Ringing Forums

The answer to Alison's question should be 'No!' Why should a ringer, no matter how loyal or valuable to the local tower, be accorded the 'privilege' of breaking the silence of Holy Week. That said, times and customs continue to change. Rather like the gradual disappearance of eating fish on Friday, perhaps it's time for a more relaxed view of the restriction on ringing in Holy Week.

With the approval of our incumbents over the years we have maintained our Monday night practices at the beginning of Holy Week. Fifty years ago, there was an initial hesitation but now successive incumbents have taken it for granted.

"Yes, and a toolkit of different approaches so if one thing doesn't another one might. - John de O"

This was the very reason I enrolled myself on a level 2 tutor course - specifically to hear how other people explained things. Often a different form of words in an explanation will enable a learner to see a light in the hazy distance. I also came to appreciate the need for smaller steps when teaching older learners.

Thanks Simon. By pure coincidence, that accords with the steps on the 'progress' wall charts I designed for our tower some years ago. They were initially intended to help me keep track of which stage each learner had mastered but with the younger learners they developed into a bit of a spur to encourage them to aim the next step.

ART 'Levels' ?

Would someone please remind me the criteria for the various Levels referred to above? I have just scanned through the ART website. I see Moddules 2c to 2f referred to but no mention of 'Levels', perhaps I have missed them.

It largely depends on the level of the ringers and their local circumstances. Many times over the years I have encouraged some of my newer recruits to attend branch meetings specifically so that they can gain experience at ringing something that we don't have the optimum combination of ringers to attempt in our home tower. For instance, recruits who have mastered PB6 or Stedmn5 but would benefit from having a 'rock solid' band around them to try PB8 or Sted7.

OTOH, my wife thoroughly enjoys attending a monthly Surprise Major practice to ring a specified SM method. To invert the old phrase, it's a case of courses for horses.

We are in a similar situation to John Harrison. With our sound shutters closed the bells are barely audible above the ambient noise of passing traffic during the day. On Sundays when the ambient noise is less and the shutters are open, the bells can be heard clearly across the town centre. I'm afraid we don't have any decibell data but our system works to everyone's satisfaction.

Alison, remind me of the ignificance of List A and List B please

PB6 was always our 'median' and the target for all new members to attain. On 'good' nights we would comfortably manage PB8, Stedman 7, and Camb6.
Sadly the Covid restrictions have reduced our abilities to call changes and plain courses of PB5 and G'sire5. Covid-related reasons prevent our two most capable ringers (up to Spliced Surprise) from re-joining us and our third qp/touch-conductor retired through ill health shortly before the lockdowns began. So, 53 years after I started the band, it's back to square one. Ho hum, such is life!

How does one tick or un-tick a topic to receive/cancel notifications? I can't see any tick-boxes on the 'Categories' page.

I heard about the Ringing Forum only this week via a reference in the ringing-chat list. So I've signed up to see what happens. The structure appears to be identical to the Compuserve Forums back in the dark old days of DOS! Is this a forward step?