Ringing Forums

Maybe it is time to stop being embarrassed about holding an election (and having a vote) on committee members. — Jason Carter

and central council members

↪Alan C it represents the views of officers who have just departed. I know no more. New officers are shortly coming into post so hopefully this will change. — Simon Ridley

Maybe it is time to stop being embarrassed about holding an election (and having a vote) on committee members.

I think we need a better profile of the 60+ age group of experienced and capable ringers to give us some idea of the expected rate of loss in the group. I think we imagine the profile to be a straight line but there might be something of a nasty bulge...
32 minutes ago — A J Barnfield

A valid point... but too much detail gives a far too long drop down list. Thoughts on below:

<10 15 <10 15
15 20 15 20
20 25 20 40
25 30 40 60
30 35 60 65
35 40 65 70
40 45 70 75
45 50 75 80
50 55 80+
55 60
60 65
65 70
70 75
75 80
80+


I still think the right hand list is a bit long, (especially if someone is completing the survey on a mobile) but maybe it is manageable.

One aspect of surveyng ringers and the state of ringing that I have been thinking about is the age bands that you might wish to specify. It is easy to just fall into blocks of 10 or 20 years but I think there are much more relevant blocks. Some things are not quite about age anyway – more about circumstances. — Simon Linford

may disagree, but I think young people will, as a general rule, learn more quickly. But... circumstance is everything. A teenager learning in a band who can ring surprise minor or major will very likely be ringing the same within 12 months (I learnt at 17 and I could), but a teenager learning in a band that can only ring plain hunt, may not even be able to do that. But what is the youngest and oldest age where that rapid kind of progress (ignoring the exceptions) is likely to happen? (I'm going to put 14-40 for discussion...)

Or is age irrelevant to some degree? Can much older learners progress rapidly with the right band to develop them? At what stage (again, ignoring exceptions) does that fall away? 40s, 50's...?

Or is that not really why we might ask any questions about age? Instead are we really trying to assess that we have (maybe) 30,000 ringers today, and if we advance forward twenty years, and others things being equal, we will only have xxx ringers...?

Age feels like it is a very macro question. We can look at the exercise as a whole. Or, it is a more macro question: where are the young people? , and how do we give them the experience/help that they need...?

(and its only one aspect). That doesn't mean more mature learners should not also be given opportunities to develop, but that needs to be a different line of questioning, to tease them out.

we need leadership training for tower captains, District/Branch/Guild/Association ringing masters, chairs, PR and comms officers, webmasters etc. This would equip them with tools and help them be effective in their roles. There also need to be ways of sharing good practice and for this to find it's way down to the people who need it.
— Roger Booth

There are plans in the works for leadership courses; it's just a question of finding the right people to run and deliver them and getting people to actually go on them. Anyone with appropriate experience and skills, now is your time... — Tristan Lockheart

This does sound like a good idea... but with 30,000 ringers (or more, who knows) surely there must be a decent core of leaders out there already? btw - I am not saying that means we have enough, more that if we could coax some of those that already have the skills into leadership roles then that would help in itself. (And whilst I am on this subject I will say that I have seen a considerable improvement in leadership from the top in the last few years...) And of course a lot of those leaders will be busy and may often be the ones that only come occasionally on a Sunday morning, or at 8.45 for a course of something and the pub...

It would be interesting to know what is coming, can you offer a taster?, in case anyone can offer additional insight. I'm no expert, but I have learnt a lot from undertaking 360 degree feedback and emotional intelligence training, amongst other things in the past...

ok, try now, sorry I didn't give editing rights...

On filtering if I go in I can see a "reverse Pyramid in the right hand side of any cell in row 1. If you click on that in column "H" then you can hit the blue "Clear" word and then scroll down to find the association that you want to work on. It is not as easy to use as excel...

I am not sure if the filter function carries across to other users so if you can't see the filter then you can add one under the "data" menu at the top. If this doesn't work, let me know and I can email you the file with what you want filtered.

Thanks

you will need to re-apply the filter. It doesn't seem to stay on

you should be able to get in now, as should anyone else, and thanks for helping.

OK.HELP PLEASE!!!

I have got 7,152 towers in an excel spreadsheet. We can filter it by County, by Diocese, or Affiliatiion, (and other options too) I am looking for volunteers to ADD a new level of detail, i.e. ** branches of associations ** in a separate column in excel. You can easily filter the file. As an example, the G&B has 264 rows - I can do this by referring to the Annual Report. If I can get a small group of c60 people to also do this in local areas, we can quickly add this extra level of data. Please form an orderly queue. :cool: And thank you! — Jason Carter

Here is the file. I did the G&B last night using the annual report. It took a couple of hours. If anyone can do similar it shouldnt take too long to get a complete picture

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fWvSOx1YuJ1F5fQaZuidxgVBI-OqS7IZE2ITT7-6OL0/edit#gid=0

OK.HELP PLEASE!!!

I have got 7,152 towers in an excel spreadsheet. We can filter it by County, by Diocese, or Affiliatiion, (and other options too) I am looking for volunteers to ADD a new level of detail, i.e. ** branches of associations ** in a separate column in excel. You can easily filter the file. As an example, the G&B has 264 rows - I can do this by referring to the Annual Report. If I can get a small group of c60 people to also do this in local areas, we can quickly add this extra level of data. Please form an orderly queue. :cool: And thank you!

Yes, Instagram is a good way of reaching the young (and increasingly the not-so-young). TikTok is inadvisable unless it is a young person running it; it requires a very specific format and humour level to get engagement. — Tristan Lockheart

Interesting... maybe I can embrace Insta... I'm too much of a dinosaur to go for TikTok. However, I would prefer someone younger and cooler than me to take this on though...

thanks for sharing those. I have saved them down for reference.

It's OK doing a survey, but you then need to turn it into action. Otherwise, it will just be ignored — Roger Booth

I am very conscious of this Roger. My immediate concern is my branch, so if we can get this survey off the ground, I will be very keen to understand what the 21 towers locally want. And I am most interested in how many teachers I have got out there, and how many more could be persuaded with a bit of help or training. Everyone who wants to engage with this project will no doubt want to look at this from their local perspective as well, and in my opinion, this is THE most important level, and easiest for action to be taken.

But then we can roll it up to an association level and a national level as well, and we need to work very hard at asking ourselves at those bigger picture levels the question: so what? One of the most important themes for me is where the young people are? There is not a critical mass of young ringers in Swindon but there are some. There is a G&B team, but I know there are some just over the border in neighboring associations. Finding a way to bring these people together more frequently, for some ringing, pizza, friendship and bowling, could help retention of the most important commodity. Teenagers. Because they learn so much quicker.

There are two problems with ringing: one is that everyone has only a limited appetite or capacity for it, and the second is that we are very attached to our home tower. The capacity will be different for any one ringer, but I think if every ringer could shift their normal ringing month to focus, maybe 20% of their time, into bringing other ringers on rather than just "their normal ringing month", this could make a big difference. If every ringer who can ring Cambridge minor went to one additional practice a month, and either rang lots of call changes and plain hunt. or stood behind someone to help them, how much difference could that make? And if I know my 6 bell tower is going to have 8 ringers on a Sunday, could I maybe... just once a month... go and ring at a different tower...?

We need to work more as a team. Collaborate. Help each other out to strengthen every tower's capability, rather than just focusing on our own ringing, or our own tower.

JLC

no problem we will create a paper version too, and thanks for the offer of help.

We have a WhatsApp group in our band which everyone likes and there are probably messages exchanged on average 3 or 4 days per week. It might drive some mad, but it works well for us.

We also have a WhatsApp group for "One More Ringer". It is request only i.e. you have to opt in. We have 22 members from across the branch so far and it is strictly for asking for ringing help. It works very well for weddings, and I am trying to increase its use for that one extra ringer that you might need on a practice night.

I cant really decide whether the grassroots ringers that talks about don't want to communicate, or potentially worse, have so little awareness of the bigger picture that they don't even know anything exists if they did want to communicate up the chain. It is really down to how well educated ringers are by their teachers about the exercise as a whole.

I agree that not having a recruitment initiative for the coronation would have been a very big missed opportunity. It had to be done. I agree that from a post*-pandemic perspective the time is now right. I have watched the recruitment video and it is excellent. The links with national media have been very well handled. What has been done at the centre/top is worthy of much praise.

But there is a but. I am a member of three associations/guilds. I don't think there has even been a mention in dispatches from any of them yet. Chatting down the pub it seems that those that knew about the initiative had heard items in the national media, not through ringing channels. — A J Barnfield

Totally agree we have to move now, but maybe only in areas that are ready. But a better system of communication by Associations is needed. I shared the initiative in my branch and also in my local FB group and have two new recruits coming on Thursday. That's all I need, that's all every tower needs, but on a regular basis. If we can improve the distribution of "what is coming from the centre" to those that can act on it, then we can start now. If Ringing 2030 can unlock how I recruit 12-20 year olds, scouts, guides and youth groups, then I will throw 100% of my weight behind it and mobilise local people to get those young people trained.

ok, thanks John

Here you go:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZlmtNf52veNZoVuUkH-bNt7Jq_hycpQg

What's rather depressing is that all of the problems that were identified 34 years ago still seem to be endemic. — John de Overa

Hi John, apologies if I am being thick but I cant see a spreadsheet...?

you might be surprised. Maybe we should ask the question. At the regular simulator sessions I hold we generally get about £10 from voluntary donations; and there are only 4-5 learners, so the helpers are paying too. And I know that more established centres are charging more, something i am thinking about...

↪Lucy Chandhial Vicki Chapman, CC PRO, is working on it. There are only so many spare hours in the day and she's been a bit overwhelmed by how quickly this has snowballed. You can never be sure what the press will pick up on, but after the initial appearance of the article in the Times there have been multiple requests from TV and radio and the PR workroup has been busy arranging half a dozen bands to satisfy the demands of media around the country. — Simon Linford

Maybe the first paid for post should be PRO...

What could ringing do with £1 million a year? — John de Overa

30,000 ringers x £1 per week = £1,560,000