Ringing Forums

what are wheels made from? — Jason Carter

I believe the traditional materials are oak spokes, ash sole and elm shrouding, but the shrouding on our new wheels was plywood - obviously not a lot of elm around these days.

that article is about Doubles but the previous discussion was about Triples.

is it still going and if so how do you/would I know? — Richard Norman

Afia discussions never 'close', people just stop commenting when they have no more to say.
Each comment has its age at thee bottom so you can see how active the discussion is.
But if you want to say something then do so and it will be seen by others interested.

Indeed, but I was trying to strip it down to basics. On reflection I'm not sure that 'as yourself' adds a lot in the context of a tower captain's behaviour. As well as a power difference there will often be a (potentially large) difference of experience and perspective. A lot of the skill of a leader is being able to see things from the other person's point of view and understanding the neds of someone different from him/herself..

is looking for Ten Commandments a good idea?
The biblical ten were somewhat legalistic and represented Old Testement thinking. In the New Testement they were famously boiled down to two: Love God and Love your neighbour. In a ringing context we can discount the first (not all ringers believe in one, and those who do don't need ringers to remind them) so we can just interpret the second one in the context of the tower.
Do we need to list all the ways of 'loving' fellow ringers? The list could be long, people would argue about the details and it would inevitably miss something. So why not just stick with the principle, with the onus on us all to apply it in whatever situation we find ourselves in - to think what the effect of our actions would be and ask whether that's the outcome we intend.
If in doubt, one can always revert to asking WWJD (for those who remember that expression).

I was wondering how long before someone mentioned the £5 note trick (or the ten Bob note trick as it was when I was teaching other kids in my teens). I have do nonstarter it, but it's very difficult to keep your wrists in contact because it forces extreme wrist bending to open and close round the sally. It's another example where what one might assume is the ideal turns out not to be. I describe what the hands should be doing (all the time when not together on the rope) as flying in close formation. There's a picture on p23 of New Ringer's Book showing the maximum hand separation.

put the tail end into your right hand using your left han — John de Overa

That's what I meant by the two hands working together, one gives and the other takes. As I said, it's harder to describe than demonstrate.

go through the motions slowly with a stationary rope, I'd slide your hands down the sally instead of pulling it, but otherwise move your hands, and open and close them round the rope, as you would when ringing the bell. That way you can focus on the detail before doing it faster, and then with a live rope.
If your fingers are getting mixed up with the rope I suspect your hand is closing on the tail end much too late. There should be very little gap between both hands opening from the sally and the right hand joining the left hand on the tail end. Somewhere around waist level, and well before the bottom.
Both hands should work together and never go far apart, so the right hand closes on the rope as the left hand places it into it.
The angle of the hands is also important. As the hands leave the Sally the rope is coming out of the top of the hands, but they then turn forward so the rope falls over the front of the band where it's easier for the other hand to get hold of it.
Not sure how clear that is, it's much easier to demonstrate than describe. There's a description and pictures on p17 of The New Ringer's Book if you have a copy.
HTH

that seems reasonable because even 'the most elaborate scheme' is at best an outline of the myriad small decisions and actions needed in practice. I've seen similar comments that people who want to make a system work will find a way to do so despite its defects, but if they don't then even an apparently good system will fail.

you can't do it directly but if you buy the full record of one of the ringers it will be included.
The obvious source is the RW DVDs, the older ones of which are available free online. Check the entry in Felstead, which may include the RW page reference and save you having to search.

how long a groove takes to form depends on the hardness of the stone. The picture looks a bit like chalk, which isn't normally used for building because it's not very good, but we have a lot in All Saints Wokingham.

you sharpen a blade by rubbing it along the surface at a very shallow angle. Cutting int the stone woul blunt it.
My understanding is that these marks were caused when bells were chimed from a convenient place within the church that wasn't under the bell. Drawn ropes, long droughts and friction aren't the problem for chiming that they are for ringing.

try asking your district secretary, who probably has a pretty good idea of which towers would welcome help, and may already know what local towers are planning.

That's an interesting question. With many inventions you can answer the question by finding the same thing invented elsewhere, by other people. That won't work with Stedman because the ringing community is small and closed, so it seems unlikely that a ringer and band capable of compiling and inventing such a method would already know about Stedman, so could not re-invent it..
More generally we could think about the likelihood of a method like Stedman being invented. If 'like' means a principle then there aren't many - a tiny handfull out of tens of thousands - and they are little more than curiousities. In the last 20 years BB has ~17.5k performances of Stedman, very distantly followed by ~800 Erin, ~50 Shipway and ~25 Duffield. Shipway is the closest in concept to Stedman, and given the dominance of 8-bell ringing one might expect it to be far more popular. But it isn't.
So Stedman must have a USP, the most obvious being that it got there first, and that probably makes the original question unaswerable.

neither of them look very practical for use with ropes in situ in a tower.

when we were on BBC a Breakfast I gave the presenter a copy of my book on the history of ringing in Wokingham. I hope he still has it, and didn't eat it for breakfast.

Sonning Deanery Branch of ODG introduced a 6-bell competition in 1961 and an 8-bell competition in 1975. ODG itself wasn't quite so early - the first 6-bell competition was in 1964 with the 8-bell competition in 1981 (for the Guild centenary). The 10-bell competition came later still.

I think there are two sorts of peal band. Many peals are rung by ringers who know and regularly ring with each other, and tend to be self perpetuating, while the bands ringing some peals are more ad hoc, and not a 'regular band'. In either case the key feature is the organiser who gets the band together. That's easier with a regular band, and harder to do from scratch without a regular group, but still possible. Most (tower) bands wanting to ring a peal for a special occasion find they don't have enough members able or willing to ring a peal so the ofraganiser needs to ask around others who might be able to do so.
An individual ringer wanting to ring more peals therefore has two options: make contact with an existing regular band and see if they will include you, or start organising your own, drawing on any contacts you have, and asking for advice on who else you could ask where needed. You may need to ask quite a few to get enough, but as you build up your contacts it should get easier.

I mention taster sessions triggered by mention of bucket lists, and because the cost is not open ended. I agree that we should aim to recruit people who want to stay, other things being equal.
In normal circumstances that would be the default, and anyone given an honest prediction of the likely learning curve would be unlikely to start without at least the though of sticking if things work.
Advertising to ring for an event clouds the issue, both by introducing an alternative goal and by suggesting they will be doing the favour by helping out, rather than the ringer(s) doing the favour by teaching them (for nothing).

we once offered taster sessions for a promise auction to raise funds. We didn't get any recruits but (but we might have done) and we got goodwill and awareness. The cost to us was limited to a few hours, the sort of time we would spend on a tower tour.