Ringing Forums

I understand that the Essex Association is collecting data on each church with bells in their association based on the risk rating proposed at the Central Council AGM weekend by @Simon Linford. Might be worth asking them what they're planning.

State pension age is now 68, yet according to many in the ringing world, anyone over 45-50 is considered to be senile and incapable. it's a ridiculous and insulting attitude and says more about the attitudes of the even more elderly ringing "elite" than it does about the abilities of people in that age range. Move on please, the 2000s happened nearly a quarter of a century ago. — John de Overa

I don't think age has any substantial bearing on ability. My concern for towers like @Phillip George is that younger ringers who go to university or busy city towers will get used to towers full of younger people. From a social perspective, a tower full of 50+ ringers and kids isn't such an attractive prospect. I find that having a handful of 20-49-year-olds can make all the difference. And this is not saying that there shouldn't be older ringers in a band; it's just that you need that balance and people at a similar stage of life to you. Certainly in London, 20-30-year-olds are concentrated in a small number of towers where there are people of a similar age.

A lot of the Central Council's work on universities is bridging the gap between ringing as a child at local towers and continuing at university. Perhaps we need to consider the post-university period too?

@Jason Carter @John Harrison

Leeds University has an annual subscription for student members which automatically becomes a free life membership for alumni. This is broadly similar to other universities.

Given the massive imbalance between paying members and non-paying members, the lack of funds to fall back on, and very few sources of revenue, I don’t think there is any prospect of any university society ever paying the new full affiliation fees.

There seems to be a danger in this approach that the majority of ringers for the majority of their ringing career would be assessed as being sub par. Not that inspiring or that enjoyable in what, after all, is an entirely voluntary pastime. — Alan C

My comments were in the context of peal ringing as the commonly-aimed-for top end of ringing.

As it stands, we must and generally do ensure that all ringers feel their contributions are valuable. These aims that I have laid out would be subject to that same expectation.

I think that ringing more complex methods for a prolonged period of time is more likely to be saved by ensuring that the opportunities are there for a variety of methods to be rung at the QP level across the country.

If peals were to largely die out but QPs were to remain, it would be possible for future enthusiastic ringers to build back up to peals. But if we just accept fairly simple methods as the ceiling for most normal ringers, then that is just inviting skills and knowledge to not be passed down and die out altogether. The skill and ability to ring for a prolonged time and in a complex method is perhaps what we need to be most concerned with keeping.

That's why I'm not particularly worried about peal trends (to be fair, as a non-peal ringer!) but if QPs fall in quantity and level of difficulty, that would be my red flag.

Dear All,
Several people have said that peal ringing is the best, or even the only, way to achieve a high standard of ringing. That is why they are concerned that peal ringing has become less popular.
My opinion, however, is that it is much more important to work on getting a good standard of ringing at more basic levels.
So, no, I don't think it matters that fewer people are ringing peals. I think that what matters is to get ringers at a basic level able to understand how to ring plain hunt doubles that flows nicely
There are several reasons I think plain hunt doubles is more important than peals - the main one is that there is a lot more of it!
Regards, Barbara — Barbara Le Gallez

Yes, there is value in lower levels of ringing and plain hunt is worth getting right before proceeding further. However, just aiming for plain hunt doesn't really dig into the art of ringing (in my view).

I think we need to ask just what is our core aim as an exercise? Our ideal standard that we want most new ringers to reach over time?

For me, it is:

• ringing that is a suitable length to be a performance,
• in a variety of methods up to the median of difficulty of all methods rung at the moment,
• in a way that utilises the full ring*,
• and with good striking at all towers which are in a fair condition.

QPs in a variety of methods satisfy these criteria, and might not require so many resources to achieve.

If we only aim for plain hunt, that's all we'll be left with in fifty years' time. It may be good quality plain hunt, but it won't be the change ringing we know today.

*(i.e., a mix of 5,6,8,10 and 12-bell ringers relative to the number of towers with each number of bells)

If direct membership is clearly so beneficial, then the CCCBR has better set it up and let it rise on its own merits. Isn’t that the pattern set by the youth organisation? — Alan C

Because peoples’ understanding of the Council’s work is imperfect, they may well not appreciate the benefits of the organisation. What’s more, the current system where the Central Council affiliation fee is but a footnote in the accounts and minutes of most associations insulates the individual ringer from actively choosing to fund the existing centrally-provided services. Suddenly having to make that choice would reduce the likely number of DMO Central Council members as opposed to the number of people represented via an association at present.

If we were starting the associations now, the fees for associations would be a much harder sell. Would there be 1489 members of the Yorkshire Association, say, if there was not the established social norm of joining your local association? The same issue would apply to a DMO Central Council.

As for the youth organisation, the jury is still out on that one. Its membership is still relatively low and struggles to get the message out to all young ringers about its existence, and get the volunteers in place to cover the work required. Sound familiar?

None of that is unusual within the CofE, churchwardens, flower arrangers, most choirs etc do the same in their areas and ringers play their part as well. Categorisation of ringers as "freeloaders" by the ringing community itself is harmful and doesn't reflect the view of the CofE or its parishioners. — John de Overa

Our current deal puts us out of kilter with similar hobbies in terms of the expectation of paying for our venues in addition to equipment. Yes, the relationship with the Church of England is pretty mutual and a good deal all-in-all, but they are only our current ‘landlords’.

The emphasis on providing labour is perhaps misplaced when what we actually need to get the work done is cash, which many ringers assume can be substituted for by free labour. Sure, we could ‘brute-force’ the Council’s work by throwing man-hours at the tasks, but we don’t have the volunteer pool to properly sustain the current workload, let alone cover what is needed to tackle the challenges that will face ringing over the coming decades. So, yes, the attitudes formed by the existing ways of sustaining ringing do impact the willingness ringers would have to pay to be a member of a DMO CC.

The RW often reads like an Old Boy's newsletter and as such seems to be primarily of interest to those at the end of their ringing careers.
[...]
RW is a commercial enterprise, categorising its lack of appeal to many ringers as "freeloading" is wrong. Its problems are RW's problems, not those of its potential audience. — John de Overa

I have many opinions on the RW, as you and I have discussed on other threads previously, I think.
However, it is important to acknowledge that RW provides several important services:
• Centralised performance records
• Wide-circulation news and communication (probably more widely-read than the Council’s social media and website)
• The National Youth Contest
• A cultural and technical record of the history of bellringing
• Publications

All roles which the Council would be expected to take on if the RW was to collapse, still with considerable expenditure and less/no income, in lieu of the contribution RW subscribers and donors currently make to cover the benefit to the Exercise as a whole.

Dove's users are generally members of associations, as has been discussed ad nauseam they pay money to the CC so yes, they are paying for it.
I'd be interested to hear just what the hosting costs are for hosting of the Dove website and a low-end MySQL database. I suspect not much, the primary "cost" is the large amounts of unpaid time put in by those who develop and maintain it (see above). — John de Overa

Individual members aren’t making the choice to pay for it, though. I suppose members of associations are technically not free-riding, but how often does the CC affiliation fee come up as anything other than a line in the accounts or a brief mention in the AGM minutes? I doubt many people consider this as a significant part of their decision to join an association. This means that their support for Dove etc. is not a given if we’re going to ask them to actually choose to fund Dove etc. as part of a DMO CC.

As for the cost, part of what the CC gives to facilities like Dove is an oversight body, a pool/network to source volunteers from, readily available cash to cover sudden expenses and a succession plan for when the existing volunteers retire/die. You can’t attribute a portion of the general running costs of the Council to projects like Dove, but they still benefit from that expenditure.

Eh? Why shouldn't the CC be involved locally and provide direct benefit to ringers? — John de Overa

Depends on who you ask. Some say that it oversteps the Council's authority to be getting involved in local affairs, duplicating territorial association provision. It is also unclear whether the Central Council would have the resources even in the long term to have a local delivery function without absorbing the associations, particularly in terms of manpower.

Ringing has a massive cultural problem with free-riding, which could curb any attempts to get an acceptable contribution from individual ringers.

• We ring on bells in buildings we don't really pay for, and our primary 'landlord' is seriously struggling.
• There is an expectation that the Ringing World should exist for news and recording achievements, but subscriptions continue to decline in the face of rising costs.
• Information sources like Dove or UniversityRinging are funded/maintained by the Central Council yet aren't paid for by their users.
• Mid to high-level ringers are invested in by towers, often to then go on to greater things or move to other parts of the country. Many "pay it back" but many don't or can't.

@John Harrison @PeterScott

I fear that when ringers are actually asked whether they are willing to pay for the Central Council, they'd say no. As it stands, that decision is left to inertia (being affiliated is the 'done thing') and to the fact that people who have a greater understanding, and sometimes, appreciation of what the Council does have a greater amount of influence in the associations and thus on the decision to continue affiliation,

No matter how much of a good job the Central Council does within its remit, it is not and must not be involved locally such that individual ringers feel a strong direct benefit. However, that also means that it is difficult to demonstrate an individual benefit.

Yes. If there's a role for the CCCBR I think it's encouraging and supporting those grass roots efforts, not trying to tell people what to do. — John de Overa

What sort of support are you thinking of?

The qualifying membership of a society that doesn't charge an annual subscription is based on the number of its members who are active, ie who take part in a society event during the year. — John Harrison

In many uni societies, the students will pay a small fee, and alumni pay nothing, so falling under:

the number of members paying (or exempted from paying) membership subscriptions in 2024 or your society’s equivalent membership year

I think what it sounds like you need is a comprehensive book for how to run multi-band intermediate methods practices, starting from a base of maybe two or three fluent method ringers, aimed at groups which are mainly at the lower levels and need to progress without having a strong band around them. Step by step, a bit like ART. There could be Zoom mentoring systems for the local leaders to get advice on how to progress etc.

I completely agree. Our tower can't wait until whatever initiatives trickle down. We are working on this now, initially to consider which areas need to be addressed and to set priorities; this in conjunction with the PCC, our biggest stakeholder. We have to at least try to sustain our future by developing our team, looking after the installation and looking outward into the community. — Phillip George

The Ringing 2030 projects fall into what could be called 'Central Services' and 'Central Resources'. The former is only of use if added on to a fairly strong local base and the latter requires people to choose to use them and put the work in to apply them. Either way, it is down to local people and teams to make use of the Central Council's efforts and work to improve ringing locally. As you say, you need to run and change things locally, and in turn the Central Council will do its best to support you.

Ringing 2030 is like a new crop - it requires a well-run and well-resourced local farm to grow and be harvested successfully. The Central Council can only provide the seeds.

Sounds like we have our first paid employee role - project coordinator.

Sadly YACR has much bigger problems to worry about than categories of membership. Yet unfortunately following almost 2 years of reviews it appears to be the only thing they have chosen to amend. Member apathy is of course the biggest problem with several branches barely functioning and lacking people to take office. No doubt these issues are not confined to Yorkshire. — Jane Lynch

Quite. For the context of readers not from Yorkshire, two of our branches are defunct, and a third bears a close resemblance to defunctness.

Many ringers in Yorkshire struggle to understand what it is the association itself does. When I quiz people on this, they generally mention branch activities and the Yorkshire Tykes young ringers - neither of which are really association-level activities. Even I don't have a very good understanding of what they do beyond general meetings, striking competitions, the ailing Snowdon Dinner and run the (creaking) website. Some of this is down to the poor communication; there a reliance on the antiquated association<branch<tower/member system and this doesn't really get the message through - getting info from the branch is sometimes unreliable, let alone from the association.

As for the role of the CCCBR, I think they already provide useful resources and there's scope for more, e.g. the discussion about membership management systems. But a lot of the CCCBR's contact with ringers is indirect, via the mostly moribund diocesan structure. Breaking those barriers down so the CCCBR is seen more as a "provider of useful stuff" by rank and file ringers rather than "something only our reps care about" seems like a good approach to me. — John de Overa

We were asked at the AGM whether Central Council communications should be passed onto members. It was framed as generally dull procedural information, so I had to stick up for it as some of the information is actually useful for tower captains and ringers to receive. I am generally reluctant to do this at the meetings of associations for which I'm not a council rep but it needed to be said. It was resolved that the association would start passing on emails from the CC to branch secretaries to forward at their discretion.

The CC doesn't help itself though. Some of the stuff we get sent to pass onto our members is decidedly dull, and needs to be translated into a more engaging format.

The vote of course faced the usual malaise of only c. 2% of members attending the AGM - no surprise as it was in the far west of YACR’s very large area, in the middle of the countryside at Kirkby Malham near the county boundary. No public transport access of course; indeed, it was probably easier to get to from most of Lancashire than large parts of Yorkshire! Very mixed views when the changes were reported back locally.

I have been thinking for a while that something more like 3 ringers per bell is what you need to have a long term viable and self-sustaining band. One, it takes the pressure off ringers to absolutely be there every Sunday or no ringing will occur. With that pressure off, it is easier to welcome ringers who have young children/work shifts/ etc, rather than having them self-select to quit.
Also it gives you some contingency for when or if you lose a lot in one period of time.

I think it could make for a challenging practice night, in the category of good problems to have — Tina

What I'd add is that this number of ringers allows for a bit more specialisation of practices - perhaps ones for foundation skills, one for going into methods, etc. Getting people into methods in general practices dominated by learners is challenging, so changing the structure to give everyone a bit more of what they want would be beneficial.

As for recruitment, my band will take in any competent ringers we can lay our hands on. For learners, we generally try and avoid more than 2 learners to 1 handling instructor as we don't have the resources to offer instruction outside of the practice nights. If you can fit in additional practices for learners, you could probably extend that to four per instructor as long as there are enough existing ringers to be able to put together a solid band on six.

We would not turn away anyone who actively seeks us out as that keenness amongst university students is unusual and indicates a level of self-motivation which could make them good learners. We would however reconsider any plans for active recruitment. If we were well and truly overwhelmed by people wanting to learn, we would look to other towers in the area (perks of ringing in a city). But we would never allow a level of learners which prevented them from learning or prevented the existing band from progressing.

I think official recognition as a piece of cultural heritage would certainly do no harm.

Firstly, it provides us with a boost to one of our core purposes - preserving heritage. Many ringers currently rally around the duty of ringing for Sunday services; this could give them something similarly 'official' to ring for.

Secondly, it gives us a bit more clout when dealing with all sorts of officialdom - redundant churches, noise complaints, etc. "Please don't remove our heritage!" is not as convincing as "Don't remove our UNESCO Assets of Intangible Heritage!". It repositions ringing towards being a legitimate heritage/traditional activity, rather than the preserve hobbyists or religious people (although both are still valid reasons to ring, of course).

In my response, I intend to emphasise the need to consider soundscapes as well as the activity itself and associated physical infrastructure.

Bell ringing as a pastime has been compared to cycling and running, but I think heritage railways are probably a closer fit. It’s an activity that can only take place in a limited number of locations, using expensive and heritage methods. — Alan C

And of course, heritage railways can sell their activity and generate income in a way that bellringing cannot. Really, we need to find a way to monetise it either internally or externally to generate the sums needed for the Exercise to be self-sufficient.

A very unfortunate situation in Wigan. Clearly badly handled, but whether or not your area undergoes such large-scale reorganisation, some church buildings will certainly close. Congregation numbers are still down pre-Covid, and the costs of running and maintaining the sort of churches with bells are steadily increasing.

The CofE has made £6.2m available to dioceses for grants to churches for urgent repairs, however the maximum grant is £12,000 - that won't go far for a new roof, or repairing a structurally unsound tower.

Personally, I am of the opinion that each territorial association needs to be looking at supporting a skeleton network of towers across their areas which are not under CofE control. It will require a lot of money and a lot of vision. Neither of which I have - best of luck to those that do...!

Harking back to the top of this thread, in 2030 (let alone 2040) will there be the churches to ring in? "Others & none" may be happy to ring, but they won't keep churches open and the residents of "All Saint's House" might not want a group of odd bods arriving at 09:30 on a Sunday to wake them up, or for that matter at 19:30 just as they are trying to get the baby down. — J Martin Rushton

And that is another unfortunate issue. Strategically, we are fighting a war on two fronts. A scenario where the part of the Church of England which has bells and is supportive of bells is in decline. Perhaps it won’t be noticeable now, but within twenty to thirty years it may present us with serious issues. Two of the three churches in Wigan with change ringing bells are under threat of closure by the Diocese of Liverpool as funding issues and falling congregation issues really bite. The third and last also has a questionable future. It is very possible that Wigan could be without change ringing within five years or a decade. The parts of the CofE which are doing better (evangelical, charismatic – think HTB) are generally neutral or anti-ringing.

I don’t think other areas will necessarily face the mismanaged mess in Wigan, but we could well see structural issues with towers which prevent ringing not being dealt with due to lack of funds. Maybe we’ll be expected to pay for our electricity usage? I know that this is already done in some areas.
As for how ringing can overcome this challenge, we are faced with two options. Make ourselves valuable to the church community, or cough up to look after existing CofE towers/fund new secular rings where we are an influential tenant rather than last in the queue.