Ringing Forums

I don't think we need a ringers' SG course.
It would probably mean, for example, that if a church worker e.g. refreshments helper had taken a church basic SG course (which is all they need) they would then have to take a bell ringing one too if they learned to ring, or visa versa. And if the church accepts either of them what's the point of having two different ones? — Phillip George

We should distinguish between the training, which will be more effective if it is tailored to draw on the experience of those on the course, and the result, which is the possession of relevant knowledge and judgmental skills, which are transferable between contexts.
When I did the courses (both the new C0 and the old half day course) the examples used bore little resemblance to situations I would meet as a ringer, which made the less effective.
If I moved into a different context I would learn 'how things worked in it', and I'm confident that having done so I could then transfer my SG skills to the new context.
So tailored courses leading to transferable qualifications.

I wouldn't describe it as making a rod for your back, but rather taking on an ongoing commitment. (Having delivered exactly 1 page of TLC every month for 8 1/2 years I know what that means.)
One of the main aims of the CC reform was to make it more open and more widely understood. Yiur blogs have done that in a far more effective way than your predecessors, who pioneered the idea of a presidential blog.
Another aim of the reforms was to change from an organisation with a habit of not doing things if they felt too difficult to one that would try to do what was needed despite that, or as JFK would have said 'because it is hard.
So please keep it up.

agreed. Had I been writing a contract I might have used different words. My point was that the understanding with the ringers is that they will try to back up the PCC contract.
In fact for weddings during the week the couple is told that we will try to get eight ringers but might only be able to get six.

we have formal and informal contacts with both wardens and clergy, initiated by either side as required.
At the moment the church building is closed for renovation and the Rector is encouraging us to ring for as many things as we can, just to emphasise that the church is alive and kicking despite the contractor's fencing.

you may not be under a written contract, but the church is, and enters into the contract based on a trust/presumption that the ringers will use their best endeavours to provide the service.

the problem seems to be that safeguarding rules for ringers are bring written by a dominant partner (the C of E) that as well as having a rather over cautious approach also has a mindset the all activity is parish based employees/volunteers, whereas ringing operates in a more diverse way that doesn't fit this model.
Would it help to look for parallels in other activities that take place in churches but don't share the parish centric model? For example, concerts and associated rehearsals are often held in churches but they are organised by non-parish bodies such as choral societies, and as well as society members singing, the orchestra is quite likely to include unattached musicians. How would the church's safeguarding policies be applied to them?

I wrote a Learning Curve article about it. There's also a section about it in The New Ringer's Book, p 89.

the mileage rate is intended to be the marginal cost, is the cost of using the car for that journey rather than leaving it in the garage. It is not intended to cover the cost of owning the car.

when I did the analysis in 2014 there was a 15:1 ratio between the highest and lowest per capita rate (£1.07 v 7p).
The paper is on my website if you want to see the rest of the analysis. Download from: http://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/

I can give some comparators based on ODG reports.
1914
1774 ringing members, 167 towers 'in union', ringers per tower = 10.6
1988
2133 ringing members, 259 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2
2019
2480 ringing members, 303 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2

I chose 2019 as the last pre Covid year.
If you take the average number of ringers per ring able tower, then the figures drop to 7.7 (1988) and 6.7 (2019). The 1914 report doesn't mention towers with no ringers 'in union'.

Simon guessed 10% of ringers in 1914 were women. In Sonning Deanery, which I analysed for the article on the effects of war there were 6.5% women in 1914, the first year there were any. That had doubled by1918 but then went down again.

the survey may not be online, but Steve Coleman, who was part of the team, wrote a series of articles explaining and interpreting all the different aspects of the results. It was called something like 'rumaging through' and published in the Ringing World. You should be able to find them, but if not I can dig out the paper copies to check.

I would be surprised if societies that charge a subscription report different numbers from the subs collected. But that's not the main problem, which is that 'paying members' might not actually do any ringing. When I did the analysis locally a few years ago the difference was significant (from memory ~20%). That's far more than the slight over counting from multiple memberships, which I estimated when analysing CC affiliation fees in 2014. (I forget the figure, the paper is on my website.

yes, but some things have already been improved or are in the process of being improved. Look at the reform of the CC (which some societies are thinking about trying to follow) and the framework for method ringing. We still have some of the harder problems to tackle though.

maybe that's because the change ringing did go wrong, or wasn't as well struck as the rounds.
We generally ring for 20 minutes. We used to look outside to see if the crowd was still there, but I don't recall anyone doing that lately.

from any order, notice a pair of adjacent bells that are the wtong way round, eg ....64.... Swap those bells so you get .....46..... Keep doing that and you will end up in rounds.
It doesn't matter which order you swap the pairs in so long as each swap reverses two bells that are the wrong way round. So just do whichever one you can see, until there are no more the wrong way.
Even if someone goes wrong while you are doing it, it doesn't matter so long as you keep swiping pairs the right way round. It will take a bit longer but you'll stil get there.

yes and no. Ringing below the balance certainly makes rhythm easier (which is one reason I like ringing round the back) and the closed handstroke certainly makes the sound flow more urgently, but the open handstroke effect is not so simple. A bell doesn't naturally ring evenly at both strokes. The weight of the rope makes the backstroke quicker than the handstroke. It probably isn't the exact one blow needed for open lead ringing but not is it the zero gap needed to ring cartwheel.

Midsomer Murders is long because it tells a quite complex story, woven around ringing but with many other strands. They oral minutes of ringing was quite short. Even so it took several hours of filming.
The shortest TV show we were in was the BBC breakfast article about bellringing in Mike Bushel's series of sampling lots of different sports (according to Guinness Book of Records he has done more than anyone else). That lasted 5 minutes - short enough for you? And he said we would have an audience of 12 million over the four hourly showings. I gather there was a spike in learning to ring enquirers just after it but don't know if any stuck.

in my experience the comparator has been the choir rather than the organist.

one of the 'disruptive events' that I considered in the final article on Thinking The Unthinkable was the effect an energy crisis would have on a ringing community that has become dependent on car travel, see: https://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/Unthinkable/10.pdf

ODG does. AFIA it supposedly pays the cost of printing the peal in the report, but I've no idea whether the cost is comparable to the fee. I don't know what the print run is, we haven't provided a report for each member for many years.