Ringing Forums

I've given you access to a copy of the original survey questionnaire. — Roger Booth

Thanks Roger, I have copied it into my (new) Google Forms account.

I agree with this:
Jason Carter - But sharing what media focus is coming up from the centre, so that those ringers that want to, can piggy back off it, is really important, in my humble opinion.

I was surprised that we had the Times article and various other pieces about Ring for the King but no distributed ‘press pack’ for all Associations / towers to make use.
Maybe something has been sent to Association PR contacts but nothing has filtered down (in my area) or maybe the National PR started before the press pack is ready but it is a shame not to be able to quickly capitalise on it in an easy and efficient way. — Lucy Chandhial

Thanks Lucy. We need to develop a community that can be *pushed* information about upcoming national media activity, so that they can use it locally on FB, Instagram and Tiktok. I shared 'Ring for the King' related stuff on FB on Friday and have two new recruits coming on Thursday. It is probably a (old skool) 'PR' group or maybe a more modern 'Social Media hub' that we need to support the good work that Vicki Chapman is doing. It is the follow up that needs to deliver, behind the scenes

As a relatively new ringer, I still remember seeing a "Ringing Masters Practice" and the immediate thought was "Definitely not for me !" , expecting that they will be ringing "high brow" stuff, and because it was never explained, I still don;t know what they are, but I know enough people now that a) I feel I can ask without embarrassment and b) even if it is way above the level that I ring at, there will probably be an opportunity to hunt the treble to something, or bong behind at some point so I would go along with that sort of expectation, but my point is that I wouldn't have done that a couple of years ago ( pre-covid ) and in fact I didn't. — Steve Farmer

Steve, all or your post is well put, but I am focusing on the above... Please don't be put off by what you might see as "higher quality of ability" ringing. Watching any ringing from the side offers huge benefits; because you are not having to try and control the bell. So you can focus one hundred percent of your attention on trying to see what is going on . This is hugely beneficial!!! If you can stand with a capable treble ringer who can talk you through what they are doing, you can learn a lot. I was lucky to learn in a 12 bell tower and I used to sit behind the tenor ringing Yorkshire Maximus. I didn't know the line at that stage but I could gauge what was happening and I learnt a lot from it. I range the treble to Cambridge minor today at a simulator practice and talked one of my learners who is not ready for treble bob yet through what i was doing. I am confident this will have helped their ropesite.

The language of ringing is complicated. Please never think that you cant ask what something means. There is probably someone else thinking about asking the same question.

And also, don't be intimidated by what you might see as more experienced ringers looking down their nose at you apparent lack of capability. There are some, I won't pretend that there are not, but most ringers remember where we came from, and are more than willing to ring to assist someone who is trying to learn something new.

Please keep taking every opportunity to push yourself, and your learners forward.

Jason

were they successful?

So I have two experiences of involvement in a ringing centre. The first was when Moulton, Northants got one, courtesy of a grant of circa £1,000 from the Worshipful Company of Founders (a long time ago). We held some tied practices offering basic 8 bell sessions both plain and basic surprise methods. I was young and inexperienced and it was still a new idea back then and not easy to advertise. On reflection we didn't make much progress. In the last 12 months or so we have installed a simulator at CC, Swindon. Pleased to see we are on the map - I didn't instigate that!! Generous grants from the G&B and a few local ringers delivered this. It was launched due to a realisation that after COVID we needed to recruit and teach. In the last year we have held 11 sessions, with 14 learners and another 17 more experienced supporters. We have settled into offering a 2 hour session for four learners, offering whatever they want to try (with a band around them).. This has worked fine and every session has had enough support. But only one person (me) is teaching at the moment and this is the pinchpoint. With a non-ringing spouse, I cannot offer any more time, but if we could get a small team who can lead the sessions, we could offer more frequent sessions. We are making progress.... two of (my home tower learners, one of which has only 15 months experience) made good progress today on plain hunt. The fundamental gap is teachers, and I think a lot of us can do it... it is just about having the confidence to step forward and give it a try.

I have often wondered if the night school model could help recruitment. We have all had the autumn brochure through the letterbox from the council that offers French lessons along with a myriad of other subjects: singing, dance, origami, chess etc. Why not bellringing...?

If we ran a 12 week course for bellringing - at a very reasonable rate - £5 per hour session (Or more... I was born in Yorkshire :yikes: so don't judge me!) then we could give some initial tuition (and enough to enable most people to have mastered basic handling) Then at the end of the course you could tell them bellringing is free/cheap and just to keep going (and by the way the money you paid will be reinvested in recruitment of more ringers) Whilst it might need a period of volunteer support, if it worked, eventually you may be able to pay (or at least support) someone to lead this activity on an ongoing basis...

btw - I have this weekend posted on FB about 'Ring for the King' and have two new interested recruits coming on Thursday... I know FB is not the ultimate way forward...but... a constant stream of recruitment is what we need. As Nike would say: Just do it!

I still have the Google form from the 2019 survey and can send it to you if you wish, to avoid the need to re-key the questions. — Roger Booth

Yes please Roger, as I start to scratch the surface of this I am beginning to realise that defining the right questions is much harder than I first thought. I have about 30 questions, but I think nearly all of them need refinement...

The 1988 survey picked a weekend that was kept under wraps and released at the last moment (the aim being to not distort results by people turning up to swell the ranks on that day i.e. to survey 'normal'). 's Kent survey above looked at ringing during a chosen "ordinary" month of November i.e. avoiding holidays and big events e.g. Easter. I was thinking about just asking what is "normal" for the tower, but I wonder whether there is a risk of this approach giving an overly optimistic view of what is normal. Thoughts welcome about what period the survey questions should be examining.

I'm happy to embrace a google poll, it will be good to embrace something new :blush: can you guide me as to whether there is a limit on the number of 'answers' that you can have to a question? Obviously we cant go bananas but could we have 10 possible options for example? (if we want to get quite detailed on 'ages' or give a fairly detailed breakdown of what is rung on a sunday rather than just R&CC, PB, Grandsire and Surprise. btw, 10 may be too many options but I'm just trying to understand the art of the possible.

if you don't mind doing that John, it would be useful to have. I don't want to miss a question out that we later regret not having an answer to.

Vicki Chapman's interview on BBC Radio 4 and 'The Times' article were both excellent. But if I may say, and I alluded to this in my letter in the RW last week, without harnessing the power :smile: of the whole (existing) bellringing community (or those of us who wish to piggy back off central council activity) it won't generate much interest. I have this evening put a post on my local facebook group to promote Ring for the KIng, and I hope we may get a few learners on Thursday. At the branch AGM next month I want to recruit a social media officer so that we can move away from facebook and into Instagram or even TikTok. If I cant find someone, then I will try... But sharing what media focus is coming up from the centre, so that those ringers that want to, can piggy back off it, is really important, in my humble opinion.

I doubt there was a soft copy unless someone later scanned the original - theworldran on paper in those days. The easiest way is to get them from the RW DVD. Can't remember whether those years are online yet or whether you need the actual DVD. — John Harrison

I can attach this courtesy of emails sent to me by Roger Booth. It is a long read, and the raw data I doubt is available in a readily available format. I will email Steve Coleman and ask. But I suspect we need to recreate it, in a more modern age...

Responding to an earlier comment from A J Barnfield, I am working on a list of questions that I will share in this forum shortly (30ish questions so far), but I am going to share it with Tristan Lockheart first.

I think it's worth pointing out that towers can be "off the grid", for decades nobody at my home tower was in the association so we were unreachable. Even now there are only 3 of us. Without including those sorts of towers, any survey is going to be misleading - and sorry, no I don't know how you solve that problem! :grin: — John de Overa

But surely those towers still belong to an association ** if only by geography ** somewhere...

So a channel of communication remains, even if membership is not "up to date"

Whoever is doing the review "on their patch" needs to find a way of talking to all of the towers in their area, whether that is via email, letter, or turning up to a local practice night.

my words are in bold text.

Quotes are in plain text................

1. I have a suspicion that the something central might end up being me, as I have recently been appointed to lead the Intelligence section of the Central Council Volunteer & Liaison workgroup. Certainly not a one-man job, though, so I should be grateful for volunteers to assist. — Tristan Lockheart

Congratulations! I am not on the Central Council but I would be very happy to assist you.

2. I imagine the main things we’ll want to find out are: the number of ringers, the skill level of ringers, their age profile, their geographical distribution, whether they ring in multiple towers, frequency of practice and service ringing, and additional teaching facilities (like simulators). — Tristan Lockheart

I have started writing a list of questions in excel. Simon Linford said:

we have much better tools to use for surveys now than we did when previous surveys were undertaken. — Simon Linford

Not sure what 'tools' Simon is thinking about, however, I think excel could deliver on this with a small amount of manual intervention required... but if there is a more sophisticated way to collect the data then I'm very happy to embrace that instead. Either way, the next collection of data will be significantly easier to achieve than the 1988 exercise, which must have been a considerable challenge for those involved!!

By the way, I started a new job on Monday, so I am very time poor atm, but I will continue to try and develop a question bank in excel for the time being. It will be easily transferable into a more sophisticated platform if one is preferred.

Getting towers to respond is enough of a task in itself, without trying to get individuals to respond. For any area, it needs to be comprehensive as Simon Linford says so we have an accurate picture of ringing in an area. Really, it needs to be strongly supported by local officials or 'big names' who have the clout with tower officials in their area to get responses out of them. — Tristan Lockheart

If I look at ringing on a (my branch) "micro" level... there are about 21 towers in my branch. I know that 1 is unringable, at least 1 doesn't have a band and several towers collaborate. In addition, 1 or 2 towers will not want any help (whether they need it or not). For the rest of the towers I want to know: if they have enough (or any) teachers?, if they have enough ringers?, if they want to recruit? I could easily ask these questions at my micro level. And then I can potentially assist or mobilise assistance locally.

In the G&BDA if there was one person prepared to do the same micro analysis then for the 11 or so branches in the G&B, the analysis would be done.

If you can then expand that by Territorial Association (60 odd...?) then you would have a complete picture.

The 1988 survey asked five different groups: TC's, Incumbents, Individual ringers, branches and associations. I think this was too much and that TC's is all we need to approach. They just need to be honest and work with their band. Does anyone have a different opinion on this view?

Can anyone think of different questions that need to be asked at the "macro" (big picture) level?

I can't.

This is why I am not convinced that a shift to a DMO (for all ringers) is the way forward.

We just need to give the branches and associations the help (and leadership) that they need, so that they can work in a more dynamic way, and maybe we need some new blood as well... and on that subject if a group of people are ready to come forward, I'm sure some of the "old guard" will happily step back.

Returning to the method of collection, I think excel could cope with all of the data (and I still need to test this at a small level). And excel is "relatively" straightforward for most people to use. A more sophisticated system may require some assistance from a smaller group of people to gather the information that we are trying to collect.

Previous work also highlighted the need for more use of initial informal discussions face to face with a few people with different experiences, to understand how they would interpret the questions. This then needs to be followed by a small scale pilot survey to make sure that the responses can be analysed appropriately and will produce meaningful results, before going further. — Alison Hodge

I think a tester would be a good idea. Happy to be that guinea pig...

If you can that would be great. It would be useful to cross reference to. The 1988 survey, I am still reading, but it asked five different groups, TC's, individuals, incumbents, Associations and branches. Maybe a question bank is needed to pick from.
Who to ask what is a difficult question. Honest answers is what we need e.g. some towers will want to be left to their own devices, but we need to find the towers or individuals that want help, or are willing to take new recruits and then work out how that can be delivered.

I have the reports, but I don't think they have a list of questions as such. Do the questions exist in a format that can be more quickly copied, rather than having to read the whole report and reinvent what the questions were? Not difficult to do per se, but more time consuming...

I'll start a new thread

On a more realistic note, I am investigating the possibility of doing a comprehensive survey in a small number of districts selected for their representativeness to provide baseline stats over time. — Tristan Lockheart

I've been thinking about doing this too. The two things that have been holding me back are: 1.the belief that something central is coming, and 2. what questions to ask?

Would it be worth pooling resources to get a good set of survey questions that could be asked, that anyone could then use locally? Then this could be used as frequently as individuals wanted to, and if a database comes down the road, no-doubt some volunteers will come forward to populate it with anything already gathered.