Ringing Forums

I think this is difficult because most towers are based in C of E churches and it is hard to separate the ringing from the institution (and some ringers would say you shouldn’t). Many of the ethnic minorities in the UK are Christians, but they are less likely to be C of E so they may not be able to ring for service at their local tower and join their church service (although some can and do). It’s even harder for someone with an alternative religion to ring for a service which calls people to prayer for a religion they don’t agree with (as an atheist I sometimes struggle with this!). I’d say it easier to start with the wider Christian community and find the diversity here first.
Many new ringers still say they did not know how to get into ringing, that they thought it was an invited skill rather than open to new interested people so the first task is to make it more widely known that ringers are wanted and to make ringing accessible to come and see and learn a bit about it.

We don’t have any kind of PR or communications officer.
I look after Twitter, there is a Facebook page which is rarely updated (and a Facebook group which is occasionally used) but no coordinated activity to promote the Association to people outside the world of ringing.
The website is looked after by a group of webmasters on different topics and seems quite successful at directing people to tower contacts but there is an intention to update the website next year.
If there is to be coordinated activity to meet a significant recruitment objective we would need to find volunteers to support PR, including social media, and consider teaching more ringers how to teach handling (if they are willing to learn and put in the time to teach handling).

So my take is that it doesn't matter what sort of organisation a Guild or Branch is as far as opportunities for ringing are concerned, it takes someone in every tower to stand up and take on the responsibility for ensuring that all ringers have the support to improve themselves, they then can look around for, or even arrange sessions to suit.

I agree with this, the issue is how to find / generate that willing person in each tower who will support and encourage. This person needs time, commitment and interpersonal skills as well as an interest in seeing people progress and not every tower has someone like this.
Developing more ringers with these skills and this willingness should be a focus as it makes the biggest difference to the experience of the ringers in the band but it is not easy and we might have to accept focusing on a few towers with strength to develop rather than trying to support all towers (and maybe come back to the left behind towers when the few are building bands of excess ringers AND willing tower captains / teachers / development supporters.

We did two simple surveys in the Middlesex Association, one when first starting ringing again from lockdown and the second around six months later, to see how many more towers had got back to regular ringing.
We asked tower contacts and the district secretaries followed up with contacts who did not reply initially. It gave us a good understanding of how often towers were ringing, what proportion of the band were back to regular ringing and whether the tower was willing / able to actively recruit and teach when that was possible again.
Even for the ‘off grid’ towers there is usually someone who has some contact and can give an idea of the size of the band, ringing standards and frequency of ringing.
I’d be happy to be a guinea pig for a survey with the Middlesex Association N&E district if that helps (despite being fairly small and urban so not the most challenging area).

I agree with this:
Jason Carter - But sharing what media focus is coming up from the centre, so that those ringers that want to, can piggy back off it, is really important, in my humble opinion.

I was surprised that we had the Times article and various other pieces about Ring for the King but no distributed ‘press pack’ for all Associations / towers to make use.
Maybe something has been sent to Association PR contacts but nothing has filtered down (in my area) or maybe the National PR started before the press pack is ready but it is a shame not to be able to quickly capitalise on it in an easy and efficient way.

The Women in Ringing workgroup researched the number of people who register with ART to learn to ring, the number who ring a quarter peal, the number who ring a peal and even the number who conduct peals. Their focus was on the gap between male and female participation at these various milestones but the data must have started with total numbers. So you could explore the research here or ask from this website: https://www.womeninringing.info/
I think you would have to ask Bryn for the original data set as the articles give you the total number of unique ringers for anything quarter peal length and longer but not then the breakdown of quarters and peals (but they must have had those numbers to be able to show the male female split in peals vs. quarters.

Most towers in London offer £20 a rope in order to get a band to ring out for a wedding. In the City of London it is often £30, more if it is ringing in and out.
This generally means that people choose to ring for the weddings available and don’t feel put out about giving their time (and more than cover their costs for travel).

I don’t see people thinking teaching bell handling is prestigious but I do think people need a certain level of experience and confidence in their own bell handling before starting to teach others. I have seen some ringers start teaching within two years of learning and this can work very well as they remember what was difficult and explain next steps in simple terms.
I think many less experienced ringers are nervous about volunteering to teach bell handling and need to know that they can learn to teach in a supported way, with ART as the obvious easy way to support people in learning to teach bell handling.
But I also see that only a small minority of ringers are willing to invest time to support others, support organisation and take responsibility to make more ringing possible and for a fully voluntary organisation that’s an issue. I think our internal marketing campaign is along the lines of give something back, how can you help ringing to succeed in the future so that you can continue to enjoy it? Learning to teach handling and committing to helping one Saturday morning a month (or similar) with training sessions or special practices would be really helpful but often the few who have always done it continue and not many new / extra people volunteer to get involved.

The Middlesex has a few unattached members but mainly relies on membership via a tower. It’s definitely less important than it used to be when it comes to the admin and collecting subscriptions as people want to pay via bank transfer instead of cash to a tower contact.
And in the end it makes very little difference to the experience of ringers as the mailing list, website and newsletter are open to all so anyone can join in with ringing anywhere, regardless of whether they are a member or which tower is their ‘home tower’.
For me, administrating the subscriptions for the district, a tech supported process would be great so it sits on the backlog list of things I will research when I have time! So I will be interested to hear any solution you find for Sussex.