group.

I suspect you can, but I have never used visuals with a simulator so it's academic — John Harrison

I'm sure it's academic in your case because of your skill level, but for my level it certainly isn't. I started one of our learners on PH two weeks after his first unassisted CCs with the band, on the simulator, with the moving ringers and with a highlight showing which ringer to follow. I did that because I wanted him not to obsess about bell numbers, but instead to concentrate on handling, listening and rhythm. Having "follow the dot" removes the cognitive load of worrying about bell numbers and I stand beside him counting the places so he can start to internalise that as well. There's still a way to go but it only took him 2 sessions to get through his first course of PH.

ringers (in general) like to do things the way they always have and don't like to spend money. — John Harrison

It's worse than that, many of the people teaching can't remember what it was like to learn as they did it so long ago, and just crank out the same things they were taught. They are the survivors of that antiquated approach, the majority never made it.

Simulators seem like a perfect fit for spending some of the cash mountains many BRFs are sitting on as they are an obvious "ringing infrastructure" item.

the application was about far more than just putting the bells back — Roger Booth

NHLF's mandatory requirement is to 'engage new audiences with heritage' and it's all the soft stuff that that helped us tick the boxes. — Roger Booth

That's exactly the same as our experience with the HLF for our rehang in 2018. We went to the HLF offices for a "How to make a successful bid" day, they made it very clear that "Please fund our hobby" wasn't going to work. They encouraged us to include things in the bid that weren't directly related to the rehang if they increased engagement. As a result we included (and they paid for) a simulator (training), funding to send existing ringers on the ART course (training), CCTV for the bells (accessibility), roller banners on church history, our peal boards & ringing (outreach & accessibility), hire of a mobile belfry (outreach) and even funding for a post-project BBQ. We also showed them our plans for engagement with the community via ringing to open the Xmas market & Autumn fete, tower open days, brownies & scouts visits etc, which we are still doing. We also have a social media presence and the local community know who we are - I get approached on the street fairly often.

without ART things would be even worse now. — Roger Booth

They absolutely would be much worse. I'll never be a top flight ringer but thanks to ART I have the ability to safely train our recruits, and our isolated tower that at one point had just 2 ringers left now has 9, with a goal for another 3 or so. But I can only get people so far, it's a struggle for me to keep progressing my own ringing and I'm concerned about those coming up behind me. ART is great for the early stages but the model is primarily based around individual teachers. Once you get into "serious" method ringing then it needs support from multiple ringers, and that's a much bigger challenge.

We need to be clear that the funding required is re people not hardware. — Ken Webb

Absolutely this. But if I look at the Ringing 2030 plans they are dominated by what I'd describe as "Product management", "Product development" is rather thin. I chose to keep my career in R&D and as a senior engineer I spend quite a lot of my time on management activities so I'm fully aware of their importance. But without something to actually sell, they are pretty pointless - most of the successful products I've worked on have started out with ideas and initial implementations before rolling out all the support that's needed to deliver them as "product". I'd rather see multiple attempts at improving the lot of rank and file ringers happening first, seeing which ones work and then figuring out how to deliver them at scale. "Rapid prototyping" if you like. But I suspect I'm tilting at windmills.

So how do we set about getting more people's time? — John Harrison

Well, if I knew the answer to that... :wink: I think the trite answer is "more and better engagement of existing ringers". Looking in the Volunteering & Leadership Plan I saw two things that looked related, "Tinder for Ringers" and "Relaunch of Cast of 1000". The first would presumably be for linking up ringers and opportunities to ring but there's no details and it's not listed in the main project plan, and the second is in a section marked "not planned or indeed certain" neither of which is exactly encouraging.

However it's done, I think it's going to be a challenge, which is why it's important to start on it first. Some towers will be capable but won't be interested, for example I know of one Surprise Major tower where 3 people have left because of the TC's attitude to "improvers". For other towers, even PB looks like an unachievable goal. So I think whatever is done, it's going to have to be cross-tower, and likely cross-association, but most importantly, regular, ideally weekly. But I haven't seen any signs of activity towards that yet.

One very under-used resource is the simulator — John Harrison

There you are preaching to the choir :smile: I included a sim in our 2018 HLF bid and it's used at least 3 times a week, to provide sound for basic bell handling and for learning method ringing, with the moving ringers display. I agree with all the benefits you list but as you also say sims only get you so far. Abel for example doesn't model wheel sizes so you have to correct for that when ringing "for real". I've also been told point blank "You can't learn ropesight on a simulator" which is wrong. It's not perfect - I struggle with ropesight anyway - but I certainly struggle less when ringing for real as a result of using the simulator. One of the biggest advantage is the vastly increased amount of ropetime sims allow, which means when people do get a chance to ring stuff "for real" there's a much better chance they'll succeed. My last QP inside was PB6, after a number of intermediate steps I'm now working on Cambridge & Yorkshire Major - every single one achieved first on the sim. But it still needs to be backed up by real ringing, I'm currently travelling 45 mins each way every 2 weeks to a different association for 2 half courses of Cambridge Major, which means that transferring from the sim to real is slow progress. It's that gap which I think needs addressing as a matter of urgency, once we fall below a critical mass of method ringers in an area, it' extremely difficult to re-establish.

These questions miss the point that the CC should and does focus on those things that can't easily or economically be done at a local level, or by a local Association. — Graham John

Recent discussions on here suggest that many associations are in a dire state, it didn't sound like they were going to be able to address the issues.

We can show that when followed up effectively, they are not only an excellent PR tool, but also a good way of recruiting new ringers. — Roger Booth

And then what's next? They end up in a struggling local tower that can barely ring PH? Ringing needs a lot of investment for sure but the biggest need is people's time, not money. Getting someone ringing properly takes a large amount of time for the tutors, the pupils and those around them providing support and a solid band. What we should be worrying about first is running out of the people resources needed to train new ringers, not money.

Glad to hear it, but it's not the impression given by the Ringing 2030 content on the CCCBR website. The YellowYoYo Future Vision report makes a nod towards adult ringing but it's dominated by youth ringing. Of course youth ringing is important but there needs to be a balance, and we need to cater for the people who are actually turning up at towers, not just the ones we might wish for. There's no point recruiting promising ringers of any age if they end up in towers where even well-struck PH is a stretch. We'll get one chance at engaging them and if they drop out through lack of progress they'll never come back. The success of any effort to sustain and grow ringing, method ringing in particular, is entirely dependent on having the necessary level of support across the country for recruits which means weekly access to opportunities at the appropriate level, and in some areas that's already entirely disappeared.

Recruitment and Development is Pillar 2 of the 2030 plan, but according to the Project Board, most of the Pillar 2 activities with the exception of the SW ringing course are inactive, and one of the most important ones, Regional Teaching Centres, is in Backlog. The current list of priorities seems to be based on what's easy to define and relatively easy to deliver which is reasonable enough, but without addressing the longer term and harder to deliver requirements, I can't see that the chances of success are good.

I think most towers probably know already, the challenges are often either not knowing what to do about it, or they've had embarrassing / painful experiences with "outside help". It's a hard nut to crack, how do you enable a tower to grow themselves?

The CCCBR strategy seems to be "Let's not bother with the existing 20/30k ringing duffers, let's just start over with teenagers", and run a couple of extra summer schools. It's the "easy" option but futile, you aren't going to sustain ringing that way, outside of a few "honeypots". I think it's going to result in ringing becoming even more of a niche activity than it already is.

I think if ringing is going to reverse its decline its something that needs figuring out, and soon. Not much point spending money on marketing, publicity, mobile belfrys etc if all it achieves is more people who get no further than PH. I've looked at the project plans on the CC website, currently there are thin pickings in the area around progression into method ringing. Nobody is going to become a competent method ringer by attending a course once a year, it takes regular support and ropetime.

Plan for succession — Phillip George

In a significant number of towers it's a case of planning how to get started again. It would be interesting to hear experiences of any CC/PH towers that progressed from there to method ringing at a level beyond PB & GS.

I've seen exactly the same attitude. From what I've been told, change ringing on the east side of Manchester was never great, it's now extinct and the majority of towers are now silent, in an urban area with a population of 250,000

well, it was before I started ringing, so I have an excuse :wink:

Interesting observation about bottom up versus top down - I think bottom up is the more sustainable approach, but I have no silver bullet suggestions as to how that might be scaled up to the degree that's needed. There are grass root glimmers such as the Bellringing Learners Facebook group (1.4k members), but it's also clear from that group that there are a lot of learners all with the same challenges and unmet needs.