Ringing Forums

Ringing for a specific event is often a good 'hook' on which to catch new recruits. In January/February of this year we offered via our local FB page 'free lessons to anyone who wanted to be able to say that they rang for the Queen's Jubilee'. We attracted 6 new recruits; one quit immediately - 'not what she thought it would be' - one struggled to attend regularly, and we have retained and developed the other three who are plain hunting & covering and about to move on to PB5. We shall probablty repeat the exercise next January inviting them to ring for the coronation.

>we need to start moving forward into WhatsApp and Instagram. - JASON<

So which of these should I use to be sure that I can keep abreast of national & regional ringing topics? I'm afraid that from what I read in the press, both Whatsapp and rather more so, Instagram are badly tainted with inappropriate and pornographic material and I have no wish to become involved with either. Now that my 'Nigerian cousins' have stopped pestering me with details of the wealth allegedly awaiting me, I find emails quicker, safer and simpler to use.

And remember we don't all enjoy the same level of broadband and mobile phone service. My PAYG phone usage is minimal (less than 20 phone calls and around 40-50 text messages this year; no data) as I, like many rural users, I don't have a reliable phone signal outdoors and an almost zero signal indoors. I have no intention of moving house in order to get a stronger signal so that I can keep abreast of what's going on in the outside world!

First, I must be having a 'blank' day - remind what CMO stands for please.

The fundamental issue is that there are too many platforms or communication channels. When email was the dominant channel Ringing Chat & Change Ringers met everyone's basic needs. Then Facebook appeared and the email traffic began to decline. Then individuals began to feel that their needs could be met better if they created What's App groups (and the like) and so the proliferation of local, secondary or specialist groups in a plethora of comm's channels took off leading to the fragmentation of the world of ringers. The result is a massive duplication of channels rendering it completely impossible to be certain that any message will reach all of its intended targets.

I guess the only answer is to create yet one more channel that will attract/embrace everyone - or is that what this forum was intended to do??

I guess you would need to pick a small selection of branches with differing profiles - for example the N.Yorks branch of the YACR is largely rural and covers an area greater than the entire Kent ACR! Compare this with the districts based in large urban centres. Very different profiles and, I imagine, very different results.

Recognising the general lethargy especially amongst the less active towers, the only way to collect meaningful results would be to persuade branch officials to knock on doors or phone the TCs and ask the questions directly. I managed this a few years back when I was curious about the level and manner of use of simulators installed across North Yorkshire. It was a tedious task but I was able to draw a fairly broad picture.

Yes, quite so. I believe the original rate of 7s. 6d was set way back before the 2nd World War. There are lots of variables in the comparator table; the £10.47 is the equivalent of the 7/6 but comparing labour rates produces figures ranging from around £26 to almost £50 which might be closer to a days wage for 'a working man' today.

When I first began to ring in the 1950s our ringers received 7 shillings & 6 pence (37½p) for ringing before & after a wedding. I was told it was set 'a long time ago' when it was the equivalent of a day's wage for a working man. We now charge £100 for ringing after the service and we pay out £10 per rope; the surplus goes into the tower fund.
Checking with an online monetary value comparator the original 37½p is equivalent to £10.47 so we have almost exactly kept pace with the changing value of money.

While we are all kitting ourselves out with helmets, should not also be investing in a PPE suit & respirator to protect us from pigeon droppings and the carpet of dead flies that are common to many belfries?

The Gov.uk website offers the following on Psittacosis:
"Transmission of disease from birds to humans occurs mainly through inhalation of airborne particles from respiratory secretions, dried faeces or feather dust. . . . there are 25-50 cases reported per year"

In fact it might be better to not risk sweeping out the top of the tower and adjusting the ropes. Ever.

"Culturally there seems to be a lot of "prestige" associated with teaching ringing."

Is there? I've never noticed. To me it's an essential job akin to stoking the boiler to keep the flame alive! Each year I try to attract a handful of new recruits. The last intake was a group of 4; one dropped out within a week but the others are making steady progress.

I find the key to the progress made by new ringers is to have as wide a 'ringing vocabulary' as possible in order to be able to explain concepts in a number of different forms of words. There is little to be gained by repeating the same instruction in a mantra-like manner.

As someone else commented, I too see my role as a 'jobbing ringer' trying to lay the foundations and, if I'm lucky, seeing them through as far as my own ability permits (Stedman and Camb-6)

> how about installing the rope/rail around the central column<

That is the obvious solution, well known to most of us but we can only surmise that it's not up to the standadrd required by the H&S eager beaver. The central column rope was removed from one of the two towers I referred to!

Cheers
Peter

An enthusiatic H&S adviser has been doing the rounds in this neck of the woods, insisting that a rope 'handrail' be fitted round the side of every spiral staircase. The brackets protrude about 3" off the wall, thereby, in at least two instances, reducing the effective width of the staircase to less than 18 inches. Consequently it is necessary to climb the stairs slightly crab-wise, or reach the top with a badly bruised hip. To my knowledge, one mature ringer of 'stout' proportions has given up ringing there as he can no longer access the ringing room.

> I constantly post on FB, Twitter, Insta and on our community email list to let people know what we are doing.<

I am a few years ahead of Philip-G and my experiences run parallel to his. General appeals for new ringers very rarely bear fruit. But specific events are often more rewarding. Most summers we have a Belfry Open Day when visitors are allowed to climb to the tower roof to take photos etc; we are lucky in that our roof is safely accessible. This raises awareness of the ringers and the tower but it is NOT a pushy recruiting occasion, more a relaxed 'get to know you' event.

Around now we usually have an Open Evening when we advertise that visitors are welcome to try their hands (assisted back-strokes only) interspersed with rounds & cc and perhaps a PH or a course of PB but nothing complicated. Quite specifically we make no attempt to blind them with science by explaining change-ringing in detail. Our best result was 10 recruits of whom 4 stayed the course and joined the Sunday service band.

At the beginning of this year we posted on our local FB page an invitation: "Would you like to say that you rang for the Queen's Jubilee? Join us now and we'll teach you how to do it." This brought four new faces, two of whom are now ringing PH with us on Sunday mornings.

Whatever you do, when recruiting, never play the 'desparate for new ringers' card. No one wants to join a failing organisation. Always find something positive on which to base your promotional events.

John Harrison sums it up perfectly . . . . "they increase the number of impacts because your brain 'knows' where your head ends but not where the helmet ends."
This has been my experience precisely when in a moment of enthusiasm I chose to wear a hard hat 'because I happened to have one' and I had far more collisions with the underside of the bell frame.

Yes,. The times will vary according to the weight of the bells and a few other factors.
6 bells: 18-30 mins to ring all the 720 changes on 6 bells
7 bells: 2½hrs to 3 hrs to ring all 5040 changes
8 bells: 18-20hrs to ring 40,320 changes - I believe it has been achieved 3 times in recorded history.
9 bells: forecast is about 7 or 8 days

Handbells can rung approximateley twice as quickly and therefore take about half of the above guideline times.

"can't it be both? Ringing has many facets, and shares features with both sports and musical performance."
It can be almost whatever you want it to be. Just because there are bell ringing competitions doesn't make it a sport. I doubt we will ever see sporting competitions for pianists and violinists! So going back to my original point, it is probably better, when discussing the cost of training people to ring, to liken the costs to those of musicians.

Fair point John but I still maintain that ringing is more akin to music making than a sport.

"Projectors onto walls, voice input through headphones, and perhaps even head sets could now be considered. - ALISON"
It's not really about the technology, surely the message/content is the more important.

Some readers may remember that a few years ago there was a concerted effort made to have ringing recognised as a sport in order to try to access grants from Sport England (or some such). The clear answer was a firm 'no'; ringing was not defined as a sport. Since we operate what are generally the largest percussion instruments in daily use, should we not be comparing training costs with the cost of learning any other musical instrument?

John,

Many thanks for quoting 'chapter & verse' - it's all very helpful. In the example to which I referred, the trustees are not part of the Academy Trust and play no role in the management of the college. Ours is a copmpletely independent (320 year old) foundation that supports education in schools across the town. The college very generously provides a venue for our meetings. Since we are very rarely in the presence of students - then only when accompanied by a staff member - the recently introduced DBS requirement seems to be overkill. (Still it's the college's money, if they want to spend it!)

Some while ago, we used a device that measured the interval between a reflective strip passing a sensor and the moment the clapper strikes, to determine and any adjust odd-struckness in our bells. The job done, we experimented with our 2cwts treble and despite our best efforts we were unable to significantly alter the rotational speed of the bell by the application of brute force! The only way to make it ring more quickly was by shortening the stroke. Naturally, the heavier the bell, the less the effect of the brute force!