Ringing Forums

There is a lot of cultural stuff in there:
Some method ringing bands having low regard to the quality of striking, particularly on relation the the rise and fall;
Ringers reluctant to fork put a few quid for The Comic;
Peal ringing in decline;
Recognition of the disintegration of the tower-based model of organisation (I regularly ring in three different diocese and don't belong anywhere).

The underlying challenge here is how do you change culture. Personally I have given up and just go with the flow, what little there is flowing at the mo. Of course others might well have some idea on how to bring about change in culture and behaviour. Need to get a bit of a shift on with it though. The water has almost run down the plug-hole.

We have definitely passed "Peak Peal" in my opinion. When you look at the demograhic profile of prolific peal ringers they are largely people who have retired in good health on pensions that enable them to travel around peal ringing. And it's a group that learned at a time when far more ringers learned to ring so there is a strong base. That's not going to happen in the future unless perhaps some form or Universal Basic Income fundamentally changes the balance between work and free time. Add onto that less of a peal ringing culture amongst younger ringers.

Does it matter though? The majority of peals don't achieve anything other than entertaining the ringers in them (not that there is anything wrong with that). Maybe 10-20% of peals are for the purpose of advancing someone's ringing? Monitoring quarter peals is perhaps a better barometer of health.

I don't ring peals but I think it matters for the quality of ringing. Looking back in old reports a lot of ringers rang relatively few peals and usually in simple methods. We seem to have lost that. Ringing lots of quarters helps, particularly on lower numbers, but I think you need peal ringing to get a proper grip of ringing, particularly on higher numbers. Using the two-course rule (you need two courses to settle in a touch) works ok for qps on eight but you are only just warming up in S Max.
I also worry that we are now starting to lose qp ringing. I recon most quality method ringing is now being done by retired folk who have been ringing for decades.
Because change has been so slow it tends to not get noticed. I am sure there are towers where the locals think that they are doing ok, perhaps meeting at least six on a Sunday morning and generally ringing some decent Doubles, but go back a few decades and it was perhaps a tower full with S Maj being rung, and the bells going up and down in rounds.
As far as tower bell peal ringing goes the numbers of peals rung might be holding up but the numbers of peal ringers is now in sharp decline. Whatever you do don't look at the PealBase bar charts if you want to carry on thinking that everything is ok, particularly the numbers of first pealers on tower bells..
I think that the decline in peal ringing has been driven by the unbalanced age demographic of learners but that seems to be a bit of a taboo, so I won't mention it.

Latest blog is here https://cccbr.org.uk/2022/01/18/presidents-blog-51/

As a relatively older and relatively recent starter I think you are right about "Peak Peal" having being passed. I can't see myself ever ringing peals even if I could, due to time constraints - I'm still working full-time, and expect to be for most the next decade, by which time I'll be in my late 60s. Even QP opportunities are relatively scarce for me and they are long enough for my taste anyway. When I do get to ring QPs my ringing has definitely improved afterwards. But until the last month or so I'd had a 2 year gap (not by choice) so for me it was like starting over from scratch when we rang a couple of QPs of PB6 at practices, when we met short with 6 ringers.

the most prolific peal ringers I know are exactly as you describe - they have being ringing since their youth and are now retired. I think your other observations are on the money as well. Although in the case of my home tower, it's never got beyond CCs for many decades, so I don't think the issues are entirely new.

I was talking to one of the long-standing ringers at a practice yesterday after a touch of Oxford Minor had been rung and he mentioned that Oxford was the basis of other methods such as Sandal, Capel etc. I've taught myself to ring spliced Oxford Group on the tower sim, but I've realised I'll be unlikely to ever learn to ring them 'for real'. He carried on to say "They used to be rung around here a lot, but none of those people are ringing any more". Ringing higher numbers is obviously important, but in many areas even quality Minor ringing is becoming scarce, and if it's a struggle to find 6 people to ring methods, you are even less likely to find 8, 10 or 12.

Latest blog is here https://cccbr.org.uk/2022/02/16/presidents-blog-53/

Latest blog is here https://cccbr.org.uk/2022/03/01/presidents-blog-54/

Simon, Is there going to be a final CCCBR photgraphic competition? The last I read (Latest News from the CC 1st Jan) suggested that it would be launched in the New Year. Maybe I have missed something! If it has been decided not to run one, that's ok, but I would be grateful to receive an update. Thank you.

Hi George
Apologies it's been a bit delayed for a number of reasons, but there is intention to launch a final competition round very soon. Details will be issued via all the usual channels.

Latest blog has just been published here

Perhaps a new thread per blog?

Continuing this way the latest blog is getting further and further down the page.

I appreciate that CCCBR wants to stay away from politics, but I feel offering no support to the people of Ukraine is unfortunate.

The difficulty is where you draw the line on calling for and even organising mass ringing. In particular we get regular charity requests asking for bells to be rung to support a certain thing - sometimes they look as though they would attract a lot of support and sometimes less so. They can be passed onto the ringing community to form a judgement and agree locally.

Ukraine is a tricky one because coordinated ringing probably would be appreciated and supported although the Church has not called for it. Although we didn't call for ringing in support of the people of Syria, or various other conflicts of similar magnitude so again there is a judgement to be made.

Always will to listen to opinions of course

And yes, I'll start a new thread per blog - that's a good idea

Simon - would you add some information about the images that head each blog please? They can't be expanded (it seems) so I wonder if relevant information is lost.

will do
The images aren't always particularly important, and sometimes I make them quite obscure (it's my sense of humour). So for instance there was one a couple of months ago where the picture was a bee, which was actually a Manuka Honey Bee because I had mentioned Manuka.

My main problem is however not seeing how I paste an image.