Ringing Forums

I think your best chance of getting local advice is to talk to the district ringing master for the relevant part of Essex (and Herts) as they will probably know the level of ringing at the various practices. Most Association websites give you practices by practice night so if Thursday is the specific aim that will narrow it down.
It’s also worthwhile to talk to the tower captain about your concerns and try to find out why he is focused on Grandsire triples, for example.
Some tower captains focus more on the ringers who ring with them on Sundays and see others who join the practice as ‘visitors’ who are there to support more than to gain.
In general improving your ability to plain hunt on 9 or 11 is helpful towards an end goal of ringing Cambridge because it requires you to place your bell precisely so don’t discount this kind of ringing as good for your overall skill set. But if it is a struggle for too many of the band I can see how that makes it hard to benefit from it.
A practice which has enough ringers to try plain hunt on 11 might also mean the tower Captain worries about the number of people sitting out when practicing minor. It could be a useful conversation to see if they are aware of people’s ringing goals and whether others in the band would also benefit from more ringing of minor and therefore not mind having less total ringing time if it is more targeted ringing time.

I think John and John have given good advice here.
Ultimately many ringers fall somewhere in between, motivated to ring well and sometimes try new things but often looking at ringing as a stress reducing (and sometimes primarily social) hobby.
You feel like you may have failed a leadership test either because the band are not all progressing towards greater technical excellence or because some of the band are unhappy with the expectations of them. Recognising that there is a gap between your aims and theirs is a first sign of good leadership and you are proving that you are a good leader by exploring why some of the band are not comfortable with pressure to try new things (at the moment).
You can work on goals with those who want them and allow others to continue with what is already manageable for them if that’s what different band members need. Your ability to balance different levels of interest in, and approaches to, ringing is all part of the leadership skills of a tower captain and it is not always easy but caring about wanting to keep progressing for those who want to be challenged and wanting to keep those who want a low pressure hobby is a very strong starting point.
Be proud of what you are achieving and what you are learning as the band are, I am sure, grateful that you are willing to be the Tower Captain and take on the difficult responsibility of balancing the needs of everyone each practice.

I think there are two aspects of ART which could help here.
One is the clear path - knowing that you are working through the levels, step by step, to one day ring a quarter peal or to be able to manage a touch in a minor method, etc. This can motivate people as it provides a next step to aim for but in this example you may need to emphasise that there is no rush, it’s fine to enjoy plain hunting for a while before deciding to try steps into method ringing.
The other is the celebration of achievements and sharing of satisfaction which comes in the Tower Talk newsletter and the ART Awards and that sort of thing. Knowing that many other people are also taking their next steps to improve their ringing and prepare to one day ring a quarter peal (or whatever) might also be a motivation that it really is possible, even if it doesn’t feel like it today.

The other big focus in ART is small steps, backwards to go forwards and break it down into smaller pieces. Maybe this learner will benefit from lots of plain hunting, getting really comfortable with it, before being ready to ask to try a next step.
It might be worth trying some methods which are a new challenge for everyone but still plain hunting for the treble, whether that is st Simon’s and st martins or double oxford or even stranger exercises like little penultimate where every other ringer is heavily watching / listening for the treble to know what to do themselves. Then everyone is getting some interesting ringing whilst this learner is ‘allowed’ to stay in the comfort zone of plain hunt (but likely acquiring improvement in rope sight and rhythm skills along the way).

I regularly ring with a Ring for the King learner who said early on that she only ever wanted to be able to cover well, then that she would only ever treble and is now ringing plain bob minor inside and trebling to surprise minor (and still fairly determined that she can’t try something new unless she’s had time to look at it at home first). She sets high standards for herself and hates to feel that she’s gone wrong and ‘ruined’ it for others. So, patiently, we are letting her drive the pace with an occasional suggestion of something she could look at next.

I found this article on the ART website (when looking for something else entirely!) and it shares why lapsed ringers said they enjoyed ringing and why they lapsed fro ringing and (in many cases) returned again later: https://ringingteachers.org/application/files/3616/1220/8169/Why_do_ringers_lapse.pdf
The social side was seen as a greater motivation to ring than the mental exercise but the mental exercise is still a major reason to choose bellringing as an activity.

It might be worth asking how they like to learn or how they tackle new challenges in other parts of life.
Some people are perfectionists and hate doing anything they can’t get 100% right first time. Others like to read about it or watch a video or talk it through in detail before trying it. Some can only learn from doing but might need time in one to one sessions to feel safe about the time it takes to learn the technique. Without knowing what stage they are it’s hard to provide detailed advice but starting by asking them how they tackle learning something new at work or in sports / music etc might give you some idea of what they find difficult about getting it wrong at a bellringing practice (with the emphasis on practice, where everyone gets it wrong at least some of the time!).
I think there was something in the Ringing World a couple of years ago about how hard it can be for adult learners to enjoy learning something where they will make mistakes and struggle, somehow we forget how to be relaxed about learning by failing (and some people have always found that really hard).

I think this is generally tackled locally, because people don’t travel far to ring for weddings.
In general because there are less church weddings than there used to be finding ringers doesn’t seem to be a problem where I ring but I can understand that it is harder in more rural areas.
In general the local guild or association are likely to be aware of the churches which struggle to find ringers and there are regular conversations about how much it is reasonable to charge for ringing for a wedding. Whilst some ringers won’t give up a chunk of Saturday afternoon regardless of the money others will travel further to ring if the money offered does more than simply cover petrol costs.

The only formal mentoring I’m aware of in bellringing is in ART, with teachers having a mentor whilst new to teaching handling.

One possible option would be to have access to the church or church hall for up to an hour before a district practice so that people could meet and find a quiet place to talk but still in a defined space with other ringers around them.

I would also question whether a one to one mentor is what is needed or whether small group learning sessions, away from ringing time, would be more useful as people could join the level or topic useful to them in groups of three or four and learn from each other as well as from the nominated expert.
It depends a lot on what you are aiming to achieve but in our district we find training sessions which include a theory session are well received (sometimes on zoom and sometimes in the tower before ringing starts).

As people learn at different speeds and in different ways you would probably need to consider swapping mentors, for at least some people, as often as twice a year.

I think it’s quite important to set clear expectations - a mentor cannot ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ every struggle for a learner, equally they should not start getting into personal assessments of future capabilities, there should be clear learning goals agreed and some clear definition of the time the pair will invest, probably including ‘I’ll come to your practice on the first Tuesday one month and you can come to my practice on the first Wednesday the next month and we’ll meet half an hour before the practice to talk’ or similar.

If you do try this it would be very interesting to hear the results and feedback six months and then a year later as this could be useful for many associations.

@Angela Elliott do you think there could be a route to share national press to support local pr activity? Perhaps it already goes to Association PR Officers (where the role exists)?
Maybe it’s possible to create a mailing list for people who are interested in active promotion in their local area?

This is good to see ‘ For example I'm running a "How do I learn methods?" theory session for my tower next weekend. Over the weekend I asked on one of the learner ringer's Facebook groups if there would be any interest in in such a thing delivered as an online session. I've had around 40 positive responses so far, ’

And I agree that taking this to a national (global) audience should be supported.
Depending how you propose to do this the CCCBR can help because they have a Teams account (for an interactive session) and a YouTube channel (for a video).
Equally ART might be interested to make it part of their online training offer (but would presumably want to run through it first to make sure it aligns with their other teaching style and messages).

But the idea that you shouldn’t need to offer it or that someone with more experience should be offering it has two answers - it is quite likely that there is something similar already out there as a book or a video or a suggested training exercise (or all three from entirely different people) but also often someone who has recently learnt it themself is the right person to teach it as they know the likely questions or sticking points and won’t start chatting about unnecessary information which comes much later in the learning curve.

I thought about how to reply to the post which replied to me because I had two initial reactions, so it’s taken me a while with work, a trip to my parents and the ART Conference in between.

Firstly Ringing 2030 (or the people most involved in workgroups and activity) have driven some actions like the set up of the SW Ringing Course, the video of why ringing is an enjoyable hobby, the engagement with the Scout jamboree in Essex using the new mobile belfry (as well as the young ringers new hub page, lessons plan, etc).

Secondly the first part of Ringing 2030 was defining what it would aim to be, then turning that into plans and therefore it is kind of natural that the start feels slow.

But I do also think there is a misconception that the CCCBR should make things happen which forgets that the CCCBR is a representation of ringers and that things happen when ringers make them happen. So there are limits to what can be achieved, and these limits will vary around the country (world) but achieving more comes from providing strategies and tools to support local action.
There is always more which can be done but we have a limited number of ringers who have time they are willing to invest to help and on a volunteer basis we can only try to persuade people to get involved, to support growing ringing further, etc and this too takes time to achieve.
That doesn’t mean nobody is trying, only that there are no magic answers.

I hope that you will see more activity around Ringing 2030 over the next twelve months because a core group of people are putting energy into it and want to achieve the goal that no one hits barriers to their development in ringing by 2030.

The Garlickhythe band have very clearly used it as a chance to tell a different story. They have publicised a YouTube video about bells and bellringing on the Royal Jubilee Bells and pushed the message that ringing is not dying out in their tower.
I think Dickon was disappointed to offer the journalist the chance to come to practice and take photos only to find the negative storyline was already written.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6M1FVp99fI

Equally Thomas from Twickenham was on BBC radio to share why ringing is not dying out for him (as a 19 year old who now calls quarters, organises peals and organises district training).
I only have this as a link on Facebook but it was Radio 4, 16th March at 9:24.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19dNYMjrp4/?mibextid=wwXIfr

So it has galvanised some response, which is good, but somehow we need to sell a more positive headline as the Telegraph article still used a lot of the early Ring for the King messages around saving a heritage hobby which a lot of people are trying to turn into positive messages to join because you’ll enjoy it.

Ringing 2030 isn’t a scheme in the sense of a named activity or programme of activities. It’s more a vision and strategy to first decide what needs to change and then look at ways to make the change.

Therefore many tower captains won’t hear of Ringing 2030 as a named thing to be aware of, but, if all goes to plan, they will notice increased publicity about ringing which has a positive message about the multiple reasons people enjoy ringing, they will benefit from improving support to teach new ringers and help them to continue to progress and they will be reminded to consider how their tower environment (physical and psychological for want of a better expression) makes it an attractive place to come each week to learn, develop and enjoy ringing.

And all of this will take time.
You can read more here about how the strategy was developed and what it intends to do: https://cccbr.org.uk/ringing-2030/

Each pillar connects to at least one workgroup which has volunteers willing to invest some time to try to support actions for Ringing 2030.
Many are starting with research, trials and tests to see what actions are most effective but there are also actions, it’s just unlikely that these will cover all towers in a significant way quickly because it takes time for activity to spread and build.
If you have time and an interest in supporting Ringing 2030 take a look and choose a workgroup to contact as all will happily include more supporters to keep growing the awareness of ringing as an option and creating opportunities for good learning environments.
https://cccbr.org.uk/about/workgroups/volunteer-and-leadership/

I am part of that workgroup (and have been thinking about this topic of people who don’t choose to help others progress as much as perhaps they could, for the sake of ringing in five to ten years time).

I also think the survey (part of the same workgroup) would really help to check how many ringers in how many parts of the country have this similar frustration. A kind of heatmap of the point at which you need to travel more than one hour to reach a developmental practice at least once a month.

Yesterday I rang with someone who had travelled from Kent into east London to ring beyond bob minor, his journey was over an hour despite the range of towers which are ringing regularly in Kent. Probably partly because he uses public transport which limits options in the countryside part of Kent.

Ringing 2030 definitely hopes to raise the bar for the level of ringing which requires a long journey, a special effort or is less frequently available. The factors which make it hard are varied and John has shared a lot across the past year or so through this forum and Facebook as one example of a frustrated ringer.
The risk is that (like customer service) for every John who tells us his frustrations ten more ringers simply slide away from ringing and look for other activities.

John - if you do want to talk about the activity in the Recruitment and Development workgroup message me and we can definitely set up a call with Paul but (as I know you are very aware) there is no magic answer and it’s going to take lots of energy from a variety of people to gradually make a difference.

I think this is a good point to note when it comes to managing frustrations and planning ambitiously for the future.
We will always have some people pushing to learn and perform behind the capabilities of their local area, some travelling further than others to find opportunity.

I think the sticking point, which I can understand is frustrating, is knowing that the ringing you want is possible near you but the people involved don’t want to help get you over the initial learning part to be ready to join them in quarters.

I think we are a long way from providing paid coaching which can include a strong band for Yorkshire Surprise Major as that’s where the ratio gets difficult. You need 6 or 7 strong ringers to support up to 4 learners for a good session of surprise major and that’s either expensive or asking a lot from strong ringers (especially if that includes over an hour of travel each way).
The Cast of 1000 aim showed that with all the best intentions it was not possible to organise on a volunteer basis so people joined online sessions but these never transferred to tower bell ringing.

Possibly Ringing 2030 needs to approach different areas in different ways (as you might with sport or music) but on a 99% volunteer basis it will be a slow journey to bring greater numbers to the point where they don’t meet a barrier to learning based on travel times to find a suitable band.
This is not something the CCCBR can be expected to ‘fix’, it’s part of being involved in a grass roots team activity which doesn’t have professional options, sponsorship options or academies like some sports and music do.

One of the projects within the Ringing 2030 workgroups is the survey of ringers. The aim of this is to better understand how many ringers are hitting the same kind of barrier as you because it does vary hugely geographically as to when you hit a barrier of not having enough ringers at a similar level wanting to make similar progress.

The interesting theme in your posts (which I do also hear from others) is that the elite experienced ringers don’t want to bring in others to help them reach the next level. Whilst this is obviously true of some ringers there are many ringers who spend more than 75% of their ringing time helping others to improve without being stretched or challenged themself.
Some very good ringers recognise the risk that they will lose their opportunities if they don’t invest some time in bringing others through.
Maybe there is one ringer near you who could persuade the band of elite ringers to host a supported practice for up and coming ringers even just four times a year?
But I appreciate you are trying every option so it may be that this is not possible in your area, hopefully this is not true for the majority of ringers and hopefully, gradually Ringing 2030 can encourage more ringers to be helping the next ringers to improve their skills and experience.

I definitely agree that the role of the rep is now less clear and some of the people contributing in the workgroups are not reps and therefore many of the reps have little involvement in the work that is happening. This is probably part of why the communication topic came up so strongly in the AGM.

If the role of the Rep is to challenge the council to work on the things members in the association need then it often would make sense for this to be someone who is an active committee member / leader within the association. Equally if those people knew what the council was aiming to achieve they would be able to communicate it clearly to their members as they already have a role to guide their association.
I think this already works in some associations.
But tying the role to an Association leadership role makes the association role (whether it is President, Chair, Master…) bigger, and potentially harder to fill.

An online meeting is more inclusive but quite difficult to chair, especially if the aim is to outline proposals and discuss and reach agreements.
It could be done with workshops around a topic before a proposal is brought to the meeting so different reps could join different workshops depending on areas of interest and then a proposal would be brought to the big meeting for a vote.

Potentially then the in person event has a theme and aims to involve people in shaping the workgroup efforts for the coming year or two (and possibly finding more workgroup volunteers) so that it actively working on the aims of the council and not ‘just’ presenting what’s already being done or planned.

The recent online efforts for the Membership system and the budget proposal for higher fees per member seemed to work well at bringing the interested and responsible people together to discuss and ‘workshop’ potential plans. Maybe this kind of targeted workshop is a useful way of shaping workgroup activities and focus along the way, so that it’s not a once a year chance for reps to hear about what is happening.

I received the business plan and budget as a forward from one of our Reps and agree that the budget lacks detail. But I suspect that is because it is a budget plan rather than accounts so people have put in what they think they are likely to spend without yet having firm costs for activities across the coming year.
Potentially as the year progresses a quarterly or half year update could then include detail of actual spend and remaining budget per line with any update on the likelihood of spending the remaining budget or any expected overspends in an area.
I don’t see anything particular concerning or particularly new in the planned budget or the planned activities but, as expected, a kind of step up in the level of Ringing 2030 activities being initiated.

I do think it’s an issue, and I think it says something about the perceived impact of the role.
Middlesex decided to cover travel but not accommodation at least partly because covering the full cost for four reps would be our single biggest cost for the year.
If we were going to fund a full weekend for four people each year we would need to feel that the reps are able to represent the members on topics we care about and influence decisions at the council which change ringing. Whether we like it or not right now it is not seen that way because there are few real decisions taken at the council meeting.

In the Middlesex the BRF Treasurer is separate to the General Treasurer but the Essex role looks like it combines both. Their Master role takes on some of what Middlesex expects the President to do and some of what Middlesex expects the General Secretary to do so it is interesting to see the different ways of splitting the overall requirements of running an Association.

The Essex Association have this on their website: https://eacr.org.uk/about/rules/jobdesc.html
We’ve been trying to collate something similar for the Middlesex but basically just have our ‘rules’ which give a very basic line or two about the expectations of each role.

Some Associations are actively raising money / requesting donations for training as a separate thing to BRF fundraising and I think this makes good sense.

Changing BRF use of existing money would not be easy but starting to collect money for different purposes can be done alongside and gradually transition the habit of donations to the BRF into donations towards recruitment or training.

However, I think people find it harder to pin point what the donation is for or what the charity aspect is when it’s about publicity, recruitment and training.
Some people have tested charging for handling lessons but most people are still giving their time for free as part of recruitment, teaching and training so the parts which are paid for (some of the admin organisation, perhaps the lead organisers time, advertising in local media, tower donations) are varied from place to place and tend to be ongoing costs. I think this makes it harder for people to see it as a charity donation and it is more seen as part of running costs for the organisation.

BRF’s can sit on a fair amount of money as each tower only needs work every 50 - 100 years but then needs a lot of money so it is long term planning but it is likely there could be fewer projects as some churches close or towers fall silent.

I don’t think the challenge is about re-allocating existing funds but more about starting to raise money for other purposes, which requires some thought and definition around what those purposes are. How do we want to recruit and teach bellringing in order to reach more people more quickly?
This is part of the Ringing 2030 challenge and has a variety of possible solutions which people are trying in different places to see what works.
They don’t necessarily need more money although funding for centralised admin support has proved useful in ART and funding to manage an active teaching tower has proved useful in some teaching hubs.