Ringing Forums

obviously it will take a while to grow. It would be interesting to see the growth curve. One would hope that as more people join the rate would increase since more people know about it and can recommend others to join.
At some point the growth rate will reduce as it reaches saturation, following the logistic curve. I wonder what the saturation rate for a forum like this is, I've the number of ringers interested in knowing about and possibly contributing to serious discussion. It won't be all of the 30k or 35k or whatever ringers but it ought to be a significant minority, at least thousands.
The two Facebook groups have ~3k and ~5.5k members. That's not directly comparable since many probably use FB for other reasons and just added a ringing group as an extra. They host quite a bit of discussion, but I suspect that's 'because people are there already' rather than because it's a good discussion platform.
ChangeRingers doesn't afia publish membership numbers but istr it was over 400 around 20 years ago, when there was far less e-communication generally. It's use has reduced in recent years as some discussion has been diverted to other platforms but I don't know whether it's membership has also shrunk. The email lists are a better comparator for the forums because the motive for joining are similar - at a least it is for the serious ones (change ringers, ringing theory, bell historians). I would exclude ringing chat which is probably more askin to FB than the Forums.
ChangeRingers grew naturally as people found out about it because there was nothing else, but to the Forums has to compete on its merits against other platforms. Convincing people it's better shouldn't be too hard but the problem is changing people's habits. It's easier to stay where you are.
229 Forum users must know a lot of non-users, so can they be mobilised to promote them?

we havr the same ringers on here — Elaine Scott

Same as what?

agreed the balance is about right, but it would be useful to know how many subscribers there are, and also how many signed up to the various categories. I wonder if it can be set to show any of those, so the information would be available without having to ask admin to dig it out.

I guess the only answer is to create yet one more channel that will attract/embrace everyone - or is that what th — Peter Sotheran

Yes

We also have a WhatsApp group for "One More Ringer" — Jason Carter

In our branch have two email lists where towers can send requests for support to those who've agreed to receive them. One for wedding volunteers and one or quarter peal volunteers, in each case they only go to people ego are happy to receive such requests.

I think that the big weakness is the ability to get information from the bottom to move going from bottom to top, or up to points in between — A J Barnfield

Supporting infotrmation moving up seems relatively easy, assuming you mean form ringer to ringing master, chairman, secretary or whatever of the relevant tower branch or society (or the CC). All you need is a widely publicised (generic) email address for the relevant officer. We have those in all the bits of the jigsaw I'm involved with.

it's a pity there wasn't more interest in learning the lessons from Ringing In The Millennium. The session I organised during the Liverpool CC weekend was intended to do that but got hijacked down a side track, and I don't recall anything much afterwards.

this discussion is about preserving information that's already in digital form, not digitising paper records, which would be a separate effor — John de Overa

What we are creating now is in digital form, but a lot of the recent (in historical teams) is on paper, and could end in a skip when the person who currently has them dies or downsizes. It took several years of chasing to get the records of one society recovered from the loft of a former secretary, and a lot of the CC Education Committee papers I archived were only on paper.

The new policy is to retain very litte, sadly — Alison Hodge

That policy is misguided imo and I have challenged it. If more do so then it can be changed.

so we need to change expectations before learners become infected with the traditional 'must be free' attitude.

strange that this topic should come up now:
1 I recently raised the question of archiving CC material that is of historical significance but likely to get lost. Currently the only formally retained documents are minutes and reports. They are certainly important but there can be a lot more of substance, as I discovered when I went through all the old Education Committee documents I had.
2 I was recently asked if all the discussion of NRT (Network for Ringing Training for those without long memories). The original Yahoogroups are long gone but it happened that (a) someone used to compile summaries of discussions (weeding out the noise and unscrambling crossed threads) and (b) I still had copies on my hard drive, do after some sorting and conversion I sent him a zip file.
Ideally there would be organisational mechanisms to ensure things are preserved that doesn't rely. On the right person happening to be in the right place at the right time.

What could ringing do with £1 million a year? — John de Overa

That depends on who you talk to. When The Ringing Foundation was set up to raise money and channel it into ringing a lot of ringers said 'it's not needed'.

I believe some were but I wasn't involved with any, they are just things I've read about or heard of over the decades.

quite a few people have run local education ringing courses over the years.

a DMO could offer such things, but I wonder whether their absence is that inhibiting? How many people organising peals, outings or whatever think about liability and insurance I wonder?

it can cause burnout but often results in the Wooler done, or the rate of doing it, being what people feel like doing rather than what needs doing.

I doubt there was a soft copy unless someone later scanned the original - theworldran on paper in those days. The easiest way is to get them from the RW DVD. Can't remember whether those years are online yet or whether you need the actual DVD.

articles by Steve Coleman called something like 'sifting through' or 'shuffling through' — John Harrison

It was 'rummaging through' and they ran through 1989 into early 1990.

John Harrison may know more of the history — Simon Linford

Yes, I was meaning to comment but waiting to check the facts to support what I remember. A working party was formed in 1990 to investigate: 'the possibility of a Ringing Centre as a way of lifting the Exercise off a plateau of ringing advancement'. That was just after we had declared the need for a 'decade of recruitment' to get from 40,000 to 50,000 ringers after the 1988 survey. The working party initially focused on a single National Ringing Centre, but concluded it would be better to promote a number of Centres throughout the country. See the report
Ringing centres were expected to be involved in both teaching and promotion, and the criteria for Council recognition included having a simulator and teaching room, being usable with minimal restriction, being open for use by anyone, and having a workable management structure.
Initially there were relatively few centres but many more were created after the Council negotiated a grant scheme funded by the Worshipful Company of Founders. Some met the original spirit of a ringing centre, and were proactive forces in their area, but some did little more than take the money, install the kit and call themselves a ringing centre.
The Ringing Centres Committee always had representative on the Education Committee since there were areas of sharedinterest. In 2007 Roger Booth and I negotiated terms to merge the two committes, which the Education Committee approved but the Ringing Centres Committee didn't, so it never happened.
Roger was on the Ringing Centres Committee for much of the time so could give better insights than I can.

afia the recent contract is for promotion, which will require some understanding of the status quo but well short of a definitive analysis.