Ringing Forums

Ringing Bristol Major would put you somewhere in the top 10-20% of ringers. Its not unreasonable to expect to have to travel to participate in an activity at that level. — Jonathan Frye

Absolutely, but there are limits. For example for someone who is working, travelling 2 hours to a practice on a weekday evening isn't practical. And it's not just a question of travelling time, I made a 3 hour round trip on a recent weekend to ring my first wobbly touches of Bristol, but I likely won't have another opportunity for months. What's also needed is regular (preferably weekly) opportunities.

You need 6 or 7 strong ringers to support up to 4 learners for a good session of surprise major and that’s either expensive or asking a lot from strong ringers (especially if that includes over an hour of travel each way). — Lucy Chandhial

I think that's the crux of it, there are two factors at play - Major needs more experienced ringers to support learners, and there are fewer of them around anyway.

The Cast of 1000 aim showed that with all the best intentions it was not possible to organise on a volunteer basis so people joined online sessions but these never transferred to tower bell ringing. — Lucy Chandhial

I've heard about the Cof1K effort but not much about how it played out. Do you know if anyone has done a "lessons learned" of any kind?

anybody I would be likely to ring QPs with already knows me and my QP record and would be doing so despite it not because of it. Plus there'd be dry runs before anyway. And in any case I'm not going to worry about something with a low probability of happening.

The challenge of these conversations is that a lot of the responses are based on a world view of ringing which in areas like mine has long disappeared.

when we were doing our tower rehang project I set up a shared Facebook account for the tower, which FB deleted because it was named after the tower, so I created another one, named after the vicar in 1321. I was the only person who ever used it so kept it going.

The last QP I rang inside to was PBM, 3 years ago - my home tower aren't a method band so there's not much opportunity for QPs, so I guess the answer to your question is "Yes" and "Yes". I've occasionally rung QP lengths on the sim, but I prefer to spend the time working on new stuff.

seemingly the admins are contactable at adminatringingforumsdotorg.

Improvements will not be achieved by dictate from the Central Council. — Paul Wotton

If associations are already moribund I suspect there's little chance of Ringing 2030 having much effect - the areas that need it most are the least likely to benefit. I think that if the CC wants to have an impact it needs to change from being a passive organisation to an active one. I think the discussions around direct membership show that there's an increasing realisation that's the case, and from the outside at least, it seems like the Young Ringers initiative is already taking that approach? So there is hope.

Approach the tower captains of the more advanced local practices — Paul Wotton

There aren't any within reach in my Association and I already detailed the issues with those in adjacent Associations.

Work with any enthusiastic local ringers to explore pathways that may initially be far from the more complex surprise major methods — Paul Wotton

I'm already doing that with my home tower for example I'm running a "How to learn methods" session next month, but the current hurdle is helping people ring methods at all - I think my ringing career will have finished before the tower ever gets to Surprise Major, if it ever does. It comes back round to my original quote from Ringing 2030:

2. That no ringer should hit a barrier to their own progression
If a ringer wants to progress, they should always be able to find a pathway that helps them, although it will probably not just be at their own tower.

A laudable aim, I just don't see how it is going to be delivered with the current plan and at the current rate of progress.

If you are starting to look at Bristol, then you are already a lot more advanced than the vast majority of ringers, and that is fantastic. — Jason Carter

You haven't heard me attempting to ring it :sweat: I'm fortunate that I have access to a tower sim that's 5 minutes walk away, and even then it's taken a lot of determination, and ringing on a sim doesn't automatically transfer to ringing for real.

If you are in Derby, I find that hard to believe. There is nowhere in Nottingham or Leicester? — Jason Carter

I'm in Derby Association, not Derby city. Nottingham is 1h30m away, Leicester is 2h.

experienced ringers like you need to 1. find their own high level ringing, and 2. help to pull up those below you, to be more experience than they currently are. We all need to take responsibility for helping those less experienced
than we are. Someone taught us once. — Jason Carter

I wouldn't describe myself as "experienced", more like "stubborn". I spend much of my time helping those coming along behind me - I've taught handling to half of the people now ringing at my home tower, for example.

Ringing 2030 is not going to solve everything overnight, but it is a movement that is trying to move in the right direction. Don't give up on it John and please try and support it. — Jason Carter

I'd love to support it in whatever small way I can. I just can't see much sign of it in my area.

if you have done no surprise, you can't really rock up to a local surprise minor practice and ask to join in - there's just too much to learn — David Smith

I think too much fuss is made about Surprise, I found it was a bigger jump from Plain to TB methods than it was from TB to Surprise. I believe it's more important to teach people how to learn methods than it is to teach them specific classes of methods.

But the bottom line is that, if what you need is not available in your area, try to find some like-minded ringers and make it happen! — David Smith

You can't have 8 people all trying to get to grips with Major at the same time, more than 2 in at once and it's a struggle. You need a solid band.

One very small but helpful step that CC has already achieved has been to get the new North West residential course going, and one of the topics this course offers is "6 to 8", covering part of what you mention. — David Smith

I'm considering going on that this year, but the syllabus isn't available yet. I'm already ringing on 8 so I'll have to see if it's worthwhile, with all such courses, ringing something once a year is a waste of time unless there's follow-up in place. One of the things I've heard from people who taught at the last couple is that people are coming back a year later having made absolutely no further progress.

I also wonder why your local association is not offering anything to help. — David Smith

In the association as a whole it's mostly "social" events and there's no training at all in my district. There's an "8 bell practice for 'advanced beginners'" in a different district but it only seems to be running for the next 2 months, it says what they ring is going to depend on who turns up and for me it's a 3 hour round trip - I'm not inclined to spend twice as long as the practice travelling on an off-chance. My home association is a dead loss as far as training goes, and has been since I started.

The most active guild in the area is one that isn't associated with the CCCBR and people outside the area haven't heard about, which I think speaks volumes about the state of the associations around here.

This is the very situation that the Cast of 1000 had hoped to address. — David Kirkcaldy

What happened to that? It seems to have fallen my the wayside?

After attending a course the student needs to return to an environment where he/she can build on and consolidate what’s been learnt. — John Harrison

Yes, without opportunity for regular practice afterwards it's pretty pointless.

it does vary hugely geographically as to when you hit a barrier of not having enough ringers at a similar level wanting to make similar progress. — Lucy Chandhial

I agree, from what I've seen the situation is much better in some other areas. From what I've been told, things have not been good here (Greater Manchester) for many decades, I think it's therefore a poster child for how increasingly difficult it could become in other areas as the current generation of Surprise Major level ringers stop ringing.

Maybe there is one ringer near you who could persuade the band of elite ringers to host a supported practice for up and coming ringers even just four times a year? — Lucy Chandhial

There's no practically-accessible Major sessions in this area of my home association (Derby), most of the nearest towers are in Chester/Yorkshire/Lancashire.

There was a monthly Surprise Major practice in the Yorkshire Association which I found supportive & helpful, but that folded before Xmas. A Major QP group has started up in its place but I'm not at QP standard yet, so chicken, meet egg.

There's another fortnightly one in in the Chester Guild which I was going to but my fare was restricted to 2 half courses of Cambridge each fortnight. I asked repeatedly to ring Yorkshire as the ropesight is easier, one of my bugbears. I was point blank refused "Because the others wouldn't like it" (whatever that means). I always felt I was viewed as a bit of an encumbrance as the group was mostly people who want to ring spliced Surprise Major and not really a learning environment, so after Xmas I quietly dropped out. Nobody has been in touch, so I was right.

I'll probably keep chipping away at Bristol on the tower sim for my own amusement - the feedback I got at the weekend was that I clearly knew the method but needed to sharpen up the "wrong" work which I kinda knew already - it's the first method I've really rung with a mix of right/wrong work, so no big surprise, and getting to grips with it will pay off with Minor stuff. But as for ringing Major "for real", as I said, I've given that up as a lost cause.

Have you considered trying to organise a practice in the region for those in a similar situation to you? — Alan C

I have, it's not a practical option, unfortunately - there are just too few ringers who want to step up to Major, and too few inclined who are to support them.

I'm not suggesting it's watered down, I'm suggesting that it is hurried up. I'm a late starter, my ringing career is therefore going to be short. If all I manage to do in the time I can ring is to help keep things ticking over until ringing reinvigorates itself, I'll count it as a successful ringing career. But there needs to be something left to reinvigorate in the first place. The intent behind Ringing 2030 is laudable, the apparently glacial rate or progress is not. Time is running out.

Possible actions could also include giving larger grants, or widening the scope of work that the BRF will fund — Roger Booth

Yes to everything on your list. Sound Control funding seems to be uncontentious, but I don't know how simulators and CCTV for the bells are viewed by BRFs. We have both (installed during the rehang) and they are used regularly. We also have three roller displays about the church, the bells and ringing in general. We also hired a mobile belfry for the local carnival during the rehang. The funding for all those "add ons" came from the HLF rather than the Association, it seems ironic that it's easier to get funding for that sort of thing from external funding bodies than it is from our own sources.

in the current climate that is something to work through rather than a reason not to try. — John Harrison

Absolutely so. But I think it needs to be supported by a fully thought-out plan for how the reallocated money is going to be put to best use. @Roger Booth pointed on FB to what The Essex Association are doing in this area, it's an interesting read.

That doesn't follow. — John Harrison

You'd first have to persuade the majority of the members of the association that it was a good idea, get them to formally approve it, deal with the thorny issues of donations and bequests that were given specifically for bell restoration, rewrite the governing document of the BRF, get that approved by the membership, then after that you'd have to approach the Charity Commission to ask them to approve the change.

As I said, "That it will likely be difficult and time consuming".

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. — Roger Booth

That would require the agreement of both the association membership and The Charity Commission:

You must ask for Commission authority if your amendment will:
* change your charity’s purposes

That it will likely be difficult and time consuming. I think @Lucy Chandhial's suggestion of diverting funding from the BRF into a training fund would be easier.

Modern engineering is such that in 50 - 100 years only a minor overhaul will be needed, which will be far less expensive. — Roger Booth

Our installation is 100 years old and it cost ~£60K for the rehang - the wheels needed rebuilding, the steel and wooden frames need strengthening, a new ceiling/floor etc etc etc - refurbishment is always going to be an expensive business.

How do we want to recruit and teach bellringing in order to reach more people more quickly? — Lucy Chandhial

Recruitment gets most of the attention but it's pretty pointless without a solid, countrywide pipeline for people to progress along, and that's sorely lacking in many areas. That training needs to go well beyond PH/PB, which is about the outer limits of most people who start via ART. Relatively speaking, "fixing" recruitment is easy - indeed my tower has stopped at the moment because we don't have sufficient capacity to deliver decent training to new starters. Adequate training at the Surprise / 8 bell level is rare at best - once-a-year courses don't cut the mustard and I'm just about to stop going to the nearest fortnightly (!) Surprise Major practices which are almost entirely focused on extending the repertoire of long-term already-advanced-level ringers, I can't justify 90 mins of travelling for two half courses of Cambridge, which is all I'm "allowed" to ring by the person running the practice. Fair enough if he wants to ring Spliced DooDah with his friends, but it isn't an adequate learning environment for anyone trying to get to that level.

I completely agree that training and not bells is the biggest need, but as most BRFs are charities with a specific purpose of funding bell repairs, wouldn't reallocating funds to training require a change to a BRF's governance?

As for the cash mountain, I get the impression that some BRFs have fairly low limits on what proportion of a project they'll fund, perhaps they could be encouraged to be more generous?

I'd love it if there was something like that round here, well done!

I lived in fear for a long time because when it happened to me someone rushed over in what appeared to be a panic to grab the rope. — Judith Dennis

It's difficult to simulate losing control, you can't really recreate the "startle factor" when it happens for real. I illustrate that you can miss the sally, just ring backstrokes and still have control of the bell. We also go through the drill which is:

• If you miss the sally, don't make a second attempt to grab it, it's most likely already going up to the ceiling and if you grab hold, so are you.
• Keep hold of the tail end with both hands.
• Go up the rope a bit, step back if you need to and go into "ringing up" mode, something they practice from the first lesson.

The other key thing is for the teacher not to panic themselves, seeing them dashing across the room, madly grabbing at the rope and ending up half way up to the ceiling themselves is the opposite of confidence giving - I saw exactly that last week. For me, taking the rope off the learner is a last resort, not the first response to a fluffed stroke.

Therefore something as complex as ringing, without a lot of repetition, is difficult. The situation with the availability of rope time with good ringers in my opinion is the chief problem for beginners, but not a criticism. — Judith Dennis

Sufficient, appropriate rope time is a problem no matter what level you are at. My experience is that rope time is the biggest single factor in people's progress, far more so than age, for example.

exactly. I wouldn't necessarily be prompting them to do it, but if they were clearly hesitant and wanted to, fine. It's not uncommon for experienced ringers to have a couple of practice pulls to determine if they need a box or not, if that isn't a problem, this shouldn't be either.

If you want to instil confidence in beginners, I think one of the best ways is to teach them how to safely self-recover if they miss the sally, which at some point they will.