Comments

  • Energy costs and church usage during the winter
    ↪Alison Hodge
    when our church was closed for just over a year for refurbishment, with services decamped to the adjacent hall we were encouraged to continue ringing for services, and practices. The contractors were required to ensure safe access for us except when unavoidable so we only lost a handful of ringing sessions. A good relationship with the church ensured we were consulted at all stages.
  • Ringing 2030
    Perhaps you are fortunate to ring in an area where it isn't an issue. But that's certainly not the case elsewhere — John de Overa

    We certainly have issues in this area but I'm not aware of ageism being one of them.
  • Ringing 2030
    ageism is pervasive throughout ringing and now seems to be official CCCBR policy — John de Overa

    Is it? I don't see the evidence.
  • Ringing 2030
    Youth recruitment is important for all the reasons you give, but believing that that it's the cure for ringing's current problems is ridiculous — John de Overa

    Is anyone saying it is the cure for all problems? As far as I can see that line comes mainly from people objecting to it.
    One of the problems we have is a gross distortion of the age profile, which has developed over several decades. It seems obvious that we need far more effective youth recruitment than we currently have if we want to restore some sort of balance.
  • Ringing 2030
    I think 'missing the point' is not quite right, but confusing different points definitely seems to cause polarisation.
    If you are looking at demographics and long term trends then age is very important - young people will be around for longer than old people.
    But that's not the whole picture. To sustain the ringing community we need people to be ringing, not just 'around'. A 50 year old who rings for 20 years can ring more than a 15 year old who gives up after 5. So what matters is length of service, which will be determined by both the individual's match to ringing and the quality of the ringing experience offered, and that's true at any age so obhsessing about the quality of teaching, development, tower environment, organisation, etc is more important than obsessing about age.
    The other popular argument is that younger people learn better than older ones (whether you draw the line at 20, 30 or 40 varies), and it's well established that most of the best tower captains are under 40. But at the coal face we deal with individual people, not demographic averages, and it would be silly to reject or accept people because of a stereotype.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    Survivorship bias may come into play here, given you made it through — Tristan Lockheart

    Obviously the fact that 60+ years later I am still ringing and still learning new things marks me out - biases my thoughts if you like to put it that way - but 'survivor' gives the wrong impression. I did not manage to come through a bad expereince on top. In my teens I was cycling every week to practices and most Saturdays to ringing meetings within a 30 mile radius, being made welcome and supported in all cases. I was also running a tower and teaching other youngsters without adult interference, which enabled us not only to get practices going again but to become a leading band in the area. Those opportunities obviously had an effect on me (but didn't stop me giving up ringing for a decade in my 20s/30s). I'm not sure how relevant that is to my views on sensible ways t develop ringers though.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    I find it very helpful to be reminded which place I'm supposed to be in and/or what comes next, — John de Overa

    Knowing where you are supposed to be is certainly useful, but to make use of it you need to know where you currently are, which some people don't. If you are a long way out, eg still in 2nds when you should be in 5ths, whether your next blow should be in 6th or 7th is academic because you won't get there. The most urgent advice is to get UP (or slower, or whatever). Only when you are somewhere near can you make use of knowing the actual place you should be in.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    It would have been much easier to say "Over number 7". — J Martin Rushton

    That still requires translating a number into a location, which (a) uses mental resources and (b) might interfere with any numerical information the learner might still have about position. If the location is the most useful information just point. But that information will be obsolete in a second or so. If the learner's bell isn't where it should be it might be more helpful to give advice on that, or on the need to change speed, both of which are likely to be valid for several blows.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    ↪John de Overa
    so much of this I want to say 'but it shouldn't be like that' or 'but we never do it like that'. Even teaching other kids in my teens with no access to books or courses I'm sure we did better than that, so I wonder why such customs have become so widespread. We probably need to understand that as much as knowing all the ways to do things better.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    Having someone standing behind is a solution but I think that's very hard to do well ... it would be interesting to hear from the best practitioners how they do it — John de Overa

    There's a whole section about standing behind in The Tower Handbook, see: https://jaharrison.me.uk/thb/12-2.html#12-2 . There's probably a Learning Curve Article on it too, called 'Back seat driver' iirc
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    Handling that's OK for CCs isn't good enough for methods — John de Overa

    It isn't just about how good (or it would be with more practice) it's often wrong, with no concept of ringing at different speeds or how to change speed.
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    ↪John de Overa
    I answered the question posed, is what do kids do that's different. It's a fact that the early part of our lives are dominated by learning new things, both formally and by experience, and it is reasonable to suppose that will help them learn other things. That idea is supported by the experience of teaching six actors to ring for Midsomer Murders. They learnt much more quickly than most - ni more than 4 hours of rope time to be able to ring rounds on their own, and for one of the to ring two bells double handed. What do actors for for a living? They learn things.
    If interested, see: https://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/RingOutDead.html
  • Accelerated teaching for late starters
    What is it that youngsters do that adults don't? [/,quote]

    They spend most of their time learning things! So it's no surprise if they are a bit better at it.     — John de Overa
  • Ringing Courses Value-For-Money (RW Letter)
    I was very impressed with the optional extra 'Handling Clinic' sessions — David Smith

    We ran them as evening options years ago. Of the students I had, some responded well but a few had such engrained problems it was difficult to undo in an hour or two.
  • Ringing Courses Value-For-Money (RW Letter)
    they can practice with less good bands at almost any practice in the country! — Iain D Scott

    Not for a lot of methods, certainly Surprise, even Minor, and there are lots of towers where you couldn't run Plain Bob Minor.
    However, if the subject being learned is towards the advanced end, the students ought to be competent ringers, I'd reliable on things below the method being learned, so it should be possible to get more rope time even with 'one at a time' for the chosen method, eg covering to Stedman or Treble to Surprise.
    Also in my experience on more advanced courses some of the students will be steady enough to allow two at a time for some touches.
  • Ringing Survey
    "83% say they are looking to improve their ringing"
    Survey slide     — Charlotte Boyce
    Do we believe that? It would imply that only 1 in 6 isn't.
    It's too easy to say you would like to improve. The follow up 'How?' Is a start, but I think it needs to go further since it's also easy to say you'd like something that's not available. A more probing question, less easy to answer glibly, would be 'What are you currently planning (or expect to within say six months) t improve your ringing?
  • Ringing Survey
    I do wonder if the importance of age is often overstated — John de Overa

    I'm sure it is. I think it's too easy to go from the generally accepted fact that learning certain types of skill gets harde with age on average to the assumption that it applies to all individuals. On average women are shorter than men, but my 6' daughter looked down on my 5'6" father.
    And although developing the core skill of controlling a bell is fundamental to progress, it is only a small part of what leads to a long term ringing career, and many other aspects are not particularly age related. They depend much more on environment, opportunity and of course individual drive and interests.
    Of the people I have taught (same teacher, same tower, etc) the fastest to being able to ring competently with others was 39. The slowest was 15, and his mother, who I taught later, at 50, was faster.
  • President's Blog #83
    ↪Jason Carter
    do you mean a simulator practice? Or do you just mean an ordinary practice with bells tied and electronic sound? I assume the latter but the terminology is confusing.
  • Sussex bell-ringer who revealed her terminal cancer on Songs of Praise has her story questioned
    I believe all the QPs of the associated method have been removed from BB. — John de Overa

    I just did a search and found 804 performances.
    It would be completely unacceptable to distort the historic record by wholesale removal of performance records because someone took a retrospective dislike to the method name.
  • Yorkshire tails in the 1880's
    ↪Ellie Hollis
    I too wondered why you asked about Yorkshire tails, but your question applies equally to sallies.
    I've seen sallies in esrly 19th century pictures of ringing, but a black and white picture doesn't say much about what colour they were. It would be interesting to know when they were first coloured, and when red/white/blue became the dominant combination.
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