Ringing Forums

I know I shouldn't worry about silly individuals like this but makes me feel really undervalued as a ringer and I was wondering if anyone else has had similar problems? — Oliver Lee

Unfortunately, yes. And it's even worse if you are an adult starter. Whilst the majority of ringers are fantastic, there are a small number who aren't, and it's they who stick out - and in your memory! I generally try to just ignore them but if it gets bad enough I just stop ringing with them, I know one tower who lost three of us in rapid succession because of one individual's attitude. As yours sounds like a one-off encounter, I'd just ignore it and move on with your ringing - good luck in your quest to ring on higher numbers :smile:

Thanks for the details, and that's a very impressive diary page!

Our branch runs elementary, intermediate and advanced practices each month — John Harrison

What sort of level are each of those?

as well as a weekday afternoon and Saturday practice for all levels — John Harrison

So how many opportunities are you providing each month? It sounds like at least five?

Branches around me seem to think one monthly practice is enough, and quite often they are more like outings than teaching practices. I'm sure that's fine once you reach a certain level, but for people trying to progress, once a month is nothing like often enough.

I do suspect he might have learned “who to follow” but always goes on about places counting. — Martyn Bristow

Yeah, I've seen that as well - they rattle on about places but will only ring plain courses and on one bell :wink:

It sounds like your towers are going well, but because of certain proactive individuals. We need more of them. — Martyn Bristow

I'm sure there are more out there, I think finding and supporting them will be the trick. How best to do that is a difficult question...

But there needs to be focussed practices for all levels — Martyn Bristow

I think there also needs to be overlap between practices. You don't need to be a Surprise Major ringer before you can start to support those on the lower rungs of the ladder. It's not realistic or fair to expect people at the upper levels to provide support all the way down (although of course it's great if they do), and there aren't the numbers needed to do that anyway.

And there are benefits to everyone involved - our ringers who are further on have learned the skills needed to "ring around" wobbly learners, and will stand behind them if asked. That's not just benefited the learners, the more advanced folks have commented on how much it's helped them as well. A rising tide lifts all boats, and all that.

How does he think that's ever going to work? Sounds like he can only ring by bell numbers himself?

Our progress has been internally led and there have been a number of things that have helped: getting the bells rehung, a smooth handover between the retiring and new TC, an excellent new TC, a "returning ringer" who retired back to the area and most recently our new vicar, who is a Surprise Major ringer and came to our practices before he was even in post! And probably most importantly, a band who have a realistic understanding of where they are at and the challenges ahead, but who want to have a go, who are very supportive of each other and who's attitude is "We are all in this together". There's still a long way to go, but people seem to be enjoying the journey.

I think it's much more difficult in your scenario, "it gets a bit delicate" sounds like a huge understatement :grin: I wonder if the way forwards is a parallel path for those who want to "get on" and can't do so in their home towers, with separate reasonably local and fairly frequent practices? I learned to ring mostly outside of my home tower and I've seen that approach work well in one guild I ring in, but the culture there is that people ring in more than one tower from the start, so nobody bats an eyelid. I think it's much trickier to extricate people from "stuck in a rut" towers without causing all sort of ructions.

I think the lack of a “career path” a stumbling block to a lot of people. ART have their levels and other schemes have other milestones. But it’s down to the teacher currently to use a teaching framework. — Martyn Bristow

ART is great for getting people to handle a bell. There are a series of clear steps, with a purpose and success criteria for each. With training & practice it's easy for teachers to spot issues and give feedback, because it's a visible, physical task. However when it comes to "Learning Methods", teaching gets much more difficult. Not only does bell control have to improve markedly, much of the new skillset that's required is internal - ropesight, counting places etc - and that's far harder to teach and observe.

The usual approach is "Now learn Plain Bob" but Plain Bob is a poor choice of teaching method; although it seems trivial to ring to experienced ringers, it needs multiple new skills to ring properly. We need to be teaching the new skills individually and specifically first. Want to give people practice at coming on and off the lead accurately? Treble to Bastow. Want to help with ropesight & place counting? Single Court Minimus. Want to give them dodging and place making practice? Double Oxford front work. The exact tools used don't matter, what's important is breaking the process down into smaller steps and providing lots of repetitions in a short space of time, just like we do with bell handling. @Phil Ramsbottom has already said this in detail and more eloquently that I can.

There also needs to be theory training, away from a rope. Not "How to learn method X", but "How to learn methods". I ran a course for our tower earlier this year, the aim was to demystify the terminology, explain why ringing by place is needed rather than by bell number and to give people a "theory toolkit" they could dip back into as they progressed. For one ringer the lightbulb was that methods share a lot of common "phrases" and that once you've learned them, you can reuse them. There's a lot that's taken as read by experienced method ringers that isn't immediately obvious to people starting out method ringing.

In my tower, people don’t see progress because the whole band has issues, some lack commitment but ultimately they’re is nothing to look up to. We need role models for ringing — Martyn Bristow

The game changer for our band was asking people to learn Single Court Minimus before practice, and then successfully getting through it after about half an hour of trying. Yes it's not hard but it was the first thing other than PH the band had rung, and it was done without outside help. The confidence boost that gave people was huge, because it showed that method ringing was something we could actually aspire to. After that people started turning up with blue lines printed out, they wanted homework and so on. I think the benefits of giving people a sense of achievement and ongoing progress are difficult to underestimate. In our case we didn't really have any choice as we don't have a method band so there was no possibility of slotting people individually into a solid band.

The issue of role models is an interesting one. We've had a number of external training events at our tower, with ringers at the Surprise level, Although we've invited band members to attend, it hasn't been a huge success. The two adjectives I heard the most were "daunting" and "patronising", and nobody is going to do their best under those circumstances, even if their feelings are unfounded. On the other hand, we recently had a family of three visiting ringers turn up unannounced on a Sunday which meant we could ring CCs on 8, and with their support the band rang their socks off in terms of striking - we found out afterwards that one of the ringers was a 1000+ pealer. The main difference between the two occasions was expectations, not the visitors, so the dynamics of "outside help" can be a tricky thing to get right.

The aim was never to have done the recruitment done by 203 — Martyn Bristow

Sorry, no, the R2030 document says exactly that:

• 10000 more active ringers by 2030 (new and returning)
• Half of them under the age of 30
• 30000 people under the age of 20 have heard about or had a go at ringing
• Retention rate of at least 50% of new recruits
• Double the number of teachers and trainers of ringing

Ringing is led by volunteers, and there’s been a struggle to get contributions to the tasks. — Martyn Bristow

How is that surprising when it offers nothing at all for the people who are most likely to have the time and inclination to help? Worse than that, ringing culture in general tells them that they are not of any interest, have little to offer and won't ever amount to anything.

Personally, I do what I can .. but I have a full time job and a tower to teach — Martyn Bristow

Same here - I'm still working full time and have taught half the people in our tower how to ring, even though I'm a "Will never amount to anything" ringer myself. I didn't do it because I thought I was well qualified, I did it because there was literally nobody else, and the tower was dying.

I admire your determination, but personally I've had any temptation to involvement repeatedly beaten out of me. Good luck!

And what do you expect to be left behind if/when they have all gone? — John Harrison

If it is to reverse decades of decline it will have to start growing again from the roots, not the top. Will it be able to do so? I don't know but I'm doubtful, particularly as many of the facilities we depend on are at risk as well.

In our tower the ‘top end’ ringers that you want to depart range in age from under 18 to over 80 so it will be a long wait. — John Harrison

If your tower was representative of the majority of towers, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place. Ringing, in particular elite ringing, is dominated by network effects, and in many places, that network has already gone. And in others, its unsustainable.

There is also a dependence on local support for both teaching, handling and providing support for more advanced ringing. If this local support also falls away, then again, the vitality of the societies is affected. — Tristan Lockheart

Yes, you are completely right. The video I posted a link to earlier about British Cycling's experience of how deliberately focusing on the grass roots is a clear demonstration of how interest and activity at the lower levels of an activity is a prerequisite for a vibrant elite level, but ringing somehow believes it is different. It isn't.

With the current structure and dynamics of ringing, it is not sensible to expect any decline within one area or part of ringing to be contained and not spread to other parts of ringing. — Tristan Lockheart

Agreed, it's an idiotic belief. But apparently widespread.

Ringing 2030 is solely about growing grass routes ringing in a sustainable way. But also keeping the grass routes growing, as people have joined and faded due to poor opportunity. — Martyn Bristow

R2030 has been going for 3 years now, nearly halfway to its target date and it's had no impact whatsoever on the ringing in my area, in fact most ringers here have never heard of it.

R2030 is a misdirected flight of fantasy. The emphasis is entirely on young (i.e. under 30) ringers, "young" appears 7 times in the "business plan", "adult", not at all, despite the fact that most people currently turning up at towers wanting to learn aren't in the only demographic R2030 considers worth attention.

As for the fantasy target of 10,000 new ringers with 50% retention, according to Dove there are "1,602 full-circle rings which are in the British Isles, have 6 bells, are ringable, and have a practice". So in the next 4 years every one of those towers is going have to recruit, train and retain at least 12 new ringers, assuming every single tower is capable and willing to do so. It's utter nonsense.

The work I’m doing is all about getting new people onto towers, getting a better balance and with better awareness. If there’s any other ideas to fixing the grass routes please suggest and get involved — Martyn Bristow

I admire your tenacity and wish you the best of luck, but I believe that with the current strategy and glacial rate of progress, you are doomed to fail. As for involvement, why would I participate in something that isn't interested in addressing the challenges faced by ringers such as me? I have "engaged" in the past, I was briefly a non-voting member of the ART board, brief because it quickly became obvious that what was required was a compliant gopher, not someone to represent the silent, struggling ringing majority.

One of the biggest problems that ringing faces is that it's already fractured into two halves, with the top half thinking that they know how to fix things based on attempting to wind the clock back to how ringing was when they were learning, almost universally when they were young. That world no longer exists and can't be regained. As I've said, my belief is that until those people are gone, ringing will continue on its death spiral.

Ringing 2030 addresses that partially, but that relies on its leaders driving it on — Martyn Bristow

Ringing 2030 is irrelevant, it's a top-down effort where the same people that have been talking amongst themselves for decades about elite ringing are doing the same yet again. It will not fix ringing's grass roots problems.

I keep meaning to look into the data of peals and quarters but i never get time — Martyn Bristow

That's also irrelevant, it's solely a measure of elite ringing, and I suspect mostly of how many elite ringers are now retired and have more time to ring peals. It's also a very lagging indicator of the state of ringing.

If you persist in measuring the wrong thing and then basing your decisions on that it's inevitable that your decisions will be wrong.

we hold a tower Open Day and allow visitors to see the bells, clock and to take photos over the roof tops of the town from the tower roof. — Peter Sotheran

We have a similar situation with regards to access, and we do pretty much the same as you describe, usually a couple of times a year. We also do evenings for the Brownies & Scouts. The highlight for everyone who comes, regardless of age, is chiming a bell. We don't really regard it as a recruitment event, mostly it's for community engagement, although we have had new ringers as a result.

We need to get a strategy to improve peal ringing — Martyn Bristow

It's not just the decline in peal ringing we should be concerned about. There has been a general decline in the frequency of meetings and the interchange of ringers between neighbouring towers. — Peter Sotheran

You are absolutely right.

If the FA said its strategy for Football's survival was to depend on the offspring of Premier League players, the reaction would be incredulity and derision, yet apparently that's the strategy that the ringing illuminati think will work. Survival depends on grass roots ringing but, as has already been said, the gap between basic ringing and method ringing is already unsurmountable for many keen ringers. And that's irrespective of age - we have a 12 year old in our tower who shows promise, but there's nowhere he can realistically go for progress beyond the basics that we can offer him.

Every time this comes up I'm reminded of Ruth Eyles's Keeping People Ringing presentation at the ART conference 11 years ago. You can perhaps quibble with some of the details, but the principle of concentrating on growing the grass roots and then the elite levels will follow seems incontrovertible, yet it's fallen on deaf ears in the ringing community.

My conclusion is that we'll have to wait until the current upper echelons of ringing are gone and ringing has gone through a near-death experience before there's a realistic chance things can be turned around. But I don't expect I'll still be ringing when that point arrives. The problems have been known about and discussed ad nauseam for literally decades yet things have only continued to get worse. The incontrovertible inability of those running ringing to address the issues shows the continuing lack of realism, despite the starkness of the situation.

What percentage of these ringers would achieve anything beyond Plain Bob and Grandsire (basic change-ringing)? I don't think it would be any greater than it is now, partly because few ringers actually want to move on. Bell ringing is usually not the only thing they do, it isn't easy, and change-ringing is even more difficult! — Phillip George

You are absolutely right, you only have to look at the original "Room at the Top" series, published over 20 years ago, to realise that the learning curve has always been steep and the drop-off rate huge. But support for those who have the potential and the desire to progress is often non-existent. There's no point worrying about recruitment for method ringing if there's no path for the majority of people beyond PH/PB.

I've told our ringers that they've got to work harder in their ringing, visit other towers, go to meetings, get experience, talk about ringing to others and help get recruits. However enthusiastic I am counts for nothing if others don't step up to the mark. — Phillip George

Again you are right, but I think that's a cultural issue. It's a big step for many adult learners to put themselves back into "learner" mode just in one tower, expecting them to do that in multiple towers is an even bigger ask. But it can be done, one guild I ring in has a "cluster" approach and it's the norm for people to ring in more than one tower from the start, because the existing ringers are mobile so there's nothing unremarkable in doing so.

the majority have ringing parents - about 80%. Having ringing parents is a huge advantage. — Simon Linford

Interesting, I guess that's not a new phenomenon in terms of those who make up elite ringing? But it's also going to be affected by ringing's demographic issues, albeit with a one generation delay.

The use of simulators for extending the ringing repertoire is not perfect, nothing is quite the same as ringing with ‘real’ ringers

No, it certainly isn't, but if it's the only option you have... However with good access to one and an understanding of how best to use it you can make much quicker progress. For example after being more or less told by one ASCY grump that I'd never be able to ring on 8, two weeks later I rang my first Major (Cambridge) at a branch practice - well, I did have a point to prove, and a tower key...

If we tried cast of 1000 with a full day of ringing every second month and ‘homework’ to be done with simulator / Abel / pen and paper in between it could be more productive than relying on regular practice sessions.

I've love if there was something like that available, and happily travel quite a distance to attend. But I don't think every 2 months is often enough. I go to Whiting Society full day events, but they don't frequently enough to be really useful - for example I learned Bristol on the simulator and rang it successfully at a practice earlier this year, but that's the only chance I've had. And If there's no opportunity to ring the stuff locally, I do wonder how much point there is? I'm hacking away at Cambridge/Yorkshire/Superlative/Bristol on the sim for my own amusement, but there's little chance of me ringing them for real, and as you correctly say, transferring from a sim to real ringers does need additional practice.

The part about accepting people who won’t go further and how to manage that is definitely a tough one

Sure is, but it's not a new problem. It's always going to be a balancing act, but I think both new and established ringers are aware of the challenges and providing there is balance, are prepared to adapt.

some of those ringers find they can’t progress any further at their tower and don’t feel supported by the Branch or District to keep them progressing and another proposed reason, which could also be true for some, is that bands become overwhelmed by learners who all need to practice endless plain hunt (for example) and some of the more experienced ringers lose interest or the tower stops recruiting while getting this batch of learners to a standard.

I've seen exactly that happen. I also know one tower that took on (I think) 15 for RFTK, 6 months later they had just 1 left. Our strategy has been to take on only a couple of learners at a time, but to get them fully integrated into the band as quickly as possible and to push them forward as quickly as they are comfortable with, then repeat the process, even if that means asking people to wait. For example, we've "adopted" a ringer from elsewhere who is mad keen but wasn't getting the help she needed at her closest tower. She's been ringing for 3 months, is starting Plain Hunt and is coming on our tower outing in a few weeks (and no, she isn't a "youth"). It's a strategy that so far seems to be working well for us.

This does suggest that methods which allow for more solo learning and practice, mixed with very targeted opportunities with the investment of support from experienced ringers, will become more and more important

Absolutely agree. Not only do I practice on the simulator a couple of hours a week, I also run weekly sessions for two of our ringers who are on the cusp of method ringing. The results have been overwhelmingly positive, not just for them personally but also for the whole band, as they now have the skills and just as important the confidence needed to provide a solid band around our earlier stage ringers.

I agree with your analysis of the current situation. However I do have quibbles with some of your conclusions.

If we get 10,000 new ringers into the Blue Zone, particularly if they don't learn at university or younger, the reality is that they will not enter the Red Zone - they won't get over that hurdle of ringing methods that aren't Plain Bob and Grandsire

If all they get taught is PB & GS then it's not exactly surprising if that's all they achieve. I ring at one small and mostly unknown guild's very well attended monthly 6-bell practice and although there is some PB & GS, the majority is TB & Surprise, and there's a "Method of the month". It's all ringers "of a certain age", all keen to progress who are being supported in doing so. Are they ever going to get to the heady heights of BMax? Unlikely, but that shouldn't mean they are sidelined - these people are the seed bed for the upper reaches.

We acknowledge that we can create competent Bob Minor ringers, but continuing a training programme beyond that is hard.

Yes, it is but I don't think that justifies not trying. My historically-call-changes-only home tower is unlikely to churn out PB ringers, mostly because that's not what we are asking people to learn. They are more likely to ring something like Double Oxford first. None of them can do so yet, but they all successfully rang the frontwork within 10 mins of first trying, and without looking at the blue line. That was a deliberate decision - the point of it was to show them that DblOx was a realistic thing to aim for, and we are now working on the other skills they need, for example simulator sessions to sharpen up bell control and ringing by place, which they are tackling with enthusiasm. Will that be successful? I don't know, but I think a new approach is badly needed, even if it isn't ours.

Endless clanking away at PB is an exercise in demotivation, like much of ringing teaching it's no longer not for purpose. I'd love to see is a thought-through and detailed pathway from PH to Surprise, having been through the ART process myself, it's "Now go learn methods" at L4/5 just doesn't cut it. The 95% drop-off rate between L1 & 5 is no surprise to me, I gave up on ART after L4. Getting people to L3/4 is a big investment, not fully capitalising on it is a waste of resources that I don’t think ringing can afford.

There will be a fast track through for people who learn young, and a small number of cities plus the SRCY and ASCY will support them.

I understand why something like ARA is attractive for people who have been grinding away at the problem for years with little support let alone thanks and I don't disagree with fast tracking talent, but I don't know of any similar activity to ringing that's survived by concentrating only on the elite. My conviction is that a plan that's based purely on elite ringing is doomed to fail.

There's also tremendous selection bias going on here - the ringers who are picked up by programmes such as ARA have already been subject to a heavy pruning process. ARA isn't dealing with all the youngsters who turn up and don't make it that far, and they are the majority. And without a viable community at the lower levels, who is going to give the young talent the basic training and a regular band to ring with that they need? If there's no pipeline, there's going to be no pool for ARA to draw from.

Is there anything we can do about that?

Yes, lots that can be done. But that's going to need people at the top engaging and listening to people at the bottom, and I'm afraid that's not one of the ringing community's strengths. To be direct, there's far too much "We didn't learn that way" and "We know best". Well, clearly not, because if that was the case, ringing wouldn't be in crisis. Personally I have little appetite left for engagement, other that grumping on this rather moribund forum, I've been "put in my place" far too often to want to bother any more. I'll continue to work on my own ringing and helping my own band because I think I can make a difference there. But ringing in general? Hah!

Does it matter if there isn't?

Yes, immensely. Because without it, ringing is dead.

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. — Roger Booth

I agree. But much of the information that comes out from the CC either never gets to the grass roots or seems to be aimed at elite ringing and is therefore irrelevant to them. PR is pointless unless it targets the right audience and is backed up by resources, which I believe should be potential recruits / early stage ringers.

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. — Roger Booth

Exactly. Surprise ringers can ring intermediate methods, the problem is that many of them only want to ring with other Surprise ringers and that's in a rapidly shrinking pool, as you pointed out. Of course people are free to ring with whoever they wish but the results are entirely predictable - I do get a little irked hearing some Surprise ringers bitching about how there are few opportunities to ring at that level nowadays when they've sat on their hands for the last couple of decades and watch it happen.

Not only does the current situation make it difficult / impossible for those who are bloody-minded enough enough to want to keep progressing, it's an insurmountable barrier for those who are capable of making the transition but don't feel motivated enough to put up the necessary fight, which reduces the pool of potential "improvers" even further.

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. — Roger Booth

That's only going to happen if they feel valued and enfranchised. The view from the trench I'm sat in is that the CCCBR is run for elite ringing, by elite ringers. And many associations are effectively moribund, so salvation is not going to come from that quarter either.

I though the Cast of 1000 idea was a good one, but it didn't appear to make the transition from virtual to real practices and seems to have died a death? The other issue was that it assumed the problem was at the Surprise Major level whereas it's now at least as prevalent at the PB/PH level. My own tower has exactly that challenge at the moment, we are struggling to move on from simple Minimus methods to Minor but we don't have enough people at the right level to do so. We are working on it but there are many other towers in the same situation.

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! — Roger Booth

Yes, they will, and there's a short window in which to engage them. And if they can't keep making progress, they'll quickly get fed up and put their energies elsewhere anyway.

There are also issues in following up enquiries as so many towers these days so not have active bands. — Roger Booth

Or if they do, the opportunities for progress top out at PH / PB5. That's my concern about the current CCCBR strategy - it seems to be very front-weighted, with far less attention being paid to the much harder problem, making sure the people we attract get good quality training and a satisfying experience. If we can't retain people and get the very best out of them, what's the point?