Ringing Forums

I think (hope) that this is part of what YellowYoyo’s Ringing 2030 project will bring. The plan is for a clear Bellringing logo and branding which can be used for recruitment and other publicity to non ringers, to encourage more people to become ringers or at least to feel positive and a little more knowledgeable about bell ringing. So easy to use available resources should be on their way very soon.

You are right that lots of people create stuff they are willing to share and the only hard bit is finding a place to put them where people can easily find them and download them, with the CCCBR website the natural place for it.

Spot on Lucy. But the work with YellowYoYo goes beyond making us a logo we can just slap onto anything we want. What we are closing off now is updated recruitment/open day posters/pull down banners with the new branding and new messaging to create a consistent message right across all ringing. These will be able to be customised to link to a particular URL without having to do all the design work yourself.

This will be at the heart of a central repository that we can keep building, so if you have specific needs/sizes, it is worth speaking to us about it.

Posters, flyers and adverts are all very well, but I am not surprised at the response. In my experience you really need to get in front of people and talk to them. Before you embark on any recruitment campaign you also need think carefully about they type of people that you need, how many, and how you are going to train them.

The Association of Ringing Teachers publishes some excellent recruitment and retention advice at https://ringingteachers.org/index.php?cID=625,

There is also a link there to a recruitment toolbox containing a ten point plan developed by the CCCBR Volunteer and Leadership Workgroup. The case studies from the ART Awards are also worth looking at for useful ideas on what has worked well elsewhere.

Many ringers seem to confuse raising awareness of ringing with recruitment. Raising awareness of ringing through open days, talks to local community groups and regular posts in local social media can help in generating a steady flow of enquiries. It is also important to follow up all enquiries personally and promptly (the same day) and be ready to offer people an intensive course of handling lessons, so that they are ringing rounds in a few weeks.

Advertising a course of lessons and getting people up to speed quickly has helped us regenerate two local bands round here recently, with a retention rate of around 66% a year later. It might take more effort in the short term, but it saves an awful lot of wasted time and effort in the long term.

Mobile belfries and portable mini rings at local fetes and shows are also an excellent way of engaging with non-ringers. Event organisers will often pay for you to come along as an attraction, or your Guild or Association may be able to help with the cost https://www.mobilebelfries.org/

offer people an intensive course of handling lessons, so that they are ringing rounds in a few weeks. — Roger Booth

Do you think a similar intensive approach would work for more advanced ringing as well? I know the logistics are harder as you need more helpers, but it might be easier to get them if the purpose was clear, and if the commitment wasn't open ended?

It might take more effort in the short term, but it saves an awful lot of wasted time and effort in the long term. — Roger Booth

I think another thing is to not be afraid about turning people down, teacher time is a scarce resource and needs to be allocated wisely. We've turned people down, not all for the same reasons and not without thought and discussion, but I'm glad we did - our retention rate since 2018 is 80%.

You need to come out with 'all guns blazing'! A single poster campaign or open day may have some effect but if you combine several events you may well find that their combined effect is somewhat greater.

During the summer our church has a monthly 'Tea on the Lawns' - the church ladies serve afternoon teas once a month to generate a few hundred pounds for the church's funds. One month (July) we ran a 'Teddy Bears Death Slide' - a zip line from the tower roof down to the church porch. Children were encouraged to collect sponsorship for the 'Dare-devil Soft Toys' to shoot down the line. This attracted 50-60 people to the church and raised awareness of the tower. It also raised over £600 for the church!

The following month we opened the tower and invited the public to bring their children and grandchildren to visit the ringer’s room. We weren't specifically seeking to recruit the children but we wanted them to draw their accompanying adults into the room. We had one bell set at backstroke so that the rope was out of the way and we used it to demonstrate to the adults while the children were allowed to have a few assisted pulls to chime one of the trebles.

The third month, September, we had an Open Night specifically aimed at recruiting. This was deliberately held on our normal practice night; there is no point in attracting a new recruit who then says 'But I can't come on a Wednesday' or whatever is your practice night!

We have a brief PowerPoint slide show that gives some basic information about the tower and ringing. We project it onto the whitewashed walls of the ringing room and it loops round continuously every 5-7 minutes. Before we raised the bells, the visitors who wished to, climbed to the bells on the floor above in escorted groups of 3 or 4 (our access is very easy). Then we demonstrate ringing rounds & call changes and finish with something like a bob course of Plain Bob - there is no need to 'show off' with something more exotic because it is all a mystery to the visitors. Finally, we invite each of the visitors to pull a few assisted backstrokes usually in rounds.

Last year we attracted over 30 visitors; 8 expressed an interest and attended our basic learners' sessions for a few weeks; of them 3 stayed the course and have joined our Sunday service band.

Attached (I think!) is the poster we use - based on a CCCBR design.

A post on the very local FB community page has provided two intakes of learners that are both making good progress and now regularly ring for sunday service. A whatsApp group provides a good bond between the group and rarely a day goes by without some chatter in it.

Yes as I am an ART member, their material has formed the basis of my approach the advertising in the free local magazine is set to coincide with the local arts festival along with Guild material inside the church. There are also posters going into local community centres and the library at the same time, all of which I have created based on the CC publicity posters, I considered a mobile belfry but tbh the arts festival event isn’t the biggest thing that happens round here and I felt it was a bit of overkill, and I didn’t want to have to man it if it was going to turn into a fairground attraction. So at the present time I have no idea what to expect! but in due course I will post on here what worked and what didn’t. Fingers crossed.

Yes, Jason is absolutley right. I should have mentioned that we promoted each our sequence of events on the local FB pages too. Incidentally, our next 'Teddy Bear Death Slide' is in mid July - see poster attached.

Some fantastic ideas above which I will certainly take back to the towers that I ring and teach! I think we also have to realise though is that not all towers actually want new blood. I rang last week at a tower where their last recruit was over 4 years ago! The reason being- we enjoy ringing London, Cambridge, Norwich etc, do we want to go back to rounds and call changes?

Twenty years ago, our local 'star' tower - 4-spliced and 8-spliced was the starting pooint on practice night - took the same view. Now it is limited to ring rounds & call changes and PH on 5. The writing is on the wall for so-called 'elite' towers that shun regular recruitment.

I agree totally Peter! I think bell ringing has to somehow shake off a potentially old crusty legacy and market itself as a 21c pastime. The church and freemasonry to name a couple are suffering from drastically reduced numbers and are now revamping their image. Freemasonry for example are heavily into a university graduate recruitment program. I don’t know the answer but am prepared to invest as much time as I can to make sure ringing flourishes in the future!

I've seen exactly the same attitude. From what I've been told, change ringing on the east side of Manchester was never great, it's now extinct and the majority of towers are now silent, in an urban area with a population of 250,000

Our tower is self funding to a large extent becaue we charge ringers to learn and make ourselves known locally, the result of which has been generous (but modest) legacies. We are aware that we hold the keys to a 400 year old activity and need to keep our bells ringing way past our lifetime. The bells were rehung in 2000 and need to be rung. Our ringing is modest, PB5, G5, & PB6 on a good day, but we ring all six every week and on Sundays. We hold a sim practice mid - week. We are considering the CCCBR Towards 2030 initiative to use ideas from that for our tower. Every tower should think about what it can do now - don't only wait for the CC. Many grass roots ringers, however, are keen to rattle off QPs etc but are not aware, or blind to the fact that they need to focus on their own tower for the future. Many years ago I rang at a tower where 8-spliced was a weekly event. One person went to university and we were back to PB8 and G7. Never take anything for granted! Plan for succession!

Plan for succession — Phillip George

In a significant number of towers it's a case of planning how to get started again. It would be interesting to hear experiences of any CC/PH towers that progressed from there to method ringing at a level beyond PB & GS.

It would be interesting to hear experiences of any CC/PH towers that progressed from there to method ringing at a level beyond PB & GS. — John de Overa

Yes, that is a big challenge, one that we are unlikely to succeed to in the near future!

I think if ringing is going to reverse its decline its something that needs figuring out, and soon. Not much point spending money on marketing, publicity, mobile belfrys etc if all it achieves is more people who get no further than PH. I've looked at the project plans on the CC website, currently there are thin pickings in the area around progression into method ringing. Nobody is going to become a competent method ringer by attending a course once a year, it takes regular support and ropetime.

I think if ringing is going to reverse its decline its something that needs figuring out, and soon. — John de Overa

The key things are - getting local towers to acknowledge their own dire straits. Things might be ok now, as they are in our tower, but I only give us ten years max if we do nothing. Second point, start doing something to motivate ringers now to get out into their own communituies. Of course, there are lots of other challenges too - teaching!

I think most towers probably know already, the challenges are often either not knowing what to do about it, or they've had embarrassing / painful experiences with "outside help". It's a hard nut to crack, how do you enable a tower to grow themselves?

The CCCBR strategy seems to be "Let's not bother with the existing 20/30k ringing duffers, let's just start over with teenagers", and run a couple of extra summer schools. It's the "easy" option but futile, you aren't going to sustain ringing that way, outside of a few "honeypots". I think it's going to result in ringing becoming even more of a niche activity than it already is.

The CCCBR strategy seems to be "Let's not bother with the existing 20/30k ringing duffers, let's just start over with teenagers" — John de Overa

As the CCCBR Ringing 2030 Recruitment and Development Work Group lead that is most certainly not my view. The Development part of the WG title is equally, if not more important, than the Recruitment part. Inspection of the Ringing 2030 Recruitment and Development CCCBR webpage will show that I use the term 'Recruit, Retain, Regain' as an expansion of the 'Recruitment' brief. Towers I know don't find initial recruitment that hard, particular of mature learners. Retaining ringers and regaining lapsed ringers is key and not simply. To do so we need development that delivers for all capabilities of ringers and of all ages. I don't claim to have the answers, but I am totally committed to the CCCBR providing support all those that ring to achieve whatever their ringing aims may be. I am also committed to encouraging all ringers to stive to produce as good a level of, what are overwhelmingly public, performances as they can. It matters less what is rung than how well it is rung. From a base of good core ringing skills individuals need to be supported to develop as they see fit and their abilities and available time allow.

Glad to hear it, but it's not the impression given by the Ringing 2030 content on the CCCBR website. The YellowYoYo Future Vision report makes a nod towards adult ringing but it's dominated by youth ringing. Of course youth ringing is important but there needs to be a balance, and we need to cater for the people who are actually turning up at towers, not just the ones we might wish for. There's no point recruiting promising ringers of any age if they end up in towers where even well-struck PH is a stretch. We'll get one chance at engaging them and if they drop out through lack of progress they'll never come back. The success of any effort to sustain and grow ringing, method ringing in particular, is entirely dependent on having the necessary level of support across the country for recruits which means weekly access to opportunities at the appropriate level, and in some areas that's already entirely disappeared.

Recruitment and Development is Pillar 2 of the 2030 plan, but according to the Project Board, most of the Pillar 2 activities with the exception of the SW ringing course are inactive, and one of the most important ones, Regional Teaching Centres, is in Backlog. The current list of priorities seems to be based on what's easy to define and relatively easy to deliver which is reasonable enough, but without addressing the longer term and harder to deliver requirements, I can't see that the chances of success are good.

Thanks for these comments. They are not a million miles away from my thinking and I what I am trying to address. My impression is that ringer 'activists' engaged with tower, district/branch, society/association or CCCBR organisation are trying to achieve similar aims. As ever with human endeavours tensions are as often caused as much by poor communication as divergent views.

The Yellow Yo-Yo report has many good points. It is produced by a business that write many such reports and may have certain presumptions about what ringing needs. Having been involved in writing a number of commercial reports I detect much 'boiler plate' content that has is then tailored as appropriate. The emphasis on youth is pretty standard. Ringing has, if not a Unique Selling Point, with its appeal to older recruits a relatively rare one. The future of many towers may depend on a steady thoughput of mature recruits who are not destined to master advanced methods or ring lots of QPs or peals. If they can ring what they ring fairly well, they will be valuable assets to their towers for a decade or more.

The Recruitment and Development (formerly Volunteering and Leadership) Work Group have mapped their relevant Ringing 2030 3 Pillers on to a high-level plan. This plan is published on the Ringing 2030 Recruitment and Development web page in the reports section. See https://cccbr.org.uk/about/workgroups/volunteer-and-leadership/ , The plan also contains a more detailed rolling 3-year plan aimed at delivering those aspects of Ringing 2030 in the Work group remit.

Thanks for the reply. I think you are right that currently the bedrock of many towers are going to be mature recruits, the challenge is how to ensure they form a good "seed bed" for the next generations of method ringers. That is going to require a minimum standard of ringing that I suspect many towers are going to struggle to provide unless existing bands are helped to up their game. My belief is that there's a lot of untapped potential in existing rank and file ringers, not all of them for sure but from the "Room at the top" articles it's clear that advanced method ringing has always been a minority pursuit. I'm a late starter and certainly not a "ringing natural" but I expect to be able to ring simple spliced Surprise Major within the next 6-12 months or so. That's taken a lot of persistence and effort, spurred on in part by several "old soaks" telling me I wasn't up to it because of my age. I wonder how many more there are like me, and how much further and faster we'd get with better support?