Ringing Forums

I tried looking for the report online but it doesn't seem to be available. But I did come across this, which mentions it:

Reflections on why some ringers fail to progress much beyond ART Level 2/3

Some snippets that particularly caught my eye:

Perhaps we need to accept that most ringers are not that much into it. They ring every week on a Sunday, they go to a weekly tower practice and the odd outing or association meeting, but that is where it ends for them.

To achieve the modest goal of ringing some rounds and call changes on a Sunday we do not need to progress much beyond ART level 3. We do not need to learn blue lines, to understand bobs, to get to grips with the structures of methods.

There's a lot more there, much of which I also disagree with. The low expectations expressed in the article are disappointing but no great surprise as they seem to be the default in most of the towers I've been in. It really doesn't need to be that way, indeed we can't afford for it to be that way.

As far as I can make out, it is at least 40 years since my tower's band could ring anything other than poor PH5 with "Fred's bell", "Eve's bell" and so on. Over the last few months we have been starting method ringing. Yes it's only Minimus + covers but people have started moving bells, ringing inside and actually getting all enthusiastic, even though many of them have been plodding along not making any progress for decades.

It's great that there's a focus on recruitment, but I think we shouldn't forget all the "stuck in the mud" bands, because we need those people just as much as we do new blood.

the survey may not be online, but Steve Coleman, who was part of the team, wrote a series of articles explaining and interpreting all the different aspects of the results. It was called something like 'rumaging through' and published in the Ringing World. You should be able to find them, but if not I can dig out the paper copies to check.

No worries if the survey isn't available online, it was just idle curiosity.

I have the full 100 pages in a couple of pdfs, which I will send to you. It contains all those Ringing World articles.

thanks!

Have you compared 1988 with what was reported in about 1914?

I haven't seen that report. However it I were to guess what the statistics that I quote in my blog were in 1914 compared with 1988 they woud be as follows:

1988 - 87% of tower captains were male
1914 - none

1988 - 58/42 male female split
1914 - tricky one. I am going 90/10

1988 - 62% of tower rang on the average Sunday
1914 - 85%

1988 - 41,000 bellringers
1914 - far few towers. About the same?
I've no idea really how many ringers per tower there were.

1988 - 25% of Tower Captains under 40
1914 - 50%

1988 - 49% of ringers generally under 40
1914 - 60%

I have just searched the 1914 RW ("survey") no useful hits but I did notice in the editorial of 18/09/14 a reference to "The 25,000 ringers throughout the country..."

I think one of the issues is the lack of 'involved' people. The 88 report states concerns about the number of teachers and steeplekeepers, and a lack of vibrancy at guild level. Certainly at my tower, one person is all three and is the only one who can do all of those things. It'd be interesting to see the bus factor for each critical role in towers and guilds - I know in our area, this dedicated individual getting run over by the bus could cause a chain reaction locally and result in a number of towers falling silent.

I can give some comparators based on ODG reports.
1914
1774 ringing members, 167 towers 'in union', ringers per tower = 10.6
1988
2133 ringing members, 259 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2
2019
2480 ringing members, 303 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2

I chose 2019 as the last pre Covid year.
If you take the average number of ringers per ring able tower, then the figures drop to 7.7 (1988) and 6.7 (2019). The 1914 report doesn't mention towers with no ringers 'in union'.

Simon guessed 10% of ringers in 1914 were women. In Sonning Deanery, which I analysed for the article on the effects of war there were 6.5% women in 1914, the first year there were any. That had doubled by1918 but then went down again.

There is a pdf copy of the 1988 report available online at www.bellringing.co.uk/1988 survey.pdf

I have also uploaded a copy of the 1972 survey here: www.bellringing.co.uk/1972 Survey.pdf

The two reports side by side make very interesting reading. One thing that stands out to me is table 1 where it was estimated that in 1972 10% of all towers were unringable or unsafe. This included 3.9% of eight bell towers; 8.0% of six bell towers and 23.3% of five bell towers. Having just checked on Dove, today's figures are 2.1% of eight bell towers; 2.2% of six bell towers and 22.0% of five bell towers.

When you take into account all the augmentations that have take place since 1972, our stock of ringable towers are in far better condition than they were in 1972. This is mainly due to the support from BRF's, the Millennium commission and the vast amounts of volunteer labour ploughed in. However with an ageing workforce are we going to be able to continue doing this? Also, the vast bulk of unringable towers are 3's, 4's and 5's. Is it sensible to focus the lions share of our resources on these towers, when the problems going forward are going to be parish finances and the number of active ringers per ringable bell?

Roger Booth, of course your points are very sensible. But - here's a fairy story about a four-bell tower with a happy ending!
At the Millennium, the PCC of All Saints' Landbeach decided to restart ringing. The Ely Diocesan Association stepped up to provide teachers and training courses. And oodles of support, which has continued until the present day.
In the succeeding years, both church and band had their difficulties but hung on in there.
In 2022, both church and band are growing and enthusiastic (and solvent) and the PCC have decided to augment to six. Yippee! Church and band are looking forward to the future with enthusiasm.
So my point is - vision and drive are found in sometimes unlikely places, so don't write anywhere off!

Following discussions started in other threads, I have been reviewing the 1988 Survey of Ringing which was a mammoth undertaking that sample surveyed over 500 towers and involved over 75 volunteers. The final report is over 100 pages long.

These 10 questions were posed in the Ringing World in November 1989 and they were due to be debated at an Open meeting of the Council in 1990. What happened as a result of all that survey information? Did any particular strategies come forward as a result? — Simon Linford

Sorry to reopen this thread after so long, I am new to this community... but given my recent thinking in this area and having read the 1988 survey recently and its outputs, my sense is that maybe the ringing community didn't really engage with the questions that were raised by the survey articles in the RW.I mean, nobobdy really asked: so what? That is what we need to do now...

(and no doubt someone will correct me if I am wrong :-) )

Sorry to reopen this thread after so long, — Jason Carter

This topic has popped up again recently and there's quite a long thread on the subject here, which I think you might find interesting.

Sorry to reopen this thread after so long,
— Jason Carter

This topic has popped up again recently and there's quite a long thread on the subject here, which I think you might find interesting.
27 minutes ago — John de Overa

It was me that opened that thread!. My point above was more about: did the ringing community, or more precisely, the "Ringing Word" readership, only read the articles, but not really reflect on what it really meant to them, their band, their area, their branch, their city, etc. Which meant no action was taken. If we do another survey, we need a group of people to reflect on the results, ask questions, and find teams of people, however small that are going to ask: what can we do to change this locally?

ah sorry Jason, I didn't scroll back to the beginning of the thread!

Bearing in mind where ringing is now, and the fact that another survey is being planned, I think the answer to your questions seems clear. Hopefully this time round, some action will come out of it, as you say.

It seems to me that a fundamental mistake is made regarding the ‘powers’ of the CCCBR. It can only research the situation, phrase the questions, motivate action and suggest some solutions, it cannot impose anything.

The CCCBR is supposed to reflect the wishes of the members (organisations or individuals), not the other way around.

Alan, I don't think anyone has suggested any sort of imposition. Jason has suggested engaging with local groups to help them make changes locally, not some sort of national diktat.

Promulgating ideas, enabling, facilitating...

Regarding what the CCCBR should be doing, absolutely. See the task description of the CC Volunteer & Leadership Workgroup in the 2023 Diary. It starts with the words “Facilitating and encouraging …”. The challenge is doing that in way that matches what ringer want. One purpose of a new survey should be to get a good idea of what that is.

Given that Ringing today has been snowed off I have read the previous Surveys and comments so far . Couple of points for me based on my experiences in Devon.

There is talk of the stock of ringing tower being in good order , Prior to covid we lost a few peals due to broken ropes etc and whilst there is a lot of good work going on around bell restoration , my overall impression is that we are on a cliff edge of towers going out of action and not being fixed. Large parts of rural devon have little in the way of active towers and as such people to maintain them . Many rural churches have struggling finances - We provide ringing at a tower where the average congregation including the Churchwardens and vicar is between 5 and 10. A pretty six , kept going by splicing and resplicing ropes and fixing things like pulleys with second hand parts from towers nearby who have undergone augmentation etc. Went to a brilliant sounding G&J six in North Devon , had to repair a rope the condition of the frame was bad but saveable , no band , no interest locally , nothing has been done

Ringing and Method ringing , people make it sound bad that some ringers , don't want to progress into method ringing and are only interested in supporting the local Church on a Sunday and P/night. Its not a bad thing at all. Those that want to progress should have the opportunity, leave the rest alone !!!

Whilst another survey might be useful to some I'm not sure it wont tell us things we don't already know.

Most development in ringing is down to keen individuals rather that bureaucratic structures.

Appreciate it all sounds a bit doom and gloom , but that is the reality and where we need to be starting from.

The challenge is doing that in way that matches what ringer want. One purpose of a new survey should be to get a good idea of what that is. — Paul Wotton

I think that there is a danger of confirmation bias if you just ask the existing un-diverse group of aged ringers what they want. The existing structure is very good at maintaining the status quo and the response is likely to be more of the same. However, ringing has been in a slow decline since the 1980’s and many ringers still seem to be in denial about this. As Robert Brown points out eloquently above, there are serious issues that have not been addressed for decades, and from what I know about the rest of the country the situation in Devon is far from unique.

A thorough survey is just a starting point to convince those in positions of influence in Guilds, Associations, Districts and Branches and even some of those on the Council of the urgent need to do something effective. However, whilst the Central Council can do very little on the ground, it can commission an ongoing programme of research which it can use to share good practice, and help make Guilds, Associations, Districts and Branches far more effective in what they were set up to do. For example:

• Improved retention rates: Are towers that hold intensive training sessions more effective than those who do not? If so, by how much? What is the success rate of the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing and similar initiatives?
• Ringing Centres, Hubs and Clusters: How effective are they? What differences have they made? What are the benefits and what are the problems?
• Young ringers: What do we need to do to attract more young ringers? Where has this been done successfully?
• Financial resources: How much money is held in Bell Restoration funds in short term deposit accounts with low interest rates? Are there better ways of investing this money? What is best practice in this field? How does the current situation compare with the last CCCBR Triennial Survey of BRF's.
• Maintenance: How do we look after those towers that have no active band? Should we be investing large sums of money in augmentations and re-hanging bells in towers where there is little prospect of a local band, when we have too many bells and not enough ringers?
• Leadership and succession planning: Many people take on roles such as webmaster and public relations officer with little or no training. They often take on these roles because no-one else is willing to do this. Other roles are very difficult to fill and may remain vacant. What is the age profile of our current leaders and how long have they been in post? How extensive are these problems? What more could be done in other roles to compliment the success of ART in training new teachers over the past ten years?

Number of people ringing their first peal since 1914 - Source Pealbase

Bit of aside but PealBase barcharts no longer seem to be maintained, which is more than a shame as they were very useful for showing trends. The above chart posted by Roger seems to go up to 2013. I think that the number of first pealers has fallen and recovered a bit since then.

A sensible list of issues and questions I think.

ignore Just seen the questions been answered but I can't see how to delete my post

Actually, it went up in 2015 for the First Peal 2015 initiative, and it has fallen back since. What it and the other graphs on Drew's Pealbase seem to show is that ringing recovered quickly after WW2 back to pre-war levels, and there was a steady state till the 1980's. Ever since there has been a slow decline. In the case of peal ringing this is now quite marked, having reduced from around 600 new entrants per year for much of the 50's, 60's, and 70's. It is now down to less than 150 per year.

Many of those first peals were by grass roots ringers in methods like Plain Bob and Grandsire. Consequently, nowadays we seem to have a squeezed middle, with a missing generation or two of competent change-ringers, and lots of bands struggling to ring plain hunt, let alone steady Plain Bob or Grandsire doubles, and that is if there is still a band in the tower.

Method ringing will not die out, but without major surgery it is going to be confined to a limited number of active centres. The sad thing is that in my experience many of those who have recently taken up ringing are keen to make progress, and to become competent change-ringers, as they see it as a rewarding pastime. However nowadays many do not get the same opportunities to meet their aspirations, that their predecessors had.

2014 138
2015 387
2016 98
2017 113
2018 127
2019 139
2020 42
2021 32

In the case of peal ringing this is now quite marked — Roger Booth

As well as the decrease in the number of first peals, do you know if there has also been a change in the stages at which they are rung, e.g. more Minor and less Major?

Do you know to what extent (if any) the same trend has been reflected in QPs? As a relatively recent ringer, QPs are on my radar but I'm not interested in ringing peals, am I alone or is that a change in preferences part of the reason for the drop in first peals?

we seem to have a squeezed middle, with a missing generation or two of competent change-ringers, and lots of bands struggling to ring plain hunt, let alone steady Plain Bob or Grandsire doubles — Roger Booth

From my experience I think that's right. That gap is a double whammy - not only does it mean there's a set of ringers missing, it means that people currently coming along behind them can really struggle to get the support they need to keep making progress.

many of those who have recently taken up ringing are keen to make progress, and to become competent change-ringers, as they see it as a rewarding pastime. However nowadays many do not get the same opportunities to meet their aspirations, that their predecessors had. — Roger Booth

Yes, much as per above, that mirrors my experience. Most of my progress from PB5 to Surprise Minor has involved use of a tower sim, then "polishing up" with a band on the other side of Greater Manchester who have been kind enough to take me under their wing, but it's not been easy.

Although I'm a late starter, I've seen the same issues I've had affect people who have started young and as a consequence they've stalled in just the same way that received wisdom says older learners do. "Older learners take longer and don't get as far" may be true in part but I think it's used as a convenient and self-fulfilling excuse. Lack of support infrastructure affects everyone who takes up ringing, if support isn't available then it doesn't matter how young and gifted learners are, they are not going to progress as far or as fast as they are capable of.

do you know if there has also been a change in the stages at which they are rung, e.g. more Minor and less Major — John de Overa

That should be easy to get from CC annual peals analysis. My guess is that Major will still be a dominant part of the mix, but only because the stats will be skewed by the hard core who ring lots of peals. Guessing again, I would expect a higher proportion of Surprise than 'entry level' methods.

QPs are on my radar but I'm not interested in ringing peals, am I alone or is that a change in preferences .... ? — John de Overa

There has certainly been a shift. Quarters only became really popular in the second half of the 20th century, and their numbers continue to grow as peals decline.

Older learners take longer and don't get as far" may be true in part but I think it's used as a convenient and self-fulfilling excuse. — John de Overa

I agree. Physical skills tend to take longer to acquire with age, but that's a gross generalisation not a rule for individuals. But mental skills don't necessarily follow the same pattern. I think most ringers struggle with inadequate skills because of poor teaching. The difference between young and old is that the young give up if they don't become rapidly competent whereas the old are more persistent so there are more of them to count as struggling.

do you know if there has also been a change in the stages at which they are rung, e.g. more Minor and less Major? — John de Overa

It's the other way round. First peal's these days tend to be in the higher stages e.g. more major and less minor.

The problem with a survey is that it is a snapshot at a particular point in time. By comparing it with a previous survey you can see that changes have taken place, or it provides a baseline for future surveys. However, there are a lot of underlying factors, and unless you know in advance what they are and structure your questions accordingly, it does not really shed much light on them. What I have been arguing for is far more ongoing research into these factors. This would be a useful function for the Central Council to commission. Everyone can see that there is a big problem without undertaking a survey, but there is no consensus about what to do about it.

For example, if you are a company making widgets you may realise from your sales figures that your customers are buying less widgets, but you need to do the market research to find out why your customers are buying less widgets and what you can do about this. e.g what are your competitors doing? has the market moved on and your customers now looking for widgets with whistles on?

My first peal, like many others in 1970 was the treble to Plain Bob Minor and my first four peals were all either Plain Bob Minor or Grandsire Doubles. When I moved to London in the late 1970's at that time there were many experienced young ringers like me coming to live in London. We thought nothing of working a full day, then catching the tube to ring a peal in the evening at towers like Deptford, Isleworth, Bow E3, West Ham, Bermondsey, Limehouse etc. We would go to the pub afterwards, getting home just before midnight and then go to work the next day. Quite a few of these were rung for the London County Association. However, with far fewer young ringers coming to work in London from the 1990's onwards, the LCA declined and has ceased to exist. Nowadays rather than weekday evening peals, quite a few of those ringers are still ringing peals, but they are now retired and have moved away from London. They now ring weekday attempts. As these peal ringers become even older, the number of peals rung will only decline further, as will the opportunities for others to reach this level. It would be good to make best use of their skills whilst they are still around.

Similar things are happening in the quarter peal world, although bellboard does not go back far enough to undertake a definitive analysis. However, a number of factors are at play. Not least a lot of quarters were rung for Evensong, but with far fewer evening services there are less Sunday evening attempts. With the squeezed middle, it is also more difficult than it used to be to find a band, even though nowadays communication is much easier and we don't have to rely on phoning round on people's landlines! It's also been noticeable that after Covid several people who I could rely on don't wish to ring quarters any more.

It's only by doing the market research and understanding what is really going on below the surface that we will be able to come up with strategies to turn things round, or as is likely to argue, slow the decline!

The difference between young and old is that the young give up if they don't become rapidly competent whereas the old are more persistent so there are more of them to count as struggling. — John Harrison

I think you are have nailed an important truth there, one that tends to reinforce the confirmation bias about older ringers. It's overly simplistic to assume that there's a single factor at play in the problems different categories of learners face, or that if we could just recruit more young ringers everything would get better.

It's the other way round. First peal's these days tend to be in the higher stages e.g. more major and less minor. — Roger Booth

Wow, that's the opposite of what I'd expected - I've been learning minor because that's pretty much all that's available, due to the falling number of suitable practices in the area, and the falling numbers of people at those practices.

There has been a recent effort in one of the associations round here to run twice monthly joint Surprise Minor + Major practices, to help "bring on" people wanting to get into that level of ringing. It pretty quickly morphed into practice sessions for existing Surprise Major ringers to brush off the COVID rust and ring some new methods. The Minor bit ended up with all the learners stuffed in together into just a few plain courses, with the inevitable consequences. Needless to say I've stopped going. I appreciate the intentions but quite often association "Organisation of training sessions" consists of arranging a tower, getting someone to conduct and sending out an email. That's insufficient, there needs to be an identification of individual needs, a plan to address them, homework, goals etc. rather than just "Please turn up and we'll wing it".

With the squeezed middle, it is also more difficult than it used to be to find a band — Roger Booth

Just so - finding 5 ringers to support a QP can be tricky enough, 7 is even harder. Surprising therefore that most first peals tend to be major, it would be interesting to find out why. Perhaps some of that market research stuff... :wink: