Ringing Forums

It's probably an 'age thing' but my only regular use of my phone is when my bank etc wants to send me a one-time passcode. I find the buttons of the on-screen keyboard to small and fiddly. The ringers at my tower have set up a What's App group but I can't make sense of it and receive no messages or notifications via it. Perhaps I'll ask one of the 20 yr olds to explain it! To sign up for the Digital Dinosaurs Society, send me your name on the back of a £10 note!

But that doesn’t alter the fact that the platform has many defects, which get in the way of communication, even when you do engage. — John Harrison

So what communications platform/channel wou you recommend in order to reach maximum coverage of the ringing fraternity (and sorority, of course!)

What is an organic post? I don't have any supported affiliates that I know of; I retired from business in 2003 so I no longer have a storefront.

I use FB primarily for collecting & sharing historical pictures about my locality, for picking up local news and for promoting classical concerts and local church & ringing events.

I don't think I need worry about this.

Meta, who owns it, feel they are entitled to charge page owners for a basic world wide web function. — Alan C

Oh, that's something I have never encountered. I am an admin on 2 or 3 FB pages and have never seen any claims for a fee or any restrictions on their use.

The problem was recognised over a decade ago but wasn’t grasped — John Harrison

When I first took up ringing, the RW was the only universal channel of communication. With a print-run of around 8000 copies per week, allowing for multiple readers of tower copies, it probably reached 10k to 12k readers - around 25% of the assumed ringing population of 40,000. Today, I believe that the RW circulation hovers around 2000 or so weekly copies.

Then thirty years ago, along came emails, followed by the Internet with all its chat groups and email lists. As a result we now find communications are split across countless channels and we have lost focus. This forum was created to bring all ringing matters back into focus but I guess that the readership is not as large as it might be.

The total readership/membership of the half dozen most popular ringing-related FB pages amounts to 16.8k subscribers. The largest group, 'Bellringers' has 7.2k subscribers. There is of course a huge level of duplication so perhaps one might assume that, allowing for duplication, there are around 10k unique subscribers - about the same as used to read the RW before we entered the digital era.

I raise these points because I sense that others are quite dismissive of 'chaotic platforms like Facebook'. I would urge them not to dismiss FB out of hand but to consider the numbers who subscribe to the various pages.

That's all good to hear. I'll have to rely on social media (the Ringers & Ringing FB pages) and news filtering down the YACR because, after over 65 years, I discontinued my RW subscription last year.

I first bought the journal from my local newsagent in the 1950s when it was edited byTom White and looked like this:

Although by the time I joined the weekly readership in the late '50s the price had escalated to 6d (2½p) and soon after to 1 shilling (5p). In the 1960s, '70s and 80's I was a fairly regulary contributor. At a time when many regular writers sheltered under a nom de plume, I occasionally appeared as 'Yorkshire Glory'. Sadly, in recent years, there has been less news of my contemporaries as their numbers have diminished over time. For the last couple of decades we have taken our family copy of the RW to the tower but, I regret to say that, they are rarely looked at - despite the brilliant new full-colour treatment created by Will Bosworth and the training & tutoring features.

So I sit here, with bated breath, waiting for news of how to participate in the survey.

Thanks John. I fear I am I find myself stepping back from the digital developments that feature so much in all aspects of our lives. There are simply too many options to consider and too often the service providers assume that 'everyone knows how it works' - well I don't! I take your point about FB being somewhat erratic at times but it meets my needs in general.

So back to the question, how will ringers be invited/encouraged to participate in the survey?

Simon very kindly sent me a private email with the link to the survey, for which, many thanks. I tried to reply to Simon but my email bounced straight back with this error message:
Address not found
Your message wasn't delivered to adminatringingforumsdotorg because the address couldn't be found or is unable to receive email.
Hence I must resort to reply to a private message via the Forum.

The real question I was asking is how do towers know about it? I can't recall receiving any notification from the YACR; it my be stuck at county or branch level but nothing has reached our tower yet. After 68 years I decided to allow my RW subscription to lapse and I now rely on the Bellringing and Bellringers FB pages for my news source and I can't recall any announcements there. If it wasn't for the recent messages in the Ringing Forum I would be totally unaware. So the question remains - how will ringers be aware of the survey? Does the scheme rely totally on the enumerators to survey the country?

I note that this topic is headed 'Ringing Census 2026'. When is it scheduled to take place? There are only 10 weeks remaining before we ring-out the old and ring-in the new! It is a thoroughly good idea and obviously well thought out but, to date, we have heard nothing about the census in the towers around me. The only references I have seen have been what I have picked up from this forum.

I fear we are not winning this argument! There should be no 'grievance' to be aired. As a visitor you are a guest in the tower. With very few, if any exceptions, it is not for a visitor to complain about the way a TC runs a ringing session. To do so, whether in public or in private, is to imply that you know better and to criticise his/her ability. Whatever the ringing, when you leave the tower, you thank them, smile politely and tip a few £1 coins in the tower fund box.

As others have said, as a visitor, you are a guest in the tower and it is not your place to ask for or indeed expect to be allowed to ring whatever you want. Service ringing in particular demands ringing of the highest standard and it is entirely up to the TC to place a band such that he can get the best result.

We once had a notorious tenor-grabber visited our tower; he may have fancied himself as a 'tenor-king' but his striking was such that he was nick-named 'Lightning' due his inability to strike in the same place twice. We took secret delight in placing each band in such away that he never grabbed our tenor! Take care that you don't fall into the same category!

There may opportunities to appeal to local organisations or individuals to sponsor or part-sponsor individual bells. When we recast & rehung our old unmusical six it was at a time when there was a plethera of changes in local government; old local authorities were being dismantled, some were lost and others were merged. We persuaded our local RDC that their name could be preserved for all time if it was cast on to one of the new bells.
Similarly, languishing in their engineers' depot, the county council had a 4-5cwt bell that had been salvaged years earlier from a redundant methodist church. We asked them to consider donating the bell and we would have it recast with their name on it. This created a surplus of metal for which we were credited by the foundry.
Finally, we issued a public invitation to have the name(s) of departed family members memorialised on the two trebles. This was not successful and produced no significant results but it did generate income from a couple of families who were happy to support the project but without their support being recognised on a bell.
So, keep your ear to the ground. Look out for major local employers/companies/organisations that may be approaching a significant anniversary. Are there any families who carry a lot of influence in the area? Watch out for bells in redundant locations - we actually gathered in five more broken/cracked/redundant bells from four local sources in addition to the one from the old methodist church.

We have done this in the past, before we installed sound control. It would be worth including a couple of sentences that emphasise the prestige of the event and how it is something of an honour for the tower to be selected to host the event. You might also mention that the event comes round only one once every 'X' years and it is definitely a one off - this to allay fears that there will be a sudden and permanent upsurge in the amount of ringing.

If the ringers are visible from inside the church invite the neighbours to call in to watch them at work. Alternatively, invite them for tea & biscuits on the church lawns, or something similar; in other words, make a gesture to 'include' them in the event.

In towers that are fortunate enough to have more ringers than bells, inevitably some will have to stand aside. Perhaps the TC wants to give others an opportunity to broaden their experience. No doubt your turn will come around again shortly. I mean no offence but perhaps you need to listen critically to your own ringing - is your striking consistently accurate or are there occasional 'wobbles' that affect the rhythm?

I didn't get the impression that Tom Scott was terrified, rather a display of the natural anxieties of an absolute beginner. Perhaps there was also a tiny element of 'playing to the camera' - "I expect this to be tricky and perhaps dangerous, so let's make it look a bit tricky and dangerous".
Considering that he compressed into one hour (or less?) what takes most recruits at least 3 weeks it wasn't at all bad. There were stacks of basic blunders - holding the tail end far too high, looking up at backstroke, twisting & contorting the body during a pull . . . and more, but the object was to focus on the core actions which, with Darren's guiding hands Tom more or less did. I recall teaching Kieran Prendiville of Esther Rantzen's "That's Life" programme under similar time-limited conditions with very similar results.

Quite so! Earlier this year, the124 yr old clock at the top of our tower stopped and our usual ministrations failed to restart it. The clock engineers quoted £1800 to repair/replace worn out parts. Comments on the local Facebook page showed that local residents were missing the town centre timepiece. I explained the nature of the problem and opened a JustGiving/GoFundMe page. Public sentiment was very much on our side and within 3 weeks we had raised the £1800 to cover the repairs.

I think that the YACR risks further disengagement from its members. As I understand the situation, members are now each required to renew their membership individually, online. Previously annual sub's were collected by the TC and forwarded to the Hon. Treas. or handed over at a branch meeting. This new remote system relies on members (a) remembering to go online and (b) making the effort to do so, a particular challenge if they don't happen to have the Association's URL on their shirt cuff. I've been a member for just shy of 60 years but I usually have to Google for the link to the YACR website!

Collecting/paying the subs in person brings with it the personal touch, the smile or words of thanks and the engagement with others. Paying remotely will benefit those more remote members who have little contact with the Association but will do nothing to bring members into closer engagement with the Association. Almost half of the members of my tower rarely if ever visit other towers and never attend the occasional meetings. They have joined the YACR because, in the tower, there is an expectation that they will. For newly recruited & trained ringers it is seen as a sign of recognition that they 'have made it' and can call themselves ringers. But if left to their own devices I cannot see most of them making the effort to renew their sub's remotely. I foresee this disengagement leading to a reduction in the the YACR's membership roll.

I echo several of the points raised by Nick Cronin. Here in the Cleveland & North Yorkshire Branch of the YACR, distance is a significant limiting factor. The branch covers a geographical area similar to Kent, South London and the eastern half of Surrey. When I chaired the branch several decades ago (and petrol was 4s.10d per gallon - about 4p/litre) it was not uncommon to make a 100-140 mile round trip to chair a monthly ringing meeting. However, those meetings on the same Saturday afternoon each month, were predictable and followed a regular pattern. Despite the distances, attendances were consistently around 25-30+ and ringers at all levels were generally confident that any support they might need as they developed their ringing, would be available.
Perhaps one ofthe answers to the question of involvement is to have regular meetings on a predictable schedule and to ensure that there is sufficient support for developing ringers.

During the WI's Centenary Year (2015?) our local WI had added 'Discovering Bell Ringing' to their list of '100 things to do in the Centenary Year and they arranged for a party of about 20 a visit to the tower.

To explain what was 'upstairs' we projected a 3-4 minute Powerpoint show on to a whitewashed wall. It showed photos of the bells, the clock room and the views from the tower roof and recycled every 4-5 minutes throughout the evening.

As an opening demo' we rang r&cc and plain hunted on 6 with simple explanations - sufficient to demonstrate the principle of change ringing. Our two tutors ensured that every visitor had an opportunity to ring some assisted backstrokes and those who showed some proficiency with the basics of rope-handling were offered the opportunity to ring assisted backstrokes in rounds on six bells. I think we rounded off the evening with a course of Stedman Triples as a closing demo. We didn't expect to draw any recruits from this group but they all enjoyed the experience and afterwards their organiser sent a very appreciative letter.

WI visit to Marske-by-the-sea (8, 6-3-21)

We are blessed with easy access to the bell chamber, the clock chamber and the tower roof. Once a year, in the summer months, we hold a tower Open Day and allow visitors to see the bells, clock and to take photos over the roof tops of the town from the tower roof.

We place ringers as Rooom Stewards at every level of the tower to watch over the visitors and to provide explanations. Depending on the number of visitors and the number of ringers on hand we include one or two ringing demos. We also have a 7 minute Ppt slide show that loops round continuously onto the white walls of the Ringing Room. We will double muffle one bell and encourage visitors to try a few assisted backstrokes.

Our most successful day attracted over 140 visitors. We control the flow of visitors going up to the bells and on to the roof. Curiously the last time we did it, one more visitor came down from the roof than we had allowed to go up!