Ringing Forums

it is hard now to show that extra expenditure would achieve this. — Paul Wotton

I disagree. Today the Touring Tower is at Hurst Show in Berkshire and the Charmborough Ring is at Billingshurst Show in Sussex. All three mobile belfries will be used at about 30 events this year, and seen by hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of people at each event. We can show that when followed up effectively, they are not only an excellent PR tool, but also a good way of recruiting new ringers.

The CCCBR launched a crowd funding campaign in 2022 for £30,000 towards the Touring Tower. To date only £20,953 has been raised. However because of delays, costs have increased, so nearer £35,000 is now needed. Fortunately the Charmborough Trust had about £9,000 in its reserves, and this enabled the Touring Tower to become operational. However this has not only depleted the Trust's reserves, but there is still a significant shortfall. Therefore some items of expenditure have needed to be delayed. We had hoped that by now we could have some smart new promotional material to accompany the Touring Tower and the other two mobile belfries, to take advantage of the members of the public that we are now able to reach. However, that is another story.

We would like to be able to do far more, whether that is through the Central Council helping with our capital costs, branding, the design of attractive PR collateral and supporting an effective recruitment portal; and Guilds and Associations contributing through their training and development funds.to the hire of the mobile belfries for fetes and shows, and taking them into schools for activities days.

A charity with purposes democratically agreed by its affiliated society/association members ( — Paul Wotton

The problem is that 9/10 of ringers are not engaged with their local Guild/Association, let alone the Central Council. What would be interesting is to put the question direct to the wider membership, asking them if they had £375k available, what would they spend it on?

The Essex Association did precisely that in 2022 and the results are quite interesting. They came up with some very good ideas - https://eacr.org.uk/about/bequests.html

The only problem that I see is that even when the money is available, getting people to apply for grants is not easy as there is no tradition of spending on the recruitment and training ringers. It's all done in an amateurish way, on a shoestring, and there is fierce resistance to doing anything different. This was the problem experienced by the CCCBR's Ringing Centres Committee with a large pot of money provided by the Founders Livery Company in the 1990's, and also the Ringing Foundation when it was set up about fifteen years ago.

A lot of this will probably rely on local Associations and Guilds (or alternative local structures) to make it possible so it is questionable whether increased funding for central organisation is the key to delivering the support most ringers want locally. — Lucy Chandhial

I think that the wrong question is being asked. It should not be about affiliation fees; instead it should be about how should Ringing2030 be funded?

Proposals to raise affiliation fees have been discussed more than once in the past and met fierce resistance. Over the last 40 – 50 years Guilds and Associations have focussed putting most of their resources into restoring and augmenting rings of bells. There are now far less unringable towers. However, they continue to do this.

The Charity Commission publish the previous five years income and expenditure figures for every charity on their website. Whilst I was a Director and the Ringing Foundation and researching this, I started keeping a spreadsheet to analyse Guild and Associations and their BRF’s, and still do. There is currently about £6million held in BRF’s, and annual grant expenditure has remained relatively static at about £250k each year for the past ten years.

However, income was also static at about £300k per annum over the same period, so the amount held is growing. Whist some money needs to be kept to fund grants promised, there is sufficient to fund well over 10 years’ worth of projects, without any more income coming in. Much of the remainder, whilst unallocated, is also kept in short term deposit accounts. The most notable exception is the Oxford Diocesan Guild. They have a well-managed fund and invest the surplus for the long-term with professional investment advice provided by the Diocesan Office.

As so many ringers are pensioners, or near retirement age, it’s surprising that so many Guilds and Associations are not so financially aware.

In addition to the steady income of about £300k pr annum, it is also apparent that some Guilds and Associations receive large windfalls from time to time through bequests, but that is perhaps the subject for another posting.

Charity Commission guidance is that charities should keep their levels of reserves under review. They are advised not to hold large reserves, but to spend the money on their charitable objectives. Many BRF’s have very narrow objectives and only contribute to bells, frames and fittings. However, the guidance is also that charities should review their objectives from time to time, as circumstances change.

In summary, we shouldn’t be worried about £40k per annum in six years’ time. That figure is far too timid anyway. We have the resources in the exercise to do far more, and to do it straight away. It should also have been done yesterday, if not a decade or two ago!

People bandy the term insurance around without thinking what it covers. — John Harrison

People need to think of it in terms of risk and ownership of that risk. For example:

• Someone falls down the tower steps because they are worn and the handrail is inadequate. The PCC has a duty of care to people coming into the building, even trespassers, to ensure that it safe. Therefore they should hold both Public Liability and Employers Liability Insurance to cover the risk to their staff and to any visitors.
  
• Someone is electrocuted by a faulty appliance or wiring - ditto
  
• The steeple-keeper injures themselves because they have not been provided with adequate training, and/or tools or PPE. Even if they are a volunteer, the Employer (the PCC) has duties to provide a safe system of work etc. under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
  

Most of the risks in a bellringing situation are therefore likely to fall on the PCC, and they normally hold £5 or £10 million cover for this. Guilds and Associations are only insuring themselves for incidents which occur at Guild/Association/District/Branch meetings and practices and training events. Even then the incident may not be their fault (e.g. the worn steps). Nor can the Guild or Association be held responsible for ringing at individual tower practices, or on Sundays as that is down to the PCC. (if they were responsible, they would need to a lot of work to assess the risks in every tower, and address them).

Some Guilds and Associations do hold Personal Accident Insurance for their members, and this applies no matter whose fault this is, but this cover is expensive and the level of cover is low. The old and young are not likely to be covered. Typically the relatives might get £10k or £20k if someone dies. However imagine that you are the breadwinner in a young family with a mortgage to pay, and you become permanently disabled, with the need adaptations to your home and for ongoing care with a live in carer. £5 to £10 million is more like the amount of money that you would need.

The advice ought to be that you should take out your own personal accident cover in the light of your personal circumstances, and not rely on a payout from the Guild or Association. Many people will have some personal accident insurance, perhaps even as part of their own household policy, or another benefit, and they will only be able to claim against one policy for the same incident. Claiming against multiple policies is fraud!

Posters, flyers and adverts are all very well, but I am not surprised at the response. In my experience you really need to get in front of people and talk to them. Before you embark on any recruitment campaign you also need think carefully about they type of people that you need, how many, and how you are going to train them.

The Association of Ringing Teachers publishes some excellent recruitment and retention advice at https://ringingteachers.org/index.php?cID=625,

There is also a link there to a recruitment toolbox containing a ten point plan developed by the CCCBR Volunteer and Leadership Workgroup. The case studies from the ART Awards are also worth looking at for useful ideas on what has worked well elsewhere.

Many ringers seem to confuse raising awareness of ringing with recruitment. Raising awareness of ringing through open days, talks to local community groups and regular posts in local social media can help in generating a steady flow of enquiries. It is also important to follow up all enquiries personally and promptly (the same day) and be ready to offer people an intensive course of handling lessons, so that they are ringing rounds in a few weeks.

Advertising a course of lessons and getting people up to speed quickly has helped us regenerate two local bands round here recently, with a retention rate of around 66% a year later. It might take more effort in the short term, but it saves an awful lot of wasted time and effort in the long term.

Mobile belfries and portable mini rings at local fetes and shows are also an excellent way of engaging with non-ringers. Event organisers will often pay for you to come along as an attraction, or your Guild or Association may be able to help with the cost https://www.mobilebelfries.org/

go for Cambridge Major. It's honestly not particularly difficult. if you can treble bob you can ring Cambridge. Go for it ! — Barbara Le Gallez

I totally disagree. I had the fortune of learning the standard eight during my student days, when I was able to ring the methods regularly each week, besides being invited to ring in quite a few quarter peal and peal attempts to help consolidate this. A half course of Cambridge Major lasts about four and half minutes, a full course lasts just over seven. It is almost impossible to learn anything if all you are going to do is ring it for a few minutes each month.

I think that the rush to Cambridge is a symptom of the current problems in the exercise. Many of the people who can ring it leant it a long time ago. To them it is easy, but they might now be one or two short to ring it. Hence the pressure on the newer ringers to learn Cambridge early on. A more sustainable approach would be to do it the hard way and develop a band that ring together regularly each week and help them work up to it by learning some simpler methods first.

The struggle appears to be that many ringers are happy to ring, enjoy ringing, will turn up for practices, outings, peals, etc but are not willing to put any time into organisation of ringing (ranging from bell maintenance to finances, calendars, publicity of events through to teaching future ringers). — Lucy Chandhial

I don't understand the desire to prop up the current associations, most of which aren't fit for purpose any longer. — John de Overa

I think that the problem is that many societies and their Districts and Branches are continuing to do what they have always done (at least in living memory). Those in charge dislike change, and this is what needs to be tackled. I can't see that paying people is a sustainable solution.

We recruited a large group of new ringers at one of my local towers 15 months ago, and the new ringers were sufficiently enthusiastic to help raise £2,000 over the space of about three months to redecorate the ringing room, upgrade the lighting and lay a new carpet. They also did all the painting. Whilst the local District helped towards the cost, the Society BRF was unwilling to contribute towards this work as it was not 'Bell Restoration'.

It may be what we have done for the past 50 years, but nowadays when we have far more bells than we have ringers to ring them, why are we spending large sums on augmentations, and on rehanging bells in church towers which may close or have just a few services a year in a decade's time? Each of the new ringers were more than willing to contribute significant sums towards the work as they could see the point. However giving money to the BRF when it already has enough funds in reserve to pay the next 10 years worth of grants appears less worthwhile.

We also had a successful District improvers outing on Friday to four towers for about 20 of our new ringers and their helpers. One of the new ringers organised it. We also have a thriving District ringing school holding several sessions each month. People have come forward to help with the organisation, and even learn more about teaching. Just under 60 ringers subscribe to our District Spond app. However, although it is a 'District' group we seem to have three distinct groups of ringers out of the 240 members of our District:

• The stalwarts who attend business meetings and striking competitions, and who seem to come for the tea and chat, not necessarily the ringing any more. The majority don't mix with the improvers, nor have they joined our Spond group, which is a worry as decisions are taken and officers are elected at business meetings.
• The enthusiastic improvers, who do not see much point in attending business meetings, but who are keen to take part in other ringing activities, and are prepared to organise them too!
• Those members who generally never ring outside their own tower. They don't participate in District activities and haven't joined the Spond group either.

In business you need to follow the market, and in ringing that is what we need to do.

so it seems fruitless to look to these funds — Stuart Palin

OK, so any money donated for a specified purpose must be used for that purpose, but the trustees of all charities also have a duty to carry out regular governance reviews. The also have a duty to periodically review the objects of their charity and keep them up to date, and not to accumulate large financial reserves. It would be improper to start from the viewpoint of seeing these as fruitless exercises.

The Charity Commission publish the annual income and expenditure figures of all charities on their website and since my time on the Ringing Foundation I have monitored the details of all ringing charities. Of the 31 BRF’s that are registered charities, the level of grant expenditure has remained relatively static at around £250k per annum since 2009. Income has also remained static at around £300k per annum, although large bequests increase this figure substantially in certain years.

These BRF’s are therefore accumulating reserves faster than they are spending them, and as a whole I estimate that they hold enough in reserve to fund the next ten years grants, without more income coming in. Given that Guilds and Associations divert a percentage or fixed amount of their subscriptions into their BRF’s, they could consider pausing this for a while and perhaps diverting this money into training and development, and other benefits for their members.

They could also consider giving larger BRF grants, although they will need to be careful not to spend these resources on projects where the bells are unlikely to be rung regularly, or the church is at risk of being closed in the longer term. Many of our belfries are dilapidated and unwelcoming, so instead of confining grants to rehanging and augmentation, consideration could be given to grants to redecorating ringing rooms and renewing lighting and electrics, and improvements to help with training such as dumb-bells and simulators. With an ageing population of steeple-keepers, and some towers without someone to look after the bells, how about subsidising periodic maintenance visits by a bell-hanger?

There is also a case to consider registering the whole Guild/Association as a charity, as 12 societies have already done, in order to facilitate greater flexibility.

Not cohesive - how so? Inward looking - how so? What issues need tackling? — Stuart Palin

For the avoidance doubt: I am not saying these things are incorrect - it is just they do not set out the challenges that need to be addressed. How can any alternative structure be assessed if we do not have a clear expression of what is needed. — Stuart Palin

The major issue in ringing that needs tackling is that we have far more bells than we have ringers to ring them. In the longer term, many of our rings of bells are also hung in churches where the frequency of services is being substantially reduced, or they are under threat of closure.

Our inward-looking structures are slow to react and are dominated by those who remember the heydays of 40+ years ago. Many societies are sitting on substantial financial resources, some are even in receipt of six figure bequests, but are still focussed on spending them on hardware. They should be looking at using them address the people issues that need to be addressed, whilst there are still enough ringers in those towers where ringing can thrive, so that they can refresh their local bands.

what is the new structure that will replace it, how will it remove those problems without creating a myriad of new ones? — Alan C

The new structures are already emerging. They need not result in a myriad of new problems as they will be flexible, responding from the bottom up, rather than the top-down Victorian approach. New local groupings will spring up, and ringers will align with others of similar interests.

The National 12 Bell Competition has successfully operated outside the Victorian structure for around five decades. The Association of Ringing Teachers has been delivering a considerable amount of teacher training for the past 15 years. It is not run on a shoestring and currently employs three part-time staff to help with workload and support its volunteers. The Whiting Society is run by a small group and focusses on ringing, rather than holding business meetings. The ASCY and SRCY are thriving and existed for centuries before the Victorians.

CRAG also resulted in the CCCBR replacing its committee structure with an executive and workgroups, where people can volunteer without first needing to be a representative member. We are also seeing new local groupings of ringers emerging, responding to needs at a local level, and challenging existing boundaries and monopolies.

Several territorial societies are also taking steps modernise. In recent weeks we have seen the Bedfordshire Association vote to restructure itself and simplify its General Committee and District structure. The Kent County Association is also considering altering its Bell Restoration Fund rules to move away from ‘advancing the Christian religion’ to ‘provide financial assistance to towers and churches’. This may sound subtle, but an increasing proportion of rings are hung in towers that are not, or are no longer churches.

Many societies still have their Victorian objectives in their rules such as “…promoting co-operation with incumbents and an appreciation and observation of the tower as part of God’s House; the recognition of the position of ringers as church workers; and the encouragement of ringing for Divine Service, the cultivation of change ringing and the preservation of the church bells in an efficient condition…” The ringing of bells and the art of change-ringing is an important cultural and heritage activity, appreciated by the wider community. It will be those societies who look at their objectives and update them that will survive in the new structure.

I'm sorry, but the the entire territorial society/CCCBR structure was set up around 125 - 150 years ago. It's not cohesive, it is inward looking, and is not suited to tackle the issues that we face in the modern world, both now and in the future. If we were setting up a structure today, we would set up something totally different.

Isn’t the problem that the Victorian reformers wanted to spread method ringing as they thought it would attract a better class of people into their belfries, and our territorial Guilds and Associations act as clubs for some of the more experienced method ringers. However, this excludes large chunk of the membership. Hence the apathy of the majority. The 1988 survey showed that around 50% of ringers had never rung a quarter peal, and today this percentage is probably even higher.

I had an interesting discussion this week with some people down South who I used to ring with around 40 years ago. They were bemoaning the fact that in their District there were several local bands that used to ring surprise, so District practices were an opportunity for ringers in these bands to meet up and ring together. However, there are now no surprise bands in the District. Some of the towers which had them are now silent, and the District practices are now the only place where any surprise ringing takes place, and even that is difficult.

If only societies could be more inclusive and focus on rebuilding things from the bottom up, then things might gradually improve. It’s not too difficult to find new younger ringers (age <60). .Just look at all the new RfK ringers and what they want. These people bring with them fresh ideas and a lot of transferable skills. Of course, they will want to do things differently. We need to welcome their ideas and engage with them, rather than just the 2% who are currently engaged. As the great Spock said “…the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”

Based on my experience with ART and Phil Gay's and my own experiences with mobile belfries, it will take decades, but there are probably 2 or 3 willing guinea pigs out of the 50 to start with, and gradually others will come on board, once they see the benefits.

The legacy of our Victorian structure is that ringing is very fragmented with around 50 territorial societies all doing their own thing in different ways. If only they were better able to work together, so much more could be achieved. I'm not suggesting imposing anything on any of them, it's more a case of developing something which is sufficiently good that one by one they may wish to join in. It may take a couple of decades, and some might never wish to join. But by working together as a team, inputting experience and ideas, the workload on any one participant would be far less.

From a project management perspective, doing the simple quick and dirty solution is not necessarily the most economic option in the long term. It's best to explore all options before proceeding.

I would have thought that any IT company would prefer to deal with one customer, rather than offer each of a particular group of customers a discount. That would save the IT company costs and hassle.

Also, you wouldn't need all of the customers to join at the outset. You could run a pilot at first with just a couple. Then the incentive for others to join would be the offer of a working system at a discount. You also get round the problem of a lot of societies needing to change their rules. Think outside the box and don't get bogged down by the Victorian mindset. Doing so will only make it more difficult to transition to a 21st century system later.

As ringers we need to appreciate that we can't continue to do things on shoestring, if we want to enjoy the benefits of bringing ringing into the 21st century. I am sure that the membership will appreciate the need and the costs, if it is put to them in the right way.

I am sure that we could pay for Membermojo or another system to be adapted, but in doing so let's not adapt it to preserve our antiquated Victorian ways of doing things, when we are bringing things into the 21st century, with all the benefits that will bring.

One suggestion that I made as a member of CRAG was to have dual membership. A fixed amount to go to the Central Council, and then another amount to go direct to the Guild/Association of your choice. I am sure that with modern technology this would be simple to do.

I have known towers where one bell swings into the louvres on one side of the tower and it shouts out above the others on that side, when you listen in sight of that side of the tower at ground level. Also, other towers where there is a badly fitting trap door or clock weight shaft adjacent one bell, which results in that bell shouting out above the others when listened to in the ringing room. Rather than a clapper problem, could it be one of these?

What on earth has either the sex or the racial background of people to do with maintaining bells? — J Martin Rushton

I can point you to a number of towers in London where the congregation is majority black Afro-Carribean, even the vicar and Churchwardents are non-white. I suspect that the same is true elsewhere outside London.

and funding slightly easier. I think any effect on recruitment would be indirect. — John de Overa

and associated physical infrastructure. — Tristan Lockheart

It would be useful to hear if there is a strategy in place by the CC to pursue this. — Peta Steadman Bee

In the 1990's I was a member of the CC's Ringing Centres Committee an we received a large grant from the Founders Livery Company to set up new ringing centres, with the objective of being a focus for the promotion of ringing and the training of new ringers. Whilst to start with this resulted in a number of new ringing centres being set up, this became increasingly difficult, and we had to work very hard to spend all the money. There was a focus on physical infrastructure, and some of the proposals were used to justify ambitious augmentation schemes, whereas there were other towers that would make ideal teaching centres with far less investment. We also learnt that successful ringing centres were about people. Once a key leader ceased ringing there, they became no different to any ordinary tower.

In the 2010's I was also involved in the CCCBR establishing the Ringing Foundation. This had the objective of levering in external finance to support ringing. We quickly realised that we could not make the case to external funders to plough in large sums of money, unless we had an effective training scheme in place. Hence, why we established what is now ART.

We also talked to a fund-raising consultant about approaching external bodies such as the Heritage Lottery Fund. Following an initial enquiry to HLF we were advised that we would need to demonstrate a successful regional pilot first, before rolling out nationally. Also, we would need to put in some of our own money first, before they would consider matching it. The problem was that the CC and RF had limited funds, whereas it was the Guilds and Associations that held large reserves. We identified over £3m held in BRF's, but any suggestion to increase CCCBR affiliation fees, or for Guilds and Associations to change the amount allocated to their BRF, and allocate a proportion of their subs towards PR, recruitment and training projects, was highly controversial.

The RF did lever in significant donations from private individuals, and was able to allocate some grants. You can support a lot of very worthwhile PR, recruitment and training projects with the amount spent on just one typical restoration or augmentation project, but the other problem was that the ringing community generally is not yet in right mindset to do this on the scale that is needed, especially now.

It was very interesting that the Essex Association received two very large bequests totalling £373,000 in 2021, and many good ideas were put forward by its members, but I am not sure what progress there has been since https://eacr.org.uk/about/bequests.html