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Ken Webb

a) The new CCCBR cashflow statement provided re increasing the levy paid for Guild etc.members appears to assume the £24,000 cost of running the SW training course in 2025 is funded solely by the CCCBR although the cashflow note (ix) states the whole £24,000 should be self-financing - so should not reduce CCCBR funds.

So the cash balances held by the CCCBR from the end of every year from 2025 onwards are likely to be about £24,000 higher than shown.

This appears to remove the need for the proposed extra £7,000 levy in 2025 & £13,000 in 2026 ie as £24,000 is available as SW course income the £20,000 levy increase re 2025 & 2026 is not required.

b) Assuming all Guilds etc. can pay the extra levy in 2025 ignores the fact that most Guilds etc. have held an AGM during 2024 which fixed Membership Subs. to the end of 2025. So very unwise to assume funds available in 2025.

c) All Guilds etc. should be under pressure to spend most of their income & current balances on recruitment , training & retention from now onwards - to keep ringing viable in their area.

d) My Guild does not have funds to meet the 3 year Reserves Policy adopted by the CCCBR which is used to justify the levy on members. We would need to raise & Reserve £20,000 before paying any levy to the CCCBR. Where are we to find £20,000? (NB We have a Bell Fund - most grants are 20% - we never put more than 50p per member per annum into the Bell fund.

e) Although the CCCBR has allowed some costs re '2030' my expectation is that all Guilds etc. are expected to fund most costs related to recruitment / training / retention of new ringers by the end of 2029 ready to be forming more than 50% of all active ringers in 2030. That would be 800 retained ringers in my area.

f) Re e): What is the forecast costs for all new retained recruits available on 1st Jan. 2030 in the UK & where are the funds coming from - recruits or existing members or where?

g) As CCCBR papers suggest 80% of existing ringers have little interest in progress & take no part in the Guild etc. will they want to pay extra annual Subs. to pay the CCCBR levy?

Lucy Chandhial

I have just read the information on the CCCBR website about the Ringing 2030 funding proposals.

Maybe the assumption is that the Council need to fund year one for the SW course and the course fees paid that year enable the organisation of the next year and so on, so it’s a one off starting point which enables it to self fund from then on? But I agree it is not clearly explained.

I agree that Associations and Guilds probably will need / want to use their own funds to support recruitment and training locally as part of Ringing 2030. I suppose the question is how much difference it makes to Association funds if the affiliate fee is doubled from 20p to 40p when subs are usually £8 or £10 per adult member so it is still a small percentage.

In general ringing is a very inexpensive hobby so most people probably wouldn’t mind being asked to pay higher subs each year, but it is definitely true that the AGM set up in each Association means it takes time to make any changes.

I notice the Rolls of Honour commitment is noted as a spend but I see no obvious income to fund this, yet I know that we have been asked to donate specifically for this purpose. I wonder whether the Central Council could do more to request specific donations, even monthly donations, towards specific topics and activities so that those ringers who want to invest, can afford to invest and feel they will see benefit can choose to support efforts.
That way the £1 per ringer in 2030 as an affiliate fee can ‘keep the lights on’, including a paid administrator, but there will be additional funding for targeted topics like publicity, recruitment drives, etc from those who actively choose to offer financial support.

My local Association gives nearly half its income to the BRF in an ordinary year and affiliate fees are a tiny proportion of our expenses. So it wouldn’t be a real problem financially, but I think there is some work to do to show the value of the Central Council work as so many ringers have no active contact with Central Council work beyond a Ring for the King logo.

Jane Lynch

Really can't understand the need to pussy foot around doing this in small stages. Why not just jump to £1 per ringer straight away and get these projects up and running before it's all too late. Spend the funds raised on more marketing and publicity, establishing more regional training courses, and investing more in youth ringing events. Employ someone to administer things if necessary.

Peter Sotheran

What is the risk of some associations/guilds, especially the smaller ones, disassociating themselves from the CCBR rather than meet the demand for higher affiliation fees? Out here at the grass roots of ringing I reckon only one-in-ten local ringers (if that) is even aware of the CCCBR.

Mike Shelley

I can't speak to my county association's finances but currently have no objection to the amount I'm asked to pay them and willingly add a donation each year as they work wonders on a shoe-string. However, my home tower is basically un-funded and is only able to keep it's historically significant bells sounding through being entirely funded by private donation. How many other towers survive on the donations of their ringers alone? If there are few or no local ringers, are the bells left to languish unmaintained? I think that Central Council should find out a bit more about TOWER finances nationally before it makes such profound assumptions conflating the sustaining of its own funding from affiliates with the funding of targeted topics for local action.

Paul Wotton

Peter Sotheran's comment that "Out here at the grass roots of ringing I reckon only one-in-ten local ringers (if that) is even aware of the CCCBR.", is almost certainly true. In conversation on the topic of CCCBR funding after a 12-bell practice in Bristol with a regular peal ringer and member of one of the leading societies, it became evident that he did not know that the CCCBR is a registered charity. A charity with purposes democratically agreed by its affiliated society/association members (See CCCBR rules on the CCCBR Website). The funding provided by its members is barely enough, perhaps not enough, to fund its AGM and basic administrative functions. By voluntary effort it tries to achieve some of its stated purposes. Only one-in-ten local ringers being aware of the CCCBR shows that it is failing to achieve those purposes satisfactorily. To be effective as a charity it needs funding in line with its purposes. A measure of success perhaps being that 9 out of 10 ringers are then aware of the CCCBR and value what it does. The alternative is a radical review of what the CCCBR purposes are. The CCCBR Trustees might at that point recommend that the CCCBR ceases to be a charity.

The CCCBR is either a charitable organisation set up and properly funded by its members to achieve its purposes or it is not. If not, its members should decide what, presumably smaller, role they want it to preform and fund that, assuming they do want it to do something.

Paul Wotton
CCCBR Ringing 2030 Recruitment and Development Workgroup Lead

Roger Booth

A charity with purposes democratically agreed by its affiliated society/association members ( — Paul Wotton

The problem is that 9/10 of ringers are not engaged with their local Guild/Association, let alone the Central Council. What would be interesting is to put the question direct to the wider membership, asking them if they had £375k available, what would they spend it on?

The Essex Association did precisely that in 2022 and the results are quite interesting. They came up with some very good ideas - https://eacr.org.uk/about/bequests.html

The only problem that I see is that even when the money is available, getting people to apply for grants is not easy as there is no tradition of spending on the recruitment and training ringers. It's all done in an amateurish way, on a shoestring, and there is fierce resistance to doing anything different. This was the problem experienced by the CCCBR's Ringing Centres Committee with a large pot of money provided by the Founders Livery Company in the 1990's, and also the Ringing Foundation when it was set up about fifteen years ago.

PeterScott

... CCCBR cashflow statement ... appears to assume the £24,000 cost of running the SW training course in 2025 is funded solely by the CCCBR although the cashflow note (ix) states the whole £24,000 should be self-financing - so should not reduce CCCBR funds. — Ken Webb

This was discussed at the first consultation meeting on 30Jun: it was suggested that the information be presented in a revised form. Currently it's awry for lots of reasons:

Firstly, the document is to help a decision about future subscriptions: it is not a regulatory end-of-year accounting document with contingent liabilities that needs to withstand picking-apart by the taxman ...

Secondly, even if it were, we would best ask our professional accounting-support (whoever that is) to make their professional judgement on the correct provision for the accounts: for example if we were guarantor for three parallel courses ...

Thirdly, in any case, why might we bet-the-farm on an event for the benefit of, say, thirty students when our overall ambition for Ringing2030 is so much wider? Residential courses are brilliant events in themselves: they need to be organised in a way that limits the overall liabilities to their organisers...

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Cashflow forecast spend for 2025 £24,000 overstated

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