Ringing Forums

There is what I call the 'service' group who are happy to do their stuff at their local tower with no particular need to progress, and then there are those who are interested in developing their ringing and will read and travel in order to do it. The latter might join a direct membership organisation that served to develop change ringing, and pay for it, while the former group probably wouldn't see the point. — Simon Linford

Obviously I can only speak from my experience, but that's the way it seems to me. I'm the only one of my cohort who has got beyond PB, and that's involved travelling to other towers to do so. The others mostly only ring at 1 or 2 towers, where there is existing "overlap" in people who ring at them. I'd be interested in a direct membership organisation if it helped in the way you suggest, many of the others aren't even members of the local Association, let alone interested joining anything else, so I think you are right there as well.

I do think that the "backbone of the average band" group tend to be older in general, the young and keen often move on, either to Uni and/or to towers where they can develop their skills. But I know some younger ringers (under 21) who are in the "backbone" category as well. It's easy to assume that most young ringers are good ringers whereas I think it's truer to say that there's some heavy selection going on as they have so many other calls on their time. It's the dedicated, and almost by definition, good ones who stick around. Older ringers value the other benefits associated with ringing more, and that helps retention .

I am 71. When I die, I take with me all my knowledge and experience. My learners will never achieve the experience I have because they all started at a "mature" age, and that also means that I can't necessarily pass on my knowledge either. We are an active tower but with a CC and PB5 repertoire. — Phillip George

Whilst "mature" people are never going to be able to reclaim the years when they weren't ringing, I don't think that passing knowledge on to them is a lost cause, anything can be passed on is always going to be of great value. Neither do I think that older starters are condemned to get no further than CC/PH/PB5.

There is rightly a lot of focus on youth recruitment, by definition they are the future. But we have to face up to the fact that even if it's successful, that's going to take time to come to fruit, and there's going to be a need for "nurseries" of existing ringers to support their growth; training method ringers is hard, training them without existing bands around them is I suspect almost impossible.

Turning to wrinklies and thinking about my own experience - I started 7 years ago in my mid-50s, although the last 2 years have been a bit of a hiatus... I think you can divide us into roughly two groups - the first being "backbone of the band" ringers who turn up every week and who are content with CCs/PH/PB5. They are probably the largest and most important group in terms of keeping towers alive and bells ringing.

The second are the "I wish I'd started this 30/40 years ago" ringers who get gripped by it just as hard as the current top level of ringers did. I'd put myself in the second category and what I lack in innate ability I can compensate, at least in part, with the time I have available to put into learning and sheer bloody minded persistence. It's often been difficult and demoralising, but I am starting to ring my first Surprise Minor methods, which I believe means I'm finally dipping my toes in the Red Zone. I think the NW ringing course shows I'm not alone, what's difficult is finding the help and opportunities to progress, not our willingness to do so.

There needs to be a paradigm shift amongst ringers at grass roots level! — Phillip George

I think that's right, by identifying people who are gripped by ringing and show potential, by providing accelerated and frequent tuition to those who have a burning desire to progress, irrespective of age. Such "streaming" is commonplace everywhere else, I don't understand why it seems to be so difficult for ringing to embrace it. Indeed it's part of the CCCBR's Strategic Priority 2:

More places could be encouraged or given the tools to establish ringing ‘schools’ that provide regular (weekly if possible) training and longer courses, particularly targeted at the Blue Zone / Red Zone border where we try and get ringers beyond Bob Doubles and Grandsire.

So I think the principle is already accepted.

But I don't think we have until 2030 to do it.

It' not just the extension over 2 days, it's also that "Day 0" changed in the CofE parish guidance document as well as well.

the ringing community clinging to its Victorian structures — John Harrison

This, in spades, is the problem. When I started ringing I was genuinely astonished when I heard about all the geographical "associations" and "guilds". Currently ringing has the hierarchical overhead that resulted from Victorian reforms but with neither the numbers nor the vigour of that period, and the CCCBR has the resulting sorry mess hung round its neck.

Many years ago I worked for what had been one of the behemoths of an industry, but was in its dying days. One wag compared working there to visiting a grand old hotel that had fallen on hard times - "The signs of past glories are all around, but the carpet is frayed, most of the lightbulbs are missing and the lifts don't work". Much as I love ringing as an activity, the current organisational structures feel very much like that.

the course is a very welcome step forward, but there's still the problem of keeping the momentum going afterwards, which needs regular opportunities to build on what you learned on a course. Like you I've been lucky to have been taken under a good tower's "wing" but I think I'm probably in a minority.

Yes that would be a good idea, John. Although I think the CC might say "we are here to organise; we can't be the do-ers as well". — Barbara Le Gallez

That's fair comment, but I think publicity and organisation is probably what's needed most to get the ball rolling. I suspect that the areas that are struggling the most are the "boundary badlands" where several association boundaries meet - the historic diocesan boundaries often make little sense in the face of modern urbanisation and transport infrastructure. Several towers in this area are in multiple associations, which I think shows the issue, and many keen ringers round here ring regularly in more than one association. The CCCBR is in the unique position to work across association boundaries, and I think that's what's needed, certainly round here.

Perhaps a sort of "dating website" for ringing might help - "Middle aged overweight balding ringer looking for like minded soulmates with GSH, for weekly fun and Surprise Minor"? The problem for many of us "late starters" is it's difficult to hook in to the small informal groupings who have been ringing together for decades, so unless you try very hard (and get lucky) a lot of people get so far along and then stall. Us late starters may never reach the giddy heights but I think we can perform an important role as a seed bed for the next generation.

So I would say, Central Council, keep up your great work, but you need to do something that makes you visible (or maybe audible?) to every single ringer in the country! — Barbara Le Gallez

I think helping with training in areas where method ringing is struggling or has died out would be a one way. If the associations in those areas were capable of sustaining ringing then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place, so it's somewhere where the CCCBR could make a big impact.

I haven't read through all of the Belfry Upkeep one yet but it looked good from a quick glance - I'll feed back anything after I've read all of it. The other two sound interesting as well, I project managed our rehang in 2018, I'll be interested to see if it contains warnings about all the mistakes we made ;-)

As @A J Barnfield said the numbers you'll find are all just estimates, how long a peal takes depends on the number and size of the bells, the state of the installation and probably the air temperature and age of the ringers as well!

You can get an idea of the current peal speeds from this link to BellBoard, in the last column. If you want to play with the numbers you can export them as CSV via the link at the bottom of the page.

For historical records, you could dig around in Felstead, but I don't seem to be able to find any times on there, although they are commonly recorded on old peal boards in towers.

There is a good explanation here, including a table of how long it would take to ring all the permutations of different numbers of bells.

The Mathematics of Bell Ringing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44jXUo6KaVs

as I said, "from afar" ;-) From the outside the CCCBR can look like one fairly amorphous blob, the distinction between "Central Council", committees and the CCCBR isn't really interesting. It's measured by those not intimately involved by what it does, not how it organises itself - frankly, people don't care as long as it is visibly doing things - something which I think post-CRAG has significantly improved. The Dove's website & database revamp, the new belfry upkeep site, the Devon CC eBook, the mobile belfry, "Calling It Round" are I think all good examples of things that have visibly changed - and I know there are other new things as well, those are just the ones that immediately sprang to mind.

As a "rank and file" ringer observing from afar, before the CRAG changes my impression was the Council was a pointless talking shop, whereas now stuff seems to be happening, albeit still slowly in some cases.

If "democratic" means "everyone has to vote on everything before anything gets done" then yes, it's less "democratic", and a jolly good thing too. I don't see it as any less accountable though, in fact I suspect if anything in practice it's more as the changes have meant more people are taking an interest and scrutinising what's happening.

thank you for the advice, however it's significantly easier to find good 6 bell ringing round here than it is 8 - and it's hard enough to find 6. The minor band who have taken me under their wing are capable major ringers and if there are ever 8 at a practice they'll ring on 8. I've still got plenty to go at ringing minor, and I'd rather aim at being a decent minor ringer than a bad major one!

the battery life was awful and almost certainly wouldn't have lasted the length of a peal with video running.

Here in Darkest Northern Derbyshire we are still waiting for the herald to make his way over Doctor's Gate, the packhorse trail over Snake Pass, bringing news from as afar as Sheffield. We've had strange portents of light in the sky over the last few nights, so we knew matters of great import were afoot.

But that might just have been the planes on approach to Manchester airport...

A comment on the CCCBR page on Facebook, posted just after midnight last night (Friday 9th):

Cameron Watt
Hello all - I'm the author of the national CofE parish church guidance and can be contacted at camerondotwattatchurchofenglanddotorg - happy to be contacted for clarification on anything in our document. With the cascade of proclamations for the new monarch beginning Saturday morning with the Principal Proclamation from the balcony at St. James's Palace at 11am. There will then be a further proclamation in the City of London at noon, and then further proclamations in the other national capitals the following day (Sunday) at noon. There will then be proclamations at county and unitary authority levels from 2pm on Sunday, and at town/parish level from 4pm. The hope is that there will be muffled (or half-muffled) ringing before the local proclamation, then unmuffled ringing following the local proclamations, then muffled ringing until after the funeral. Her Majesty enjoyed church bell ringing, and the way that it unites communities. Thank you all for all that you do, and especially at this time - when you are helping to unite our nation in both commemorating the late Queen, and celebrating the accession of the King.

"unmuffled ringing following the local proclamations" and "proclamations at county and unitary authority levels from 2pm on Sunday, and at town/parish level from 4pm" seems very clear to me, and conflicts with the CCCBR advice in the same FB post:

Following further discussion and interpretation of the CofE guidance, we suggest the following for open ringing following the proclamation of the new Monarch expected on Saturday. Open ringing from 11am (BST) on Saturday (D+1) following the proclamation announcement until the flags are lowered again at 1pm (BST) on Sunday.

Having already rescheduled once, to move the proclamation ringing today, it's simply too late to move it again. There's already a confused mix of ringing open/closed today/tomorrow across the country.

Plus if we are to ring open today and keep so until flags are lowered at 1pm on Sunday, we'll be ringing open for Sunday Service at 10am - which seems somewhat strange as it's a service that will commemorate the queen.

@Simon Linford this absolutely isn't your fault or the CCCBR's, but can you please express the confusion annoyance of the ringing community to the CofE on our behalf? There's simply no excuse for this shambles, they've had literally decades to figure all this out in advance, including different times of day of the announcement of The Queen's death, the day of the week it happened on and the fact she might be at Balmoral.

I think the other thing that would be helpful is guidance on whether wedding ringing & practices should continue, albeit muffled and ringing something within each band's ability. My own feeling is that that the public will want to hear as much ringing as possible, not less.

I notice that the document on the CCCBR website has now been updated and is the same as the one on the CofE site. However I've just had an email from our association chair, he's been told by the diocese that we are to ring on Saturday. I've pointed out the inconsistency between that and the latest Lambeth House guidance... So yes indeed, "Some checking to be done"!

Note, it appears they've moved the accession ringing back a day, to Sunday. The CCCBR and CofE documents don't agree any longer, I assume the CCCBR copy will be updated at some point. The CofE one is here:

https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/Guidance%20for%20parish%20churches%20on%20the%20death%20of%20HM%20the%20Queen%20-%208th%20September%202022.pdf

4pm seems to be the earliest for open ringing, and just for the accession. They should be muffled again afterwards, until the funeral.

https://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Guidance-for-parish-churches-on-the-death-of-HM-the-Queen-8th-September-2022.pdf