Ringing Forums

Thank you for the link. That is an excellent recruiting video. Following the links it looks like everyone will contact Rose at ART. Stand by Rose; sharpen your pencil.

If someone wants to ring for the Coronation where are they going to learn?

Sue: "However the training sessions at the Teaching centre using the simulator seem popular."

Well, then, there we go...

So plenty of aspiration, then. Just that we have an aspiration crushing set up.

"Ringing could have a bright future if only it got organised, brought itself up to date and promoted itself better". If only it had. And in that order.

In that case either they will sell the reality, so we will just get more of the same, or they will market an ideal which will clash with reality when recruits turn up to learn.

"The second session looks a bit low on numbers of experienced ringers, and in the ensuing discussion one of the branch's best ringers said he's happy to see the sessions happening but he can't come as it clashes with his tower's practice night - a tower that was Surprise Major until recently and is now CCs and PB5 and as he put it "is on a knife edge". That was echoed by another similarly experienced ringer. I understand the tower loyalty thing, but people at their level are a precious resource that shouldn't be squandered teaching handling and CCs."

One of the major factors holding back change in ringing is the high level of emotional attachment ringers tend to have to particular towers, associations, custom and practice and so on. This type of loyalty used to be a benefit, now it is a hinderance. Do YellowYoYo have any ideas how to bring about change in voluntary organisations that are driven by emotional attachment rather than in organisations driven by career progression and money?

How about:

When you sign up to learn to ring you are attached to a school. (you might, or might not, be attached to a local tower)
You will be assigned a mentor.
You will stay attached to the school into the medium and perhaps long term. In time you will be both teacher and learner. It is to the school that you will look for your development although of course you will probably also ring for services, weddings, peals and quarters.

Being a ringer will probably define you more than your membership of a particular tower, although of course a particular tower or towers could well be important to you.

I think that we should give anyone who wants to have a go at ringing a chance to start. Recruitment might sensibly target, but not filter. The filtering comes later based on aspiration and aptitude. Some will end up ringing basic stiff at a local tower, some will end up in the black zone and there will be many in between.

As it is at the moment we are struggling to get folk beyond Plain Bob, partly because of who is turning up to learn and partly because of the existing T&D regimes.

"we tend to see ringing, and all its important facets, from our own point of view, which often can be somewhat blinkered". I am definitely blinkered. No question.

I know I keep on flogging the same old horse but we really do need to address the question of what the newly recruited will find when they turn up to learn. If their main aim is to find a nice group of middle-aged-to-elderly , middle class, probably white people for a social group with learning to ring something of a secondary attraction, with significant pull from history and religion, then they will probably do ok.

If the new recruits are looking more for achievement in ringing with method ringing, composition, conducting and so on the main (if not sole) attraction and wishing to make significant progress at a reasonable pace then they might be lucky but probably won't.

So if we are aiming to recruit people who are likely to do well (at method ringing) we are aiming to recruit people who will be lucky to fetch up somewhere where they will get the T&D support they need, particularly in the medium to long term.

I will keep making the same point. The recruitment needs to match up with what we can deliver. Of course I might be wrong.Perhaps most guilds and associations have well developed T&D structures in place and are already waiting for folk to turn up.

But I suspect not. Of course I think I am being realistic, rather than negative; but I anticipate hearing the nasty grinding sound of marketing ideology against reality.

Internal reform needs to come before external selling.

I admit that I have something of an emotional problem with marketing. It tends to make me think of fancy icing and decoration on a distinctively average cake.

If the marketing strategy is linked with setting up a decent T&D system then I would be more optimistic. I don't mind icing on a decent cake. But then if the cake is good it probably doesn't need icing.

Mind you I have been assuming that the marketing will be aimed at non-ringers. If the marketing is to be aimed at guilds, associations, tower captains and ringers in general and if the aim is to get a total shift in the way most think about T&D then I can very much see the point.

"it seems that the lack of a local delivery mechanism is the main thing holding back a DMO Central Council." Yes. And the lack of funds to do anything significant.

"strategy of Yellow YoYo (which I can't wait to see)," Ditto. It will be interesting to see if they have grasped (what I perceive as) reality.

If we don't know why people ring it will be very difficult coming up with a development strategy.

There is not a snowball's chance of replacing the existing structures. The best hope would be setting up a separate parallel organisation where the emphasis is on the development of method ringing. ART is part way there in that it provides a curriculum and teachers for primary education but we need many more primary schools, and structure (curriculum, trainers, mentors, schools) for secondary education and, perhaps, tertiary.

It is not the theory about what needs to be done that is the problem it is finding a way to make ringers behaviour significantly different. From what I see the operation models are almost unchanged; open practices from 7:30 to 9:00, open branch practices that are effectively social events with some ringing thrown in. No structured developmental path for anyone wanting to learn. The only hope is to get in with a peal or qp band.

The vast bulk of ringers are firmly wedded to the existing patterns and given the average age I don't see that changing. It has been left far too late.

From the above link: "...project plan... will also need buy in from all societies." No rush with implementation then.

No. Not unless they attend services.

How about:

Tolling on the death of the monarch.

Open ringing for the proclamation (on the Londondan proclamation day).

Then muffles on for the duration of the period of national mourning?

There was this tower that didn't have a spider. Not having a spider had not caused a problem,

An H&S RA required a spider.

A spider was fitted.

Then someone was hit on the head by the spider.