Ringing Forums

Does this mark the end of direct membership being seen as the way of increasing the funding of ringing — Simon Linford

II never saw direct membership as a means to increase funding. It has its one merits. However if/when we move to direct membership that will have to be factored into any discussion of finding, notably the balance between corporate funding (from societies) and individual funding.

Taking subs to £1 a member could be paid for just by managing to centralise insurance, given how much collectively associations spend on insurance at the moment — Simon Linford

That surprises me. I would expect the cost of insurance to be per ringer,no doubt with some reduction for quantity, but last time the subject came up the figures the CC were talking about were slightly higher than ODG was paying at the time.
I don't disagree with looking at it - a national scheme has a lot of attractions, including saving duplicated admin - but I would be surprised if it saved loads of money.

At the Middlesex Association insurance is currently our biggest single expense, ten times the cost of the current affiliate fees. So it does seem something work looking at.

Central insurance should be cheaper & cover a wider area. One policy. Could the CCCBR arrange that & would claims be possible - as the Guilds etc are 'only' affiliates?

What can Marcus Booth advise?

I think many Guilds / ringers would be happy to pay a levy to the CCCBR rather than many Guilds having expensive cover which may not pay & may not be applicable to the person or location.

I agree re need to see whether insurance can be provided as a second level of cover where the policy held by the church where the bells are rung does not cover the claim. (to cover all visiting ringers including open days / quarter peals / peals who are members of a Guild paying a levy to the CCCBR for insurance). So this cover would not be the first claim & should be less expensive?

I would be in favour of a policy covering, as a minimum, the Guilds based in Engand & Wales etc. when ringers are ringing anywhere in England & Wales. Is insurance cover different in Scotland & NI. What about CI ringers & visitors to CI (which is now in our Diocese / Guild)?

The savings don't come so much from the largest associations, but from those which are paying sub-£500 and where the minimum premiums are a significant part of the total cost. When we looked at it in some detail with our ringing contact at the main insurer, he reckoned the saving could be over 50% of the total cost spent on insurance by associations. Definitely worth trying to do even though it's not simple.

Does this mark the end of direct membership being seen as the way of increasing the funding of ringing — Simon Linford

Personally I'd be prepared to contribute to a direct membership organisation, a likely level of subscription would be less than a round of drinks after a practice. But first I'd like to know what I'd get for my contribution. Has any consideration been given to what a direct membership "package" would look like?

Has any consideration been given to what a direct membership "package" would look like? — John de Overa

Not sure what's been done recently but this was my initial attempt when it came up ten years ago. https://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/MemberOrgn.pdf

I hadn't heard of the "Network for Ringing Training" before, it sounds like it was mostly replaced by ART? As a "direct member" a "club for improvers" would definitely be of interest to me.

Also, what happened to the Cast of 1000 effort, I haven't heard much about it, other than the CCCBR page, did it ever make the transition from Ringing Room to the real world?

I hadn't heard of the "Network for Ringing Training" before, — John de Overa

How quickly things fade into history!
When I became chairman of the CC Education Committee in 2000 I inherited the plan to insitute an 'Instructors Guild', which had quite a bit of support but a lot of vehement opposition. Aftyer a while I concluded that we couldn't make it fly but was determined to replace it with something to be launcehd at Ringing RoadShow. NRT was very successful, exchanging ideas and holding conferences. It ran for eight yhears but the support infrastructure was on a shoestring and by the time I had got that sorted out it had lost momentum, I was no longer chairman and my successor never got it going again.
At the time we set it up I predicted that whereas we had failed to create the Instructors Guild top-down if we could sustain the interest with NRT then an instructors Guild would emerge bottom-up. ITTS (which preceded ART) appeared ten years after that prediction.
Sometime I should find the time to write it up.

well, it was before I started ringing, so I have an excuse :wink:

Interesting observation about bottom up versus top down - I think bottom up is the more sustainable approach, but I have no silver bullet suggestions as to how that might be scaled up to the degree that's needed. There are grass root glimmers such as the Bellringing Learners Facebook group (1.4k members), but it's also clear from that group that there are a lot of learners all with the same challenges and unmet needs.

I think the insurance issue needs careful attention. If you look at a territorial association insurance policy, you will find it includes as a minimum public liability insurance, trustee indemnity insurance, and employee liability insurance. It might also include insurance of various assets.

If there was a central insurance policy that covered ringing accidents, I think it's likely local associations would still need their own insurance policies.

I can't see people standing as trustees of local associations without an insurance policy in the name of the association in place.

I really can't see there would be a significant overall saving by having a national insurance scheme.

you are right it needs careful attention. People bandy the term insurance around without thinking what it covers.

People bandy the term insurance around without thinking what it covers. — John Harrison

People need to think of it in terms of risk and ownership of that risk. For example:

• Someone falls down the tower steps because they are worn and the handrail is inadequate. The PCC has a duty of care to people coming into the building, even trespassers, to ensure that it safe. Therefore they should hold both Public Liability and Employers Liability Insurance to cover the risk to their staff and to any visitors.
  
• Someone is electrocuted by a faulty appliance or wiring - ditto
  
• The steeple-keeper injures themselves because they have not been provided with adequate training, and/or tools or PPE. Even if they are a volunteer, the Employer (the PCC) has duties to provide a safe system of work etc. under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
  

Most of the risks in a bellringing situation are therefore likely to fall on the PCC, and they normally hold £5 or £10 million cover for this. Guilds and Associations are only insuring themselves for incidents which occur at Guild/Association/District/Branch meetings and practices and training events. Even then the incident may not be their fault (e.g. the worn steps). Nor can the Guild or Association be held responsible for ringing at individual tower practices, or on Sundays as that is down to the PCC. (if they were responsible, they would need to a lot of work to assess the risks in every tower, and address them).

Some Guilds and Associations do hold Personal Accident Insurance for their members, and this applies no matter whose fault this is, but this cover is expensive and the level of cover is low. The old and young are not likely to be covered. Typically the relatives might get £10k or £20k if someone dies. However imagine that you are the breadwinner in a young family with a mortgage to pay, and you become permanently disabled, with the need adaptations to your home and for ongoing care with a live in carer. £5 to £10 million is more like the amount of money that you would need.

The advice ought to be that you should take out your own personal accident cover in the light of your personal circumstances, and not rely on a payout from the Guild or Association. Many people will have some personal accident insurance, perhaps even as part of their own household policy, or another benefit, and they will only be able to claim against one policy for the same incident. Claiming against multiple policies is fraud!

I would add to Roger's comment that, depending on how associations are constituted, they may not have a legal identity. In which case they cannot be sued and any liability policy will be completely worthless.

2. Does an income of £30k or so enable the central organisation to do anything materially different to what it does now? That doesn't allow much for 'paid staff', although it would be a good start. — Simon Linford

By the time you have paid for employers national insurance, pension contributions and a payroll bureau to operate payroll, you are roughly looking at 1 full time employee on national living wage.

Does this mark the end of direct membership being seen as the way of increasing the funding of ringing (although that is not the only reason for considering a direct membership organisation) — Simon Linford

RW 19July2024 p661 Letters to the Editor Central Council Finances: ...As regards a Direct Membership Organisation, this is easy to say but in fact not so easy to do. We’ve looked at different models but as yet haven’t come up with anything that works without starting from scratch. We’d welcome any ideas to accomplish this without sidelining Guilds & Associations. — FERGUS STRACEY Treasurer of the Central Council

The Council has already made some small steps, and the challenge is to continue along the Direct Membership path, as FergusS suggests, with the full support of Guilds & Associations.

Each annual £1 paid in affiliation fees will now relate to exactly one individual ringer. And in emphasis of this individual relationship, Guilds which charge some or all of their members less than £1, should be allowed to exclude them from their membership count. This may require a change, or revised interpretation, to Council Standing Orders.

At the same time Guilds should be authorised to exclude from their membership count all of their members who specifically choose to opt out of the Council subscription.

As a further change, all those who see their best ringing interests to be represented at the Council by a different affiliated Society, of which they are a member, should (firstly) be encouraged to opt out and, as another change, be specifically asked to choose through which of their memberships they should be affiliated to the Council. This will relate the affiliation to the Council to exactly those individual ringers who choose to be affiliated. It will eliminate double-counting of ringers, and help Council members in knowing whom they are representing: the number of representative members would also be reduced.

As a final change, the annual affiliation letter from Guild Secretaries could include the names and basic details of all those contributing to the Council - and allowing those who wish to remain anonymous to do so ...

It's nice to see someone trying make constructive suggestions for 'how' to get to a DMO rather than the usual explanations of why it's difficult. I confess I didn't get very far with my attempt 10 years ago (link posted earlier) but as Peter points out things have changed since then, with the Council affiliation fee being (approximately) per ringer rather than per society.
Multiple membership has always been one of the argumants against a per ringer payment but Peter's suggestion of members electing through which society to pay it would solve that. And the concomittent ability to opt out also provides a way to answer the other question thrown under the wheels of a DMO discussion, how many people would sign up.
Doing both of those via affiliated societies would help to solve both problems, and as Peter says could be a first step along the way. With that done there would be a much firmer basis for considering more substantial increases (with the cost borne by willing ringers) and/or for moving to direct membership.
One practical aspect of ringers making an elective payment via a society is that it would increase the admin of the main societies. (Some small specialist societies, whose members all belong to other societies, might find they didn't have to process any, but some probably would.)
For the record my personal view is that if/when the Council moves to direct membership societies should be retained as 'corporate members', so their voice can be heard.

Ringing has a massive cultural problem with free-riding, which could curb any attempts to get an acceptable contribution from individual ringers.

• We ring on bells in buildings we don't really pay for, and our primary 'landlord' is seriously struggling.
• There is an expectation that the Ringing World should exist for news and recording achievements, but subscriptions continue to decline in the face of rising costs.
• Information sources like Dove or UniversityRinging are funded/maintained by the Central Council yet aren't paid for by their users.
• Mid to high-level ringers are invested in by towers, often to then go on to greater things or move to other parts of the country. Many "pay it back" but many don't or can't.

@John Harrison @PeterScott

I fear that when ringers are actually asked whether they are willing to pay for the Central Council, they'd say no. As it stands, that decision is left to inertia (being affiliated is the 'done thing') and to the fact that people who have a greater understanding, and sometimes, appreciation of what the Council does have a greater amount of influence in the associations and thus on the decision to continue affiliation,

No matter how much of a good job the Central Council does within its remit, it is not and must not be involved locally such that individual ringers feel a strong direct benefit. However, that also means that it is difficult to demonstrate an individual benefit.

Ringing has a massive cultural problem with free-riding — Tristan Lockheart

I strongly disagree with that. It's a depressingly common sentiment and a counterproductive one. If ringers can't convey the value they bring to the CofE, then nobody else is going to either.

We ring on bells in buildings we don't really pay for

• The majority of bell installations were paid for by public subscription many decades ago, the capital costs to the CofE for bells are effectively zero.
• The presence of change ringing bells in church buildings has limited effect on running costs of the building, the steeple / tower would usually be there anyway and would still require maintenance.
• The majority of funding related to bell installations is raised by ringers, without them that money wouldn't be available to benefit the CofE.
• Ringers have an entire funding mechanism for maintenance of assets they don't own, in the form of BRFs.
• Ringers don't get paid to ring for services, unlike organists.
• When ringers do get paid, for weddings, there's usually a "tower tithe" taken for ongoing maintenance. As far as I know, that's not something organists do.
• It's normal practice for visiting ringers to pay steepleage.
• Ringers contribute 10s of thousands of hours of free labour every year for bell maintenance.
• Ringers contribute 10s of thousands of hours of free skilled tuition to learners.

None of that is unusual within the CofE, churchwardens, flower arrangers, most choirs etc do the same in their areas and ringers play their part as well. Categorisation of ringers as "freeloaders" by the ringing community itself is harmful and doesn't reflect the view of the CofE or its parishioners. For example this year two of our ringers have been awarded Bishop's Badge awards:

The Bishop's Badge award recognises outstanding contributions of lay people to congregations, local communities, and the Diocese.

And from last year's awards:

On receiving his Bishop's Badge in September, John Sterland said: "My late father whilst being a member and former tower captain of St Andrew’s (Swanwick) received a badge a few years ago for his work supporting the major refurbishment of the clock and bells at St Martin’s Alfreton. I feel quite reflective and privileged at being recognised in a similar way."

There is an expectation that the Ringing World should exist for news and recording achievements, but subscriptions continue to decline in the face of rising costs.

• The RW often reads like an Old Boy's newsletter and as such seems to be primarily of interest to those at the end of their ringing careers.
• £100 / year for something that's dominated by lists of ringing performances which are already online is ridiculous.
• There isn't enough good material to publish it weekly, a monthly publication at 1/4 the cost might be more attractive.
• RW is a commercial enterprise, categorising its lack of appeal to many ringers as "freeloading" is wrong. Its problems are RW's problems, not those of its potential audience.

Information sources like Dove or UniversityRinging are funded/maintained by the Central Council yet aren't paid for by their users.

• Dove's users are generally members of associations, as has been discussed ad nauseam they pay money to the CC so yes, they are paying for it.
• I'd be interested to hear just what the hosting costs are for hosting of the Dove website and a low-end MySQL database. I suspect not much, the primary "cost" is the large amounts of unpaid time put in by those who develop and maintain it (see above).

Mid to high-level ringers are invested in by towers, often to then go on to greater things or move to other parts of the country. Many "pay it back" but many don't or can't.

• There's a degree of truth in that, but I don't think it's a new issue.
• There's a strong culture of "Pay it forward" in ringing and it's the exceptions to that which are most noticeable.

it [CC] is not and must not be involved locally such that individual ringers feel a strong direct benefit.

• Eh? Why shouldn't the CC be involved locally and provide direct benefit to ringers?

If direct membership is clearly so beneficial, then the CCCBR has better set it up and let it rise on its own merits. Isn’t that the pattern set by the youth organisation?

None of that is unusual within the CofE, churchwardens, flower arrangers, most choirs etc do the same in their areas and ringers play their part as well. Categorisation of ringers as "freeloaders" by the ringing community itself is harmful and doesn't reflect the view of the CofE or its parishioners. — John de Overa

Our current deal puts us out of kilter with similar hobbies in terms of the expectation of paying for our venues in addition to equipment. Yes, the relationship with the Church of England is pretty mutual and a good deal all-in-all, but they are only our current ‘landlords’.

The emphasis on providing labour is perhaps misplaced when what we actually need to get the work done is cash, which many ringers assume can be substituted for by free labour. Sure, we could ‘brute-force’ the Council’s work by throwing man-hours at the tasks, but we don’t have the volunteer pool to properly sustain the current workload, let alone cover what is needed to tackle the challenges that will face ringing over the coming decades. So, yes, the attitudes formed by the existing ways of sustaining ringing do impact the willingness ringers would have to pay to be a member of a DMO CC.

The RW often reads like an Old Boy's newsletter and as such seems to be primarily of interest to those at the end of their ringing careers.
[...]
RW is a commercial enterprise, categorising its lack of appeal to many ringers as "freeloading" is wrong. Its problems are RW's problems, not those of its potential audience. — John de Overa

I have many opinions on the RW, as you and I have discussed on other threads previously, I think.
However, it is important to acknowledge that RW provides several important services:
• Centralised performance records
• Wide-circulation news and communication (probably more widely-read than the Council’s social media and website)
• The National Youth Contest
• A cultural and technical record of the history of bellringing
• Publications

All roles which the Council would be expected to take on if the RW was to collapse, still with considerable expenditure and less/no income, in lieu of the contribution RW subscribers and donors currently make to cover the benefit to the Exercise as a whole.

Dove's users are generally members of associations, as has been discussed ad nauseam they pay money to the CC so yes, they are paying for it.
I'd be interested to hear just what the hosting costs are for hosting of the Dove website and a low-end MySQL database. I suspect not much, the primary "cost" is the large amounts of unpaid time put in by those who develop and maintain it (see above). — John de Overa

Individual members aren’t making the choice to pay for it, though. I suppose members of associations are technically not free-riding, but how often does the CC affiliation fee come up as anything other than a line in the accounts or a brief mention in the AGM minutes? I doubt many people consider this as a significant part of their decision to join an association. This means that their support for Dove etc. is not a given if we’re going to ask them to actually choose to fund Dove etc. as part of a DMO CC.

As for the cost, part of what the CC gives to facilities like Dove is an oversight body, a pool/network to source volunteers from, readily available cash to cover sudden expenses and a succession plan for when the existing volunteers retire/die. You can’t attribute a portion of the general running costs of the Council to projects like Dove, but they still benefit from that expenditure.

Eh? Why shouldn't the CC be involved locally and provide direct benefit to ringers? — John de Overa

Depends on who you ask. Some say that it oversteps the Council's authority to be getting involved in local affairs, duplicating territorial association provision. It is also unclear whether the Central Council would have the resources even in the long term to have a local delivery function without absorbing the associations, particularly in terms of manpower.

If direct membership is clearly so beneficial, then the CCCBR has better set it up and let it rise on its own merits. Isn’t that the pattern set by the youth organisation? — Alan C

Because peoples’ understanding of the Council’s work is imperfect, they may well not appreciate the benefits of the organisation. What’s more, the current system where the Central Council affiliation fee is but a footnote in the accounts and minutes of most associations insulates the individual ringer from actively choosing to fund the existing centrally-provided services. Suddenly having to make that choice would reduce the likely number of DMO Central Council members as opposed to the number of people represented via an association at present.

If we were starting the associations now, the fees for associations would be a much harder sell. Would there be 1489 members of the Yorkshire Association, say, if there was not the established social norm of joining your local association? The same issue would apply to a DMO Central Council.

As for the youth organisation, the jury is still out on that one. Its membership is still relatively low and struggles to get the message out to all young ringers about its existence, and get the volunteers in place to cover the work required. Sound familiar?

Our current deal puts us out of kilter with similar hobbies in terms of the expectation of paying for our venues in addition to equipment. — Tristan Lockheart

Our hobby has sufficient differences from others that you can't draw direct comparisons. For example how many brass bands play 250+ year old instruments weighing a tonne or so and which are part of a building?

The emphasis on providing labour is perhaps misplaced when what we actually need to get the work done is cash, — Tristan Lockheart

Cash for what? For most plausible CC projects, person-hours are always going to be the biggest chunk of resources.

it is important to acknowledge that RW provides several important services — Tristan Lockheart

I think it's important to distinguish between the weekly lump of dead tree that you are asked to pay £100 a year for and the other services that RW provides, such as books/booklets and BellBoard. The other services have real of value, but I can't see The Comic surviving in its current form. Even the online version is poor, a PDF of something that's formatted for a physical medium is dreadful for mobile devices, for example.

This means that their support for Dove etc. is not a given — Tristan Lockheart

I disagree, I think it pretty much is.

Some say that it oversteps the Council's authority to be getting involved in local affairs, duplicating territorial association provision. — Tristan Lockheart

There's been posts on here recently about the parlous state of many associations, even the mighty Yorkshire is struggling. Duplicating the same services across multiple associations is a poor use of scarce resources and there's no justification for continuing that situation, other than the inertia of the associations themselves.

@John de Overa says “ There's been posts on here recently about the parlous state of many associations, even the mighty Yorkshire is struggling. Duplicating the same services across multiple associations is a poor use of scarce resources and there's no justification for continuing that situation, other than the inertia of the associations themselves.”
Which suggests that he would ‘nationalise’ (or even globalise) the ringing set up so that a ringer has one membership, one website to check for tower info and practice info, one fund for Bell Restoration (and perhaps another for training), etc.
All the volunteer time currently invested in the many Associations and Guilds would be available for ringing, teaching, developing other ringers as it takes less time to administrate one giant organisation than 30+ smaller ones.
However, what we tend to see in human nature is a desire to interact and to innovate in smaller groups. So big organisations find that individual departments or offices invent their own ‘better’ or more suited to them ways of doing things and lose some of the imagined efficiency (or lose some of the motivation to act). It becomes very hard to reach agreement on a way forward or to find a solution that works for everyone in a larger organisation so people set up smaller groups within the organisation to modify the standard to suit them and efficiency fades.
Crag looked at many models and saw potential but many people don’t want to ‘give away’ control to a single national / global organisation as they don’t feel it would consider their local / particular needs (and to some extent they are right as you only get the efficiency by standardising to at least some extent).
I don’t think that is inertia, I think it is a considered choice and would require some very convincing work to demonstrate how a single organisation would bring benefit to change people’s minds.

I was asked the other day why we don’t use Dove as the one website for tower information, including tower contacts. I think a major reason is that the chasing it takes locally to ensure the contact information is accurate would become very difficult on a national scale. So each Association maintains their own website with tower contact information and Dove simply links to these sites (on the best ones direct to the relevant tower page). Every year I ask 40 tower contacts to confirm that their information is accurate and need to chase around 15 to get an answer. If this was multiplied up to become a global task it becomes near to impossible (or it becomes a stretched out chain that each Association / Branch contact is asked to chase within their area but someone still needs to know when the task is completed per Association / Branch).
Associations have different views on publishing tower contacts emails and phone numbers vs. using generic email addresses or contact forms so Dove would need to be able to handle these differences or people would need to accept a standard approach.
This is just one example where in theory a single approach would help but isn’t a silver bullet.

Switching from local to national doesn’t straightforwardly reduce the workload and we haven’t yet found (as far as I can see) an area to demonstrate the benefit of the global organisation which would convince people in local Associations to consider converting to a direct membership model with the efficiency which comes from one website, one membership process, one treasurer ensuring financial stability, etc.

there's no reason why things such as tower contacts couldn't use centralised infrastructure and distributed management. That seems to work quite well for BellBoard, for example. I'd much prefer to have a centralised system for finding tower contacts where I didn't have to care about association boundaries or waste my time figuring out yet another different website layout.

there's no reason why things such as tower contacts couldn't use centralised infrastructure and distributed management — John de Overa

I agree that providing this kind of information would be useful in a central location. Not so sure how the distributed management would work though, who would be authorised to update the information?

who would be authorised to update the information? — Alan C

the simplest option is same people that do so already on a per-association basis. Any decent management system would support that.

the simplest option is same people that do so already on a per-association basis. Any decent management system would support that. — John de Overa

Would there then have to be a national level authoriser, to authorise any changes to the association level authorisers?