Ringing Forums

Our community of practice is numerically dominated by people whose interest is less in the art of ringing and more on doing something for their church on Sunday morning. — John Harrison

I don't think that this is true, and it illustrates the point that I have been making. Looking at my District, with 35 towers and 246 members, we seem to have five distinct groups of people:

[1] Long-standing ringers, many now in their 70's and 80's who come to the three District meetings each year. They don't come to ring, but come for the tea and chat, even though a fair proportion are red zone ringers. About 15% of the membership
[2] Other experienced ringers mainly in the red and black zones who whilst members do not come to any Guild or District meetings, but whose needs are met by privately organised practices, quarters and peals etc. Generally aged under 70
[3] New ringers most of who whom have learnt since Covid. We have an active 'improvers' group in the District, who are firmly in the blue Zone. They are keen and willing to visit other towers, but find District meetings boring. The majority are in their 40's, 50's and early 60's. About 40% of the District membership
[4] Ringers who only ring in their local tower, who we never see. We only have 15 active bands in the District. This group of ringers are typically listed at the other towers, where there might now only be one or two services a month and practices are 'by arrangement'. They are quite happy to continue to pay their Guild sub, except they are probably not very active. We've even some living in care homes. About 20% of the membership.
[5] New 'probationary' members who have taken up ringing in the last year, the majority of whom seem to be female and in their 50's, taking up ringing when their kids leave home. However a large proportion of them seem to give up ringing within 2 years of starting. About 10% of the membership

Sunday service ringing is a Victorian concept, spearheaded by clergy such as the Rev Elllacombe. Whilst the majority of ringers in groups 1 and 4 probably identify with this, they are not in the majority. The ones in group 1 may wish to defend the ones in group 4, but if ringing is to survive, they are not the future. We need to tap into our rich pre-Victorian heritage, ensuring this is recognised, to maximise public support for our exercise. This will enable us to lever in much needed resources, and put us on a more sustainable footing to complete with other activities for people's time and attention in this modern world.

There are two things we need to be clear about in developing an application. The first is why are we doing it? I’m assuming that it is to strengthen the case that we make to external funders such as the National Lottery Heritage Fund, who are a major funder of bellringing projects. Their current investment principles include:

• Heritage at risk of loss, decline, damage, neglect or of being forgotten – ensuring it is valued and better understood.
• Measurably reduce the amount of heritage identified as ‘at risk of being forgotten.
• Involve a more diverse range of people in heritage,
• Enable organisations to remove barriers to access and participation,
• Support all communities to explore and share their heritage,
• Support organisations to develop the skills and capacity to ensure a sound long-term future
• Support organisations to increase their financial and organisational sustainability by developing their commercial and digital skills and strengthening governance and leadership.

This leads to the second point. Our ’community of practice' probably has a very narrow view of our heritage. How far do we go back? Modern peal ringing grew to several thousand peals a year from about 1880 onwards’ leading to many of the methods that we ring today becoming widespread. However, it was not always thus. From the first peal in 1715, for around 175 years only a few dozen peals were rung each year.

1668 saw Tintinnalogia the first book on change ringing published, containing some recognisable methods. However, prior to this early change ringing was practiced in whole pulls, not half pulls, and simple sets of changes such as plain changes were rung.

As far back as 1549 recreational ringing was common, with the German reformer Martin Bucer visiting England and complaining about the recreational use of bells by foolish youths.

We are the custodians of a very rich intangible heritage, firmly embedded in aspects of British culture and the historic soundscape, with wide public appeal. We need to celebrate that far more than we do.

but in my view the cultural heritage is distinct so separate cases need to be made for their inclusion. — John Harrison

Yes, but we need to be careful not to perpetuate the Victorian version of our heritage, which goes back much further than them and is very rich. We haven't discussed prize ringing, focussing on rounds ringing and rounds and call-changes. This was prevalent throughout the country in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries, but did not find favour with the Victorian reformers. However, it has survived, notably in Devon and Cornwall, and I believe in parts of Yorkshire. The Victorian clergy like Elllacombe promoted scientific change-ringing as they believed that it brought a better class of person into their belfries.

That's an interesting question, should they be registered together or separately? What about in-hand ringing that is tunes rather than changes? — John de Overa

In my opinion living heritage includes all three forms of ringing as up until the Victorian belfry reformers changed things (and re-wrote history), all three forms were closely linked. If we just focus on change-ringing we're missing out on a lot of our living heritage. Many villages had sets of handbells which were used for tune ringing. Many belfries still contain them. In the North of England in particular it was quite popular with some teams having upwards of 100 bells. It was Phileas T Barnum the Great Showman that saw a team of tune ringers performing in Liverpool in around 1850 and took them to perform in the USA. They also rang the first tower bell peal in the States. There are also connections with West Gallery bands, which took over from the church organs that the Puritans took out, with the Victorians later ripping out the galleries and putting back organs. Have a read of Peter Fawcett's book Ringing For Gold, and let's focus on a very rich 400+ years of heritage.

I would say there is a problem lower down than the red zone. — Charlotte Boyce

I agree. There's a big barrier between ringing plain bob doubles/minor inside and Cambridge minor inside, and you need to be able to practice it weekly with a strong band, not a few minutes once a month. There's a missing generation of ringers resulting in a squeezed middle, so fewer and fewer opportunities to do this. I see this everywhere in my travels around the country.

Many of the newer ringers are in their 40's and 50's and are early retired, working from home or are empty nesters looking for something interesting to take up. They are keen and prepared to pay, as evidenced by the success of the Mancroft and St Clement's Cambridge teaching centres, and demand for the new residential ringing courses in the Northwest and Southwest, which are three times over-subscribed with these people.

However many of the old timers learnt as teenagers, so learnt much more quickly and they can be impatient with the newer ringers, expecting them to do things before they have mastered the basics, which does not work. Many also often just ring as a service to their church, so are not interested in ringing elsewhere, or progressing further.

As benefices become larger and services in village churches become less frequent, village bands ring less often and I fear for the survival of these bands. Round here several have collapsed since before Covid. Many of the remaining village tower captains are people who have been in post for decades, doing everything themselves. Others are people who have needed to take over from one of these long standing tower captains who are no longer able to ring, and there is no one else left in the band willing to take over.

Training up and getting the enthusiastic newer ringers into these roles is of paramount importance and could make a huge difference. It was really pleasing this week when two of my Ring for the King learners invited me to attend a Plain Bob Minor training session which they were organising!

Yes, I agree. I think that we are in an 'information vacuum'! I haven't heard anything about Ringing 2030 through my association except from the report of our only CC rep who attending the meeting in Sheffiled. (some absences due to work comittments.) There is no energy or interest! — Phillip George

Same in my Guild, except that the Central Council Representatives have not even reported back to the Guild yet.

Wearing another hat, my mobile belfries one, we wrote to 20 Guilds and Associations back in August abut helping with four large jamborees next year, which were in their area, or adjacent. Only two responded to the initial e-mail, one negatively. Six weeks ago we chased the other eighteen, pointing to the objectives of Ringing 2030 and the ability to reach out to thousands of young people. Just over half have now responded, although in many cases the response is that they have passed our request down to Branch/District secretaries, even though we were asking for a strategic commitment from each Guild/Association. Therefore I'm not confident that much will happen.

If the officers and CC Reps in Guilds and Associations don't get behind Ringing 2030, is it going to succeed, or just hit the buffers as similar initiatives to address our demographic time bomb have done so often in the past?

Of course, your question assumes acceptance of shrinking church congregations. However the Bradoc experience was about bringing people into the church. I have noticed that the eyes of the clergy here light up when you talk to them about attracting young people and families, and working with local schools. My own benefice of Alresford is currently raising funds to employ a part time youth worker, whilst at the same time exploring combining with a neighbouring benefice to ‘share resources’. A euphemism I believe for reducing the number of clergy, and some of the parish churches in the two benefices becoming festival churches.

We’re also exploring setting up a teaching centre similar to Mancroft/Cambridge at a church in Winchester and the PCC there are very enthusiastic about working with the local schools. I am currently being pressurised to do some tune-ringing with them in the lead up to this Christmas, even though installation of the tower bells is several years away.

Of course, tune ringing may be an anathema to those change ringers steeped in our Victorian culture, but our landlord is changing and we need to adapt too. Traditional services like Evensong are being replaced with Breakfast Church, Café Church, and Sunday afternoon teatime services.

We need to move with the times, work with our landlord, and invest our resources in people and those places where ringing can thrive, rather than just the hardware.

If we can't retain people and get the very best out of them, what's the point? — John de Overa

Before we veer too far off topic, the point that I was trying to make was that we’ve been kicking around the looming problem of the ageing ringing population for at least the last 25 years, and have not made significant progress. But, its now here. The number of active ringers has dropped by around 25% since 1990, and the majority of ringers are now aged over 60, if not 70, making it even more difficult to turn things round.

We can learn a lot from what we have tried in the past, and what has not worked, but we need an open mind and fresh ideas in a changed world. So much in ringing is outdated and inconsistent. Many tower bookshelves are stacked with textbooks that were written in the 1960’s, and the Ringers Handbook was first published in the 1930’s! Many ringing chambers have not seen a fresh coat of paint for decades.

It’s not going to be the Central Council that turns things round, it’s going to be the many ringers at grass roots level that will need to do the hard work. The Central Council can provide the central support, but that will only work if the people on the ground take it up. It will need public relations officers, teachers, tower captains and Guild and Association and District and Branch Officers all working together, year after year.

There is an issue at the moment that many of the experienced ringers ring surprise, but there’s a squeezed middle between plain hunt and surprise, which many people who wish to progress find difficult to cross. In the past there were fewer surprise ringers and there were more opportunities to ring intermediate methods to facilitate progression.

Feedback from those that responded to a questionnaire sent to Ring for King learners was that many of the experienced ringers seemed to prefer to ring with each other, rather than new ringers. However, whilst it is the experienced ringers who hold office at tower, district/branch and guild/association level, it is these new ringers that are the future of ringing. Many have skills from outside that would be valuable. As CRAG identified, communication from the centre down to these people at grass roots level is hampered by the many ‘gatekeepers’ in the way.

Therefore, perhaps the most important thing that the new PR Workgroup could do is to find ways of reaching grass roots ringers, especially the new ones that have taken up ringing since Covid. In my experience they are often very keen, have useful skills, and would like to help turn things round. Otherwise they will just give up in frustration and put their energies elsewhere!

All very well having business cards, but most Guild and Association websites are aimed at ringers and are difficult for non-ringers to navigate. I'm also worried about all this old advice. Yellow YoYo produced some excellent strategic advice for the Council two years ago https://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Bell-ringing_Future-Vision-document-_24.08.23_Final.pdf

The Council seems to go round in circles and not move forward. We been talking about a lot of these issues since the Council meeting in Lincoln 25 years ago, and the Wellesbourne Conference and the regional 'Change Ringing for the Future' conferences ten years ago etc. have come and gone. It's strange that the Council financed the setting up of the Ringing Foundation, which levered in significant other resources and then funded the establishment of ART and the Learning the Ropes scheme. Looking at this year's AGM papers there's now talk of identifying non-ART teachers.

Would the RYA or similar organisations not focus on promoting their schemes? If we're going to recruit many thousands of under 30's each year, were going to need to move with the times and have a consistent message. However my experience with the mobile belfries is that many users use them in a very amateur way, so spreading best practice is essential. There are also issues in following up enquiries as so many towers these days so not have active bands.

It really depends on local circumstances. At Northington, the ring of six near here augmented from three in 2018, the population of the village was 221 in 2011. According to the Diocesan Website the average Sunday before Covid was 10 and they are in a benefice with eight other churches and have one Sunday service each month. The parish asks each visiting band of ringers for a minimum donation of £30. I suspect that would not be sustainable each week if your band were to ring in a festival or redundant church, but this is something that the exercise may have to grapple with more often in the future.

In 2011 New Alresford had a population of 5,431 and Old Alresford on the opposite bank of the river Arle had a population of 571. Following Ring for the King, we have used Old Alresford as our main teaching tower, first with a simulator, and since May 2024 we have been ringing the bells ‘open’ for practices and regular training sessions, with ringing often twice or even three times a week. As there is no sound control, Old Alresford bells are clearly audible in much of New Alresford on the opposite side of the river. We post regularly in the local Facebook group and many residents have commented that they like hearing the Alresford bells ringing out. We even received a thank you card and box of chocolates last week!

There is development of 300 new houses going up in New Alresford and the church is very focussed on attracting young families. Evensong is now just once a month, with family orientated teatime services taking place instead. Also, the 9.30am Communion is now only twice a month, with breakfast church and other forms of service more attractive to families replacing it on the other weeks. The ringing of bells is less relevant to these non-traditional forms of worship, although the suggestion that we form a handbell-tune ringing group aimed at young families, and also set up an after-school tune ringing group was warmly welcomed by the Clergy.

I don’t know much about Landbeach, apart from a quick Google search. I see that you are about 5 miles North of Cambridge, and had a population of about 825. The other parish in the benefice is Waterbeach on the other side of the A10. This had a population of 5,500 in 2019. According to Dove, St John’s Waterbeach has a unringable five dating back to 1791, hung in an even older frame. I understand that since 2022 a major development of 6,500 new homes is taking place in Waterbeach, including three new primary schools and a new secondary school.

With limited financial resources, and ageing congregations, the Church of England needs to focus it’s resources not on ancient buildings, but on the worshippers of the future. If we are to safeguard the future of ringing, we need to focus our resources too on the ringers of the future. Whilst it is important to maintain access to ring the bells at Landbeach and many other rings of bells in a similar situation, we also need to be looking at opportunities for the future. I don’t know anything about Waterbeach, but opening up a dialogue with St John’s would seem a very useful step to take. It seems from what I have read that there will be a critical mass of population there to maintain a very active church, and to grow a local band, and you may then have sufficient ringers to ring both sets of bells, as we have done in our benefice at Alresford.

Taking on something like this may seem daunting, but rather than a traditional bell restoration project, developing a bellringing project focussed on engaging with the wider local community, particularly young families, may be both attractive to the church, and also help unlock access to substantial external funding.

Many of these BRF's were set up in the 1960's and 1970's. In 1972 the Central Council conducted a survey of ringing and there were 4,962 towers with five or more bells in the British Isles. Of those that completed the survey, over 8% were classed as unringable or unsafe. Today, according to Dove only 4.4% of towers with 5 or more bells are classed as unringable and the number of towers with five or more bells in the British Isles has increased from 4,962 to 5,738. All thanks to the work of BRF's and projects such as Ring in the Millennium.

Over the next few decades many of these churches with bells are likely to have a handful of services each year, or even close for worship. The challenge is going to be to retain access so that future generations of ringers can ring them, and even to have a future generation of ringers. The challenge is also going to be to change the deeply embedded culture and move away from narrowly focussed BRF's to one where Guilds and Associations are charities with a much wider remit to safeguard ringing.

Possible actions could also include giving larger grants, or widening the scope of work that the BRF will fund, such as refurbishing all those dingy ringing chambers or paying for professional bell hangers to visit and train local steeple-keepers. The Trustees could also consider the merits of registering the whole Guild/Association as a Charity.

Members shouldn't be a problem either. When consulted, rank and file members of the Essex Association came up with some excellent ideas of how their large bequest could be used. However, perhaps someone from Essex could comment on what has happened since. My understanding is that the status quo has prevailed.

Charity Commission approval shouldn't be a problem. Their guidance is that Charity Trustees have a duty to keep the objects of the charity under review and to spend resources on charitable purposes, and not to accumulate large reserves. Charity Trustees should also seek professional advice where appropriate as the ODG does (and not let reserves lose value in real terms by being kept in short term deposit accounts).

each tower only needs work every 50 - 100 years but then needs a lot of money so it is long term planning — Lucy Chandhial

When I learnt to ring xx years ago, a lot of towers had timber bellframes, with bells hung on timber headstocks and plain bearings. Over the last 50 years, thanks to societies setting up BRF's, a substantial proportion of these have been replaced. Modern engineering is such that in 50 - 100 years only a minor overhaul will be needed, which will be far less expensive. Long term planning needs to focus on the needs of the future, not what we have been used to doing for the last five decades.

The duties of a charity trustee include keeping the objects of the charity under review, so changing them should be something that is considered from time to time. In addition the proportion of subs transferred into the BRF can be changed very easily. Also there is case for considering registering the whole society as a charity, where there is then more flexibility.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66290919b0ace32985a7e6c3/CC3_feb24.pdf

One of our local towers has enough space to walk round the bellframe, so we can safely turn rubber motor cycle tyre muffles through 90 degrees in a few seconds. Wouldn't even consider tying them with the bells up https://ringingteachers.org/application/files/1015/4788/9242/Motor_cycle_tyre_-_bell_silencing.pdf

I think practice augmentation and supporting service ringing are different. At a practice you need a greater number to stretch and develop people whereas service ringing just requires enough to ring something, which can, and probably should, be less stretching. — John Harrison

In our local Hub, by working together since Covid we have been able to gradually increase the number of ringers. One previously silent tower now has a band of ten ringers. We have also been able to grow the number of ringers in a neighbouring benefice by forming a benefice band. One tower had an active team and the other only had a couple of ringers left, and the bells were hardly ever rung The new ringers in this benefice now benefit through having the choice of two practices a week. If ever there was a need to, there are now more than enough ringers in this benefice to ring at both towers simultaneously.

The ringers in both benefices also help each other out if needed to ring ring for weddings, and also attempt quarters and deliver training sessions, which they would not be able to do on their own. We've also recently started helping a third benefice to regenerate their band, They have two towers and nine ringers, of whom a third are over age 70 and another third over 80. The remainder are all over 50.

Teaming up in 'hubs' and 'clusters' like this would seem to be the way forward to safeguard the future of ringing in many other towers.

It's not just science, but there are lots of other subjects in the National Curriculum that are relevant to ringing. In the Alresford ART Hub we have been successful in obtaining a £62k grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund towards restoring the ring of bells at Ropley and a two year follow on project to 'engage new audiences' with the heritage of bells and bellringing. The local history society will be helping us to deliver a 'history detectives' project to the local CofE primary school next year. We are also going to be running an after school tune-ringing club each autumn term in the lead up to Christmas. To quote the head teacher "This sounds like an absolutely splendid opportunity for the children!"

The other parish in the benefice, Bishops Sutton, has also recently obtained a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant to re-roof the building. In order to engage new audiences with heritage, they have teamed up with the local secondary school to undertake some history and art projects and display the results in an exhibition space that they propose to build at the back of the church. The church is on the Pilgrims Way, so that also helps.

To support both projects I have therefore looked at the national curriculum for key stages 1 - 6 and undertaken some historical research (the teachers said that I needed place it somewhere where the children could find it, rather than expect them to find it all themselves|). At Primary age, the emphasis is on early history, whereas at Secondary age, the emphasis goes right up to the present day. However I have been able to bring in many aspects including the Norman conquest and the curfew bell, Henry VIII and the Reformation, the Gunpowder Plot, Cromwell, Georgian behaviour, Big Ben, Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, the Temperance Movement and the role of women in society etc. Do have a look https://bellringing.co.uk/heritage.htm

But my main concern with the original suggestion of a course which costs £10 per week so that the leader(s) of the course get paid at wedding type rates is that you then have to define who is helping and who is learning — Lucy Chandhial

We can't keep on doing what we have always done. The ringing population has decreased from an estimated 42,000 in 1988 to around 30,000 today. Unless we recruit, train and retain much faster than we have been doing over the past three decades, and at scale, the ringing population will continue to decline

We need to recruit and teach smarter, and we do need to charge for tuition to enable us to do this. Most new ringers expect to pay something. However, I hear the same reasons trotted out by many of the more experienced ringers about why it is difficult to change. The Birmingham School of Bellringing has been running successfully for over a decade and charges £5 per pupil for a 2 hour Saturday morning lesson. The Mancroft Ringing Discovery Centre has been running for over 5 years and also charges. Talking to the Cambridge Youths yesterday, it seems that the St Clements centre is experiencing a huge demand from new ringers in Cambridgeshire who cannot get the tuition and support that they need from their local band. The St Clements Centre charges £5 per hour per pupil for each group session, and £10 per hour for 1:1 tuition.

Perhaps the debate needs to change from being about why we are not able to do things like this, to be about why so many other groups are not doing things like this already, showing them what is possible and is working elsewhere, and helping them undertake similar projects.

Overcoming inertia requires brave leadership and decision making plus increased resource. More volunteers, doing more and being better directed is necessary but not sufficient. Funds need to be spent, albeit as wisely as possible. To be sustainable that means increased income. — Paul Wotton

I think that the CCCBR is approaching this from entirely the wrong direction. The CCCBR itself cannot do much on the ground. It is motivated local groups of ringers that will have an impact, and the case for doing something to safeguard the future of ringing in each local area is compelling, in a way that increasing affiliation fees to the CCCBR is not. Today I took the Charmborough Ring to the Society of Cambridge Youths who are hiring it for the Cambridge Folk Festival. They have an excellent system in place to capture the contact details and follow up people who show interest. They also have an excellent teaching centre at St Clements, which is staffed by a part time administrator/teacher in Lynn Hughes. The £245k to set up the teaching centre and employ Lynn for the first two years was raised by the Society of Cambridge Youths.

There are other similar models such as the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing and the Mancroft Ringing Discovery Centre, so I am not advocating one particular model. However I would prefer to see the CCCBR focussing on encouraging many other local groups of ringers to set up their own initiatives, and to share good practice. We need several dozen of these initiatives spread round the country. The £40k that the CCCBR are currently agonising over is just a drop in the ocean of what is needed for Ringing 2030 to be successful, and will not in itself achieve very much. However, groups such as the Cambridge Youths have shown that they can raise large capital sums of money, and these projects can be self financing so that they can employ their own admin/teaching staff, in addition to volunteers, and hire mobile belfries too!.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/YLpwoUzBSSikjv2M/