Ringing Forums

[reply="John de Overa;d496". Your situation illustrates part of the problem that Ringing 2030 is hoping to address. How much headway it will make is yet to be seen.
There are already places where that statement is true. If Ringing 2030 makes an impact it will be true in more places, which would surely make it worthwhile.
No doubt there will always be some places where it is not true, whatever we do. But I’m not sure watering down the vision statement would help.

I'm not suggesting it's watered down, I'm suggesting that it is hurried up. I'm a late starter, my ringing career is therefore going to be short. If all I manage to do in the time I can ring is to help keep things ticking over until ringing reinvigorates itself, I'll count it as a successful ringing career. But there needs to be something left to reinvigorate in the first place. The intent behind Ringing 2030 is laudable, the apparently glacial rate or progress is not. Time is running out.

After practising assiduously on the tower sim for the last fortnight I had a couple of goes at Bristol at the weekend. It wasn't great but did get better on each attempt - but that required a three hour round trip and I probably won't get another chance to do any more 8 bell ringing until autumn. I'm aware of a couple of 8-bell practices in the region but they are for people who are already good 8 bell ringers and want to ring spliced, QPs etc. I haven't found anything that's suitable for people wanting to step up to Major, so I've reluctantly decided to abandon 8 bell ringing as where I am it's no longer a realistic option if you can't already ring at that level. — John de Overa

Have you considered trying to organise a practice in the region for those in a similar situation to you?

Have you considered trying to organise a practice in the region for those in a similar situation to you? — Alan C

I have, it's not a practical option, unfortunately - there are just too few ringers who want to step up to Major, and too few inclined who are to support them.

I have, it's not a practical option, unfortunately - there are just too few ringers who want to step up to Major, and too few inclined who are to support them. — John de Overa

Sorry to hear that.

One of the projects within the Ringing 2030 workgroups is the survey of ringers. The aim of this is to better understand how many ringers are hitting the same kind of barrier as you because it does vary hugely geographically as to when you hit a barrier of not having enough ringers at a similar level wanting to make similar progress.

The interesting theme in your posts (which I do also hear from others) is that the elite experienced ringers don’t want to bring in others to help them reach the next level. Whilst this is obviously true of some ringers there are many ringers who spend more than 75% of their ringing time helping others to improve without being stretched or challenged themself.
Some very good ringers recognise the risk that they will lose their opportunities if they don’t invest some time in bringing others through.
Maybe there is one ringer near you who could persuade the band of elite ringers to host a supported practice for up and coming ringers even just four times a year?
But I appreciate you are trying every option so it may be that this is not possible in your area, hopefully this is not true for the majority of ringers and hopefully, gradually Ringing 2030 can encourage more ringers to be helping the next ringers to improve their skills and experience.

it does vary hugely geographically as to when you hit a barrier of not having enough ringers at a similar level wanting to make similar progress. — Lucy Chandhial

I agree, from what I've seen the situation is much better in some other areas. From what I've been told, things have not been good here (Greater Manchester) for many decades, I think it's therefore a poster child for how increasingly difficult it could become in other areas as the current generation of Surprise Major level ringers stop ringing.

Maybe there is one ringer near you who could persuade the band of elite ringers to host a supported practice for up and coming ringers even just four times a year? — Lucy Chandhial

There's no practically-accessible Major sessions in this area of my home association (Derby), most of the nearest towers are in Chester/Yorkshire/Lancashire.

There was a monthly Surprise Major practice in the Yorkshire Association which I found supportive & helpful, but that folded before Xmas. A Major QP group has started up in its place but I'm not at QP standard yet, so chicken, meet egg.

There's another fortnightly one in in the Chester Guild which I was going to but my fare was restricted to 2 half courses of Cambridge each fortnight. I asked repeatedly to ring Yorkshire as the ropesight is easier, one of my bugbears. I was point blank refused "Because the others wouldn't like it" (whatever that means). I always felt I was viewed as a bit of an encumbrance as the group was mostly people who want to ring spliced Surprise Major and not really a learning environment, so after Xmas I quietly dropped out. Nobody has been in touch, so I was right.

I'll probably keep chipping away at Bristol on the tower sim for my own amusement - the feedback I got at the weekend was that I clearly knew the method but needed to sharpen up the "wrong" work which I kinda knew already - it's the first method I've really rung with a mix of right/wrong work, so no big surprise, and getting to grips with it will pay off with Minor stuff. But as for ringing Major "for real", as I said, I've given that up as a lost cause.

One very small but helpful step that CC has already achieved has been to get the new North West residential course going, and one of the topics this course offers is "6 to 8", covering part of what you mention. There's no one single magic bullet that is going to suddenly cure all ills, but small steps in the right direction are happening. I also wonder why your local association is not offering anything to help. ANZAB - my local association - now offers offers regular courses at three different levels, namely 12-bell, "advanced" (which covers exactly what you mention - anything from Stedman Triples to spliced surprise major), and "intermediate" (for ringers stuck at around the badly struck PB5 sort of level). And it offers some subsidized travel (our distances being rather greater!) and scholarships. I suggest that if there is adequate demand you should badger your association to do something - that it what is is for, surely.

This is the very situation that the Cast of 1000 had hoped to address. Finding someone keen to run the practices is probably the hard part as always when looking for a volunteer. The second step would approach the 'supporting cast' and get people to sign up to attend however many they could manage. The hope was that individual ringers would at least offer their services for a couple of hours perhaps once or twice a year to help this group of ringers.