Ringing Forums

starting from scratch is obviously hard but you have a clean slate, so although it takes a lot of effort you can set a positive culture. In the long run that might prove more successful than feeding recruits into a moribund tower with a negative culture.
The CC published a book on teaching a new band from scratch. I don't know where it's still in print but you may be able to find one somewhere if not.

The rule of thumb I two ringers per bell. Obviously that will vary a bit with the nature of the band - whether they all put ringing first or whether they have busy lives with lots of other commitments - but in my experience it seems about right.
I wouldn't turn recruits away outright, but on a few occasions when our teaching was at capacity we asked people to go on a waiting list until those ahead of them had progressed.

all penetrations through the floors ought to be fire resisting — Mike Shelley

I wonder what a fire resistant rope hole looks like.

Relatively small apertures will allow quite a lot of sound to pass though — Peter Sotheran

We installed (external) sound control in 1982 using double glased shutters that I had designed to achieve a 20dB reduction. After installation someone suggested adding foam plastic draft excluder round each shutter, as icing on tjhe cake. I remember when we fitted it, as I closed the final shutter with iot on we noticed the traffic noise disappear, which we hadn't noticed before. So coling the final mm or so made an audible difference. I still do that trick to show visitors how effective the sound control is.

I am not sure this sort of stuff is explained anywhere other than by asking someone else — Simon Linford

There must be some information somewhere. I recently discovered that one of our youngsters is the current (7 day and 30 day) leading composer on CompLib. I've told him a few snippets and encouraged him, and I suspect others might have too, but I assume he picked up a lot for himself - not sure where though.

The Italians do seem to have created a stronger bond between their communities and their bells/bellringers than we have. — Simon Linford

That comes over very clearly. I've just watched George Perrin's video again and while the production quality is just as good the content is quite different, with the focus almost entirely on the experience and activity of ringers. Only half a minute out of the whole nine minutes was about the community view of ringing. I didn't count but my impression of the Italian film was much more balanced, not just the views from outsiders but the ringers showing they were aware of their role in the community.
It could be said that the comparison is unfair. It's reasonable fo a video was aimed at recruitment to focus on what being a ringer is like, but you wouldn't recruit into an orchestra without mentioning the role of concerts and the delight of audiences.
So why do we not feel such a strong bond with the community (and they with us) as in Italy? I think it may be the downside of Belfry Reform. When the Church took over ringing it gave us an enormous boost with the propotion of change ringing and the connectivity provided by universal ringing societies. And the introduction of ringing for church services probably increased the amount of ringing, and in doing so shifted the focus away from community ringing. While the church was strong that wasn't a problem but with churchgoing a minority activity it means most people see ringing as 'something the church does' rather than 'ringing our bells'.
We still have a lot of community goodwill, probably driven by the psychological effect of the sound, but we need to build much stronger community bonds if ringing is to thrive in the future.

It's a good video — Tina

Indeed. Just watched and it is excellent.

to do the job I agree only competence matters. But if you are looking at the big picture, and concerned about the supply of interested people then knowing that half the relevant population is absent could be quite significant.

Ringing World and ART already cover the national space. — Charlotte Boyce

Yes, but a lot of ringers in that space don't receive either.

promoting a sense of community in ringing is the key to what a territorial society is about. People progess in ringing due to who they know so the key thing Branch Officers should do is know th — Charlotte Boyce

Agreed.

I'm not clear what you mean by 'involved in maintenance work'.
In ODG a handful are members of the T&B Committee who do inspections, give advice and run courses. Each branch will have a few people known to be knowledgeable, who will help or give advice if asked. And there are several hundred steeple keepers (or tower captains where there is no separate steeple keeper) who by default do minor maintenance when required, and whose ability and knowledge will vary from minimal to considerable.
So which set are you trying to identify?

up to around 50 territorial ringing societies, all experimenting with different systems, but there is limited sharing of information between societies — Roger Booth

I wouldn't describe what we've been doing successfully for the past 15 years as experimenting.
However I would agree that sharing probably isn't ideal. One of the things the ODG communications working group recognised was the diffriculty of getting our branches to do things in the same way. We didn't even try to solve the problem for other societies. At the time ISTR there was quite a bit of sharing ideas on the ChangeRingers list, but in those days e-communication was still relatively novel - a lot of our members didn't have email so we had to develop systems to cater for those with and without. But now it's been routine for so long we just use it.
See: http://odg.org.uk/sdb/services/#email and http://odg.org.uk/sdb/services/email.html

Whereas there are some grass roots ringers who only ring in their own tower, and not interested in doing more, there are many others who are keen to progress, but unable to do so but unable to progress ... — Roger Booth

In our experience new ringers are very keen, and will take up opportunities to progress if they are offered. It's the ones who are not keen to engage tend to be those who have been around for a god while without making much progress because they haven't had the opportunities.
Our Branch elementary practices are heavily subscribed by people keen not to progress, and the same keen people are over represented at our general practices.
Is it so surprising that someone investing time in taking up a new activity should want to progress? Not really. Is it surprising that anyone still doing something (out of duty or habit) in which they have not progressed should have adapted their expectations to cope with the reality? I don't think so.
So the onus is on us to ensure new ringers have the opportunity and support to make progress, and become competent enough for it to be self fulfilling before the novelty and initial enthusiasm wears off.

rather than the emails which say ‘I’ve been told to forward this to our members’ from a Secretary role with no active knowledge or involvement in the content shared. — Lucy Chandhial

I too dislike those messages, especially if they include lots of administrative padding before you get to the meat, but there are pros and cons. if everything goes to everyone then either they automatically get binned, or worse people opt out of being on the list. In a multi level organisation some messages need to go from top to bottom but not all do.
In out Branch we have several different lists - officers, tower correspondents and members (and some towers have their own members lists). Some of what comes from the Guild (or the CC) is of relevance to officers and some to members so the secretary passes it on accordingly. Likewise some of what she sends is of interest to individual members and some to those managing towers.
When ODG set up a communications working group (in 2006) one of the principles it established was that the best people to judge what to pass on where, and what to act in without passing on, we're those with local knowledge. They are best able to strike the balance to keep everyone informed (and interested) without overloading them or turning them off.
The counter argument is the secretary who passes nothing on, the answer to people who don't do their job is not to be found in technological overkill.
One of the attractive features of integrated mailing lists (as provided by systems like LoveAdmin, MemberMojo, etc) is that it is possible to have more specialised lists, with members opting in or out themselves. That's quite good for things like practice notices,where there is limited overlap between those who attend advanced practices and elementary ones, but less good for other things where there aren't such obvious divisions.

can’t easily email all members unless it’s about renewal of membership, unless we also use MailChimp or equivalent — Lucy Chandhial

Are you sure? We did a trial with MemberMojo and set up some rudimentary email lists with it. There were several shortcomings with the management and naming but it was definitely possible.

there are several. LoveAdmin is used by D&N (and maybe others). When I investigated it it seemed a better match (in terms of managing communication networks) for an organisation with many branches. Others are WebCollect and HiveBrite.

I don't see the link between Member Mojo and the distribution of a grass roots newsletter. Guilds such as my own already have effective email distribution and communication mechanisms in place, at Guild and Branch level (in our case based on MailMan).

Does any one person actually know how many copies of the keys actually exist for your tower? — Mike Shelley

Yes. We have a list and the wardens periodically ask me to conduct a muster for their records. There is onen set per officer plus one set in the church safe. Some sets don't have every key, based on need. Each officer is responsible for his/her set and the wardens are responsible for the set in the safe, which is used for non-ringing access such as fire inspections, roof access, fitting Christmas lights on the tower, etc.

ISTR that the Hawkear recommendation is to be central above the bells, which seems sensible.
It assumes the microphone can handle very high sound levels without distortion. Many years ago using a less robust microphone I found that on the stairs outside the ringing room worked quite well. That might have been helped by the louder bells being further from the door though.

a reasonable guess. Reading again what Tina said I think it is more than that though. The existing mechanisms do their best but one hears criticicisms that they don't always point people in the best direction.
It's not just a matter of pointing to the nearest tower or the nearest ART teacher or whatever. There are lots of factors to consider to make the system work effectively for all parties involved. I did some exploration of the topic back in 2012, see Here
One thing I didn't consider then, but which Tina mentioned explicitly, is the capacity to take on new recruits. Assuming that any tower can at any time take on unlimited recruits is naive, and designing a system on that assumption would be like designing an online shop with no idea of who has what in stock - a recipe for disgruntled customers and harassed shopkeepers.
When Tina says it's a chunky project I assume she is thinking that it will rely on a lot of that knowledge, and quite possibly distributed decision making. Getting that to work will be chunky.

flying the Union Flag upside down being a sign of distress. — Susan Hall

Or incompetence!