Ringing Forums

I think that because people can fill in the census as individuals it will be possible for people to report where they ring but also what they can ring (if that’s part of the questions) and potentially even whether they get opportunities to extend their ringing. So I think (although I haven’t seen the questions) that it will be clear if people want to ring more complicated stuff but don’t have the band around them or only occasionally get to ring the most complicated things they can ring and it won’t be limited to what you did during Census week.

I hope it's included in the questions in some form. I think @Simon Linfords "The Death of the Red Zone" might be driven in large part by lack of opportunity, it would be good to know how much of a problem that is, the survey would be a good chance to find out.

My own experience is that finding opportunities can be hard. My home tower tops out at the PB6 / GS5 level, if I want to ring Surprise Major I have to travel, and even in that tower, it's hit and miss - the regulars can all ring at that level but they seldom have enough to do so. Its difficult to progress your skills if chances are often months apart. The first time I turned up with my much more competent friend we made the 8 so they rang a spur of the moment QP of GS7. I kept my mouth shut and grabbed the tenor, so my first QP on 8 was entirely accidental! :lol:

I think your experience is fairly common, but I agree that Census results to put a number on it and show ‘hot spots’ around the world as this will be useful in looking at how best to grow ringing opportunities.

I wonder if it takes into consideration that the level at which an itinerant ringer rings may be hugely influenced by which tower they are ringing in at any given time? — John de Overa

The point of the census is to record what you actually did during a specific week. Even if it isn't what you typically do. Across the whole population things should even out, some people will be on holiday and do no ringing, some people will be ill and do less than usual, other people will have an extra practice in the week or be on a peal tour, etc. On average it should all even out.

There are questions relating to lack of opportunities / desire for more opportunities.

Mustn’t forget to include any ringing on a SIM or Ringing Room and the like, or handbells (change ringing).

Or on mini rings in peoples homes and garages etc!

I'm curious if overseas ringers are meant to take part in the census, or just ringers in the UK.
("helping us build an accurate picture of ringing across the country")

I'm overseas, and itinerant to boot ;-) but I have several dumbbells and also ring handbells often. And I come to the UK as often as I can (4x this year already :smile: )

Just curious!

Yes, overseas too! It’s a global census of full circle bellringing / change ringing so if you ring more handbells than tower bells the Census should still be completed even if’s a week where you don’t get to ring any tower bells.
The tower information is feeding from Dove so global locations are covered.

In the Ennumerator session I joined the question was raised about people who perhaps don’t ring tower bells at all now because their local tower is silent and they have no other viable option (for geography or mobility reasons) and the aim is that they will still complete the Census if they still consider themselves to be a ‘bellringer’!

It will be shared via social media as well as via CCCBR Reps, Ringing World, etc so it will be publicised globally.

I note that this topic is headed 'Ringing Census 2026'. When is it scheduled to take place? There are only 10 weeks remaining before we ring-out the old and ring-in the new! It is a thoroughly good idea and obviously well thought out but, to date, we have heard nothing about the census in the towers around me. The only references I have seen have been what I have picked up from this forum.

16th to 22nd November
It’s in the link John shared https://cccbr.org.uk/census/

Simon very kindly sent me a private email with the link to the survey, for which, many thanks. I tried to reply to Simon but my email bounced straight back with this error message:
Address not found
Your message wasn't delivered to adminatringingforumsdotorg because the address couldn't be found or is unable to receive email.
Hence I must resort to reply to a private message via the Forum.

The real question I was asking is how do towers know about it? I can't recall receiving any notification from the YACR; it my be stuck at county or branch level but nothing has reached our tower yet. After 68 years I decided to allow my RW subscription to lapse and I now rely on the Bellringing and Bellringers FB pages for my news source and I can't recall any announcements there. If it wasn't for the recent messages in the Ringing Forum I would be totally unaware. So the question remains - how will ringers be aware of the survey? Does the scheme rely totally on the enumerators to survey the country?

[quote="Peter Sotheran; Simon very kindly sent me a private emai[/quote]

It wasn’t private, he replied to you on the forum, but I assume the Forum sent you an email to tell you there had been a response to your comment. So you didn’t reply to Simon you replied to the Forum admin.

and I now rely on the Bellringing and Bellringers FB pages for my news source and I can't recall any announcements there — Peter Sotheran

That’s the first place I saw a public announcement (as opposed to communication to members and societies).
However, relyingob fb for info isn’t wise because of the chaotic way it presents information. I often find if I leave a message to look up something before replying it I can’t find it again despite looking for it.

Thank you so much, Lucy, for clarifying! I will fill out the survey and encourage other members of the North American Guild to do so also.

btw I enjoyed our QP together last November at St Anne's Limehouse :smile:
(I am itinerant!)

Thanks John. I fear I am I find myself stepping back from the digital developments that feature so much in all aspects of our lives. There are simply too many options to consider and too often the service providers assume that 'everyone knows how it works' - well I don't! I take your point about FB being somewhat erratic at times but it meets my needs in general.

So back to the question, how will ringers be invited/encouraged to participate in the survey?

From the two page article in this week's Ringing World about the Census:

Links to both surveys will be distributed through the usual communications channels, including social media, Association Secretaries and The Ringing World, during Census Week. — RW Article, p984

I imagine that the links will be posted on Ringing Forums.

I have also received information about it from my CC Rep.

That's all good to hear. I'll have to rely on social media (the Ringers & Ringing FB pages) and news filtering down the YACR because, after over 65 years, I discontinued my RW subscription last year.

I first bought the journal from my local newsagent in the 1950s when it was edited byTom White and looked like this:

Although by the time I joined the weekly readership in the late '50s the price had escalated to 6d (2½p) and soon after to 1 shilling (5p). In the 1960s, '70s and 80's I was a fairly regulary contributor. At a time when many regular writers sheltered under a nom de plume, I occasionally appeared as 'Yorkshire Glory'. Sadly, in recent years, there has been less news of my contemporaries as their numbers have diminished over time. For the last couple of decades we have taken our family copy of the RW to the tower but, I regret to say that, they are rarely looked at - despite the brilliant new full-colour treatment created by Will Bosworth and the training & tutoring features.

So I sit here, with bated breath, waiting for news of how to participate in the survey.

It seems that certain CCCBR reps and various 'gatekeepers' in the cascade chain aren't passing information down to the ringers at grass roots level. If there's a problem now, it's going to be worse in just over three weeks time, when these grass roots ringers need to receive the link and will only have a fortnight to respond. Poor communication in parts of the exercise is a major issue hindering us moving forward, and just perpetuates the status quo. It's a shame that CRAG's recommendations were never fully explored.

Poor communication in parts of the exercise is a major issue — Roger Booth

Agreed. The problem was recognised over a decade ago but wasn’t grasped. It’s now harder to solve thanks to ringers migrating to chaotic platforms like Facebook Groups.

It's a shame that CRAG's recommendations were never fully explored. — Roger Booth

If you mean a DMO, I’ve seen somewhere recently (maybe Exec minutes) that a group had even set up to look at it. Let’s hope they get further than the 2014 group did.

The problem was recognised over a decade ago but wasn’t grasped — John Harrison

When I first took up ringing, the RW was the only universal channel of communication. With a print-run of around 8000 copies per week, allowing for multiple readers of tower copies, it probably reached 10k to 12k readers - around 25% of the assumed ringing population of 40,000. Today, I believe that the RW circulation hovers around 2000 or so weekly copies.

Then thirty years ago, along came emails, followed by the Internet with all its chat groups and email lists. As a result we now find communications are split across countless channels and we have lost focus. This forum was created to bring all ringing matters back into focus but I guess that the readership is not as large as it might be.

The total readership/membership of the half dozen most popular ringing-related FB pages amounts to 16.8k subscribers. The largest group, 'Bellringers' has 7.2k subscribers. There is of course a huge level of duplication so perhaps one might assume that, allowing for duplication, there are around 10k unique subscribers - about the same as used to read the RW before we entered the digital era.

I raise these points because I sense that others are quite dismissive of 'chaotic platforms like Facebook'. I would urge them not to dismiss FB out of hand but to consider the numbers who subscribe to the various pages.

I don’t dismiss FB. Lots of ringers are there, so it’s important to know what they are saying and to contribute. But that doesn’t alter the fact that the platform has many defects, which get in the way of communication, even when you do engage.