Ringing Forums

One of the things I say in my new book http://callchanges.cccbr.org.uk is that ringing bells on or slightly below the balance gets them into a natural rhythm of their swing speeds. So provided the bells are evenly struck they fall into place more easily. Method ringing's handstroke gap takes us out of the natural rhythm of the bell.

The 'cat in a fex' is used by Charlie in the methods she currently knows, which is a pretty standard repertoire

Hmmm, not bad I suppose

Question is then, if you are marking faults, how many did you spot?
2nd is quick at backstroke occasionally, e.g. just before the lower, but I'm splitting hairs

Yes thank you John - that was very interesting and must have been great to have done. Midsummer Murders is just too long though!
My only filming/ringing anecdote was when we were on a quarter peal tour as young ringers and we were about to start ringing a quarter at Chuchill (I think). A producer came in in panic and asked us how long we were going to ring for and we said an hour, at which point he got a wad of notes out and asked us how much we wanted. We accepted what was for teenagers untold wealth and we decided to miss that tower out.

On a similar theme, a peal met short this weekend because one member of the band's electric car did not have enough juice to get them there, and two charging points en route were broken. Has anyone had that happen before in ringing context?

I also think it wouldn't work hence saying it was in jest! It is something that could quite easily have happened I think, maybe in the dim and distant past, if the Council had been asked by the Church to fix rates, but it's probably more likely to have been done on a Diocesan basis.

It is increasingly a problem for dealing with young ringers as well as older ringers. I don't have any young ringers who would get an email and I have to get to them via WhatsApp or Messenger if I want to communicate directly. There doesn't seem to be a system that allows the same message to be sent to an email address and a WhatsApp group unless anyone has found one?

Maybe the Central Council should agree a standard rate with the CofE to be applied to all weddings to remove any uncertainty. I jest!
Is there a recommended rate for organists though from the RCO? The organ is a bit different as in many places playing the organ is a paid job.

I don't understand the taxing peal ringers thing. Well I do, but don't agree. It depends what you think peal ringing is for and what it achieves.

When the St Martin's Guild abolished peal fees, one of the arguments for doing so was that peal fees seemed to be a tax on peal ringing, and given peal ringing was something we wanted to encourage just like all other forms of ringing, it didn't seem right to levy a charge just on that.

The fees had originally been to pay for illuminated peal book writing but that is done electronicaly now. and the printing and binding is just seen as a Guild overhead.

How many members of the MC&LDG think that the Personal Accident policy pays out to them personally if they have an accident? One of the things Marcus was saying recently was that these PA policies are in the name of the association as beneficiary, and so it is the association, which won't actually have suffered a loss, which get any payment. Policies may vary though, and some may be written such that an individual subscribed member is the beneficiary, but many are not.

I don't want to divert this very interesting discussion - I too like Graham John's idea. it's just an aside to say that we are currently consulting on changing the way in which societies pay their CC affiliation fees to be based on membership numbers rather than numbers of reps. The total number of members reported last year was about 37,000, including 1700 from the Veronese and some overlap (e.g. ASCY and SRCY). I imagine if there is a financial incentive to count actually active ringers the number will suddenly get very realistic, and a lot lower!

One of the big decisions made at the inception of the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing was charging. We set it at £5 a session, and that would be at a session which would have a maximum of about four students. It has never met any resistance, and the only feedback we have received was that it should be higher.

A few weeks ago one of the young ringers at Moseley started coming to the Monday night 'adults' practice in addition to the Thursday night 'kids' practice. When I started the kids practices I put a charge on it - just a token £2 - but it made the point that it shouldn't be free. We we pay for certificates, snacks, the odd broken stay, etc. When they turned up to the adult practice they didn't understand why the same charge didn't apply, and it was interesting having to explain to the parent why it was.

I expect we could do such a survey again if there was the will. I think it was Hayley in Truro who recently quoted the "If you can count it you can manage it" maxim. There is a temptation to think there is no point doing such a survey because we know what it will tell us, but it would also provide a benchmark against which to measure progress if there was a will to change.

Some associations have done such surveys recently. I know Kent did one, and the results were worse than they expected - worse as in the level of ringing was less than had been believed. Maybe if Phil Barnes is reading he could comment.

This sort of survey needs to get to the places that surveys don't reach. People would need to take responsibility for answering on behalf of towers which might not answer, along with some process for making sure towers were not covered twice. It could be done at the branch/district level. It could easily collect all the data online.

As we (Roger and I in particular on behalf of the CC) are currently working on an HLF bid which will look to take ringing to new audiences, this sort of starting point research would be very valuable.

A few of us were discussing this last week and wondering whether the restriction of ringing in Holy Week and become a bit more relaxed than it has been in the past. There seem to be more examples of practices still being allowed to happen earlier in the week, Mondays and Tuesdays at least. Ringing on Holy Saturday also seems to be a bit more permissive.

Interested in your comment Alison that anyone other than the incumbent would decide. For a funeral of a ringer, I doubt whether there would be any objection to half muffled ringing.

"Is there any how to material [on Devon CCs] available"

I have started wrting it. Just tested Covid positive so I have a bit more spare time. I am going to do it in Blog/ebook format. This is not writing from a position of expertise, but from someone who thinks it is worth doing and has recently taken it up.

I think Level 2 is one of the critical aspects of Learn the Ropes that makes progress beyond that point more achievable. The exercises introduced are so useful and I know there are bands who have been introduced to things like Kaleidoscope ringing who end up doing it for its own sake. These things were not invented by ART - Kaleidoscope ringing was introduced by Gordon Lucas and a CC book was published way back in 2004. ART just emphasises their importance by making them a step on the journey.

will do
The images aren't always particularly important, and sometimes I make them quite obscure (it's my sense of humour). So for instance there was one a couple of months ago where the picture was a bee, which was actually a Manuka Honey Bee because I had mentioned Manuka.

My main problem is however not seeing how I paste an image.

Level 1 - Bell Handling
Level 2 - Foundation Skill (call changes, kaleidoscope, general bell control)
Level 3 - Plain Hunt
Level 4 - Bob or Grandsire Doubles
Level 5 - Bob MInor
There can be a bit of an overlap in 4 and 5
We had someone complete Level 5 yesterday with their first quarter of Bob MInor inside