Ringing Forums

agreed, it's like the bar structure in music. Perfect closed lead ringing does have an intriguing, somewhat breathless quality. But anything less than perfect sounds chaotic, since the random errors are the only structure.
With open leads the brain can use the dominan structure of the open leads to mask a small number of errors. So the listener hears blemishes added to a regular rhythm, rather than just blemishes.

there's a Learning Curve article about ringing Yorkshire Maximus. I would give you the URL but that's one of the bits of the CC website that refuses to work with my iPad. Look in the index.

I'm always cautious of that sort of ultra simple recipe (more commonly associated with Double Norwich).
In blue line terms the macro structure with two sets of work moving progressively in opposite directions each lead, is the same as Cambridge. But he complication is that in Cambridge the two sets of work are different (places and misses) whereas in Yorkshire they look the same (miss plus places). That can be confusing, especially since they aren't quite the same - in one you dodge with the Treble in the places and in the other you pass the Treble at the miss. And you have to remember whether miss or places comes first.
But what makes Yorkshire much easier to ring on higher numbers in practice is that the coursing order is only briefly disturbed near the Treble (I've during the places + miss) so it is preserved across the large area under the Treble. That makes the ropesight far easier than Cambridge, where as someone once said 'bells come at you from all over the place'.

not sure the argument about needing to control the handstroke (and by implication not needing to control the backstroke) holds water. Method ringing needs accurate control, including speed control, at both strokes. (I agree there is plenty of ringing where the backstrokes are not properly controlled, but that's a failing not a feature.).
Open lead and closed lead ringing are different and being able to do both is a useful skill for a competent band, but for a less expert band maybe not the highest priority.

not sure I would call myself experienced but I've called plenty of G7, usually the same quarter composition. I use coursing order but not the full order that change every lead. So the plain course has CO 5346 (2). The hunt bell is in brackets. The transpositions for positions that don't affect the 7 are easy and operate on a different pair (plus hunt bell) similar to the way they do in Major. Transpositions when the 7 goes in and out of the hunt are a bit more fiddly, which is why I prefer to keep 7 out of the hunt. I think I wrote it up in the conducting chapter of THB, which is on my website.

you refer to 'church funds' and 'the tower fund'. Are they the same thing?

the conversation is headed 'Ringing Forums - your thoughts. Those were my thoughts..
As a user I can't tell what features are designed in and what are the result of how it has been configured.

no, that's not an adequate excuse.
Some things the Forums do very well, for example opening a discussion at the first post you haven't read.
But whoever got that right didn't think about how it would interact with someone else's decision to break conversations into separate pages.

I just got caught out by the pagination again. I opened a discuion showing it had a post, read it and closed it, but couldn't understand why it was still flagged as having an unread post. I opened it again and only the post I'd seen was there. Then the penny dropped and I realised I was on p2. So I had th switch to p2 and then scroll down to the bottom. All rather sub optimal.
Also, I wanted this to be a reply to the previous post, to which it is directly linked. But for some reason the only option was to make a link.

Does the organist play for nothing, the choir sing for nothing, or the priest officiate for nothing? If not you could reasonably ask why you should ring for nothing.
You could also quite reasonably decide that you have more profitable things to do with your time.

I don't think we need a ringers' SG course.
It would probably mean, for example, that if a church worker e.g. refreshments helper had taken a church basic SG course (which is all they need) they would then have to take a bell ringing one too if they learned to ring, or visa versa. And if the church accepts either of them what's the point of having two different ones? — Phillip George

We should distinguish between the training, which will be more effective if it is tailored to draw on the experience of those on the course, and the result, which is the possession of relevant knowledge and judgmental skills, which are transferable between contexts.
When I did the courses (both the new C0 and the old half day course) the examples used bore little resemblance to situations I would meet as a ringer, which made the less effective.
If I moved into a different context I would learn 'how things worked in it', and I'm confident that having done so I could then transfer my SG skills to the new context.
So tailored courses leading to transferable qualifications.

I wouldn't describe it as making a rod for your back, but rather taking on an ongoing commitment. (Having delivered exactly 1 page of TLC every month for 8 1/2 years I know what that means.)
One of the main aims of the CC reform was to make it more open and more widely understood. Yiur blogs have done that in a far more effective way than your predecessors, who pioneered the idea of a presidential blog.
Another aim of the reforms was to change from an organisation with a habit of not doing things if they felt too difficult to one that would try to do what was needed despite that, or as JFK would have said 'because it is hard.
So please keep it up.

agreed. Had I been writing a contract I might have used different words. My point was that the understanding with the ringers is that they will try to back up the PCC contract.
In fact for weddings during the week the couple is told that we will try to get eight ringers but might only be able to get six.

we have formal and informal contacts with both wardens and clergy, initiated by either side as required.
At the moment the church building is closed for renovation and the Rector is encouraging us to ring for as many things as we can, just to emphasise that the church is alive and kicking despite the contractor's fencing.

you may not be under a written contract, but the church is, and enters into the contract based on a trust/presumption that the ringers will use their best endeavours to provide the service.

the problem seems to be that safeguarding rules for ringers are bring written by a dominant partner (the C of E) that as well as having a rather over cautious approach also has a mindset the all activity is parish based employees/volunteers, whereas ringing operates in a more diverse way that doesn't fit this model.
Would it help to look for parallels in other activities that take place in churches but don't share the parish centric model? For example, concerts and associated rehearsals are often held in churches but they are organised by non-parish bodies such as choral societies, and as well as society members singing, the orchestra is quite likely to include unattached musicians. How would the church's safeguarding policies be applied to them?

I wrote a Learning Curve article about it. There's also a section about it in The New Ringer's Book, p 89.

the mileage rate is intended to be the marginal cost, is the cost of using the car for that journey rather than leaving it in the garage. It is not intended to cover the cost of owning the car.

when I did the analysis in 2014 there was a 15:1 ratio between the highest and lowest per capita rate (£1.07 v 7p).
The paper is on my website if you want to see the rest of the analysis. Download from: http://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/

I can give some comparators based on ODG reports.
1914
1774 ringing members, 167 towers 'in union', ringers per tower = 10.6
1988
2133 ringing members, 259 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2
2019
2480 ringing members, 303 towers (with members), ringers per tower = 8.2

I chose 2019 as the last pre Covid year.
If you take the average number of ringers per ring able tower, then the figures drop to 7.7 (1988) and 6.7 (2019). The 1914 report doesn't mention towers with no ringers 'in union'.

Simon guessed 10% of ringers in 1914 were women. In Sonning Deanery, which I analysed for the article on the effects of war there were 6.5% women in 1914, the first year there were any. That had doubled by1918 but then went down again.