Ringing Forums

Stella - you asked for a "sample" meeting agenda so we have obliged; it is available on the CCCBR website here: https://cccbr.org.uk/resources/stewardship-and-management/ on the Tower Operation tab, second point down.

Nick - I am pleased to see that you have never had to persuade a female Tower Captain to step down. Or am I rather less pleased that you have perhaps never had a female tower captain?

Simon - we have general guide lines about sound levels on the CCCBR website here: https://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Mike-Banks-noise.pdf

For a complete new ring, there could be complaints however low the sound levels may be, as John has said. Some people could be irritated by the addition of even a low level of sound to the ambient level. Whatever the current levels of traffic noise, office aircon units, aircraft, sirens, alarms etc, the bells may still be audible and annoy some within earshot when ringing. What may be perceived to be worse is that they are not like a ticking clock that is there all the time and the brain soon learns to filter out; the bells will only be rung and hence audible for a relatively low % of the hours in any week so the brain will react when the bells start to ring.

It also depends on the nature of the properties and residents /users nearby - hospitals, care-homes, schools, offices may all have different concerns and at different times of the day and evening (night is unlikely). Similarly, the seasons will get different responses - winter with closed windows will probably have fewer complaints than summer with open windows and more garden / park usage. (If fuel prices go up much further the traffic noise may reduce substantially!)

The best plan will be to set and adhere precisely to a well defined schedule for the ringing - eg 2 hours on a Saturday morning from 10-12, 2 hours on a Weds evening 7-9pm, and a Q every month during term time from 3.30 t0 5pm on Friday (ie after school).

From what I have heard, the noise levels do not need to exceed a certain threshold to be deemed to a nuisance - and there are certain medical conditions that are said to be aggravated by sounds.

I understand that the collection I thought of has already gone to another home.
Yes, Bell News is available from the CCCBR website as are the Ringing World up to 1970.Hence, i assume why you want those from 1970 onwards. But the RW is also available on DVD up to 2018.

Regarding storage, whether you keep copies bound or unbound is a personal decision and also what you can find! It also depends on how you intend to use them.

Yes bound are (usually) in stiff covers that sit well on a shelf. There were binders sold for copies but these had (i think) cords to tie in the copies resulting in a tendency for copies to become torn, if used a lot.
Soft bindings keep sets together but do not stand on a shelf.
Loose copies can be kept tidily in box files or document storage boxes.

If you are doing research, then several copies open at once on a desk are easier to refer to on single copies than bulky bound volumes (but that again is a personal view) and book marks can be inserted for easy reference later and are more likely to stay in place in a bound copy.

So the choice is yours, and whether you want paper or a disc is presumably a decision that you have taken already.

How do ringers' skill levels compare with the skill levels achieved in other activities?

For example what is the median in judo in terms of their coloured belt awards? Wikipedia tells me "In Europe the belt system is white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and black" - is the median about yellow or brown?

Similarly, not everyone starting to play tennis lands ends up playing even at county level, never mind Wimbledon!

Peter - I will paraphrase the legal wording -
List A – includes matters which may be undertaken without a faculty and without the need for
consultation, subject to certain specific and more general conditions.

List B – the archdeacon must be consulted and give notice in writing that the matter may be undertaken subject certain specific and more general conditions, but without a faculty. The archdeacon may impose additional conditions. Note that some matters may not be undertaken without a faculty despite
being included in List B.

Everything else will need a Faculty.

Of course, the church authorities have to be involved from the outset and give their agreement to any work.

https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/churchcare/church-buildings-council/how-we-manage-our-buildings

There are often collections of bound and unbound copies made available as houses and churches are cleared and i am sure that a good home for them will be readily accepted. If they are unbound then there are binders who will bind them for you.

Are you interested in Bell News, the paper that preceded Bell News? If so, i know that there may be set available following the death of a collector. He may also have had Ringing Worlds.

By the way, the copied get very heavy so once you build your collection, consider carefully where and how you store them! Shelves may collapse and even the floor loading may be excessive if your bookcases stand on just small feet on a less substantial flooring!

Stella - yes, i'll get our WG to prepare a sample Tower AGM notice, and work with the Volunteer & Leadership Groups as well. As an aside, we are currently preparing a completely new set of advice on Running Towers - a large project, but look out for it being made available.

There are several questions that emerge in this discussion -

- Should ringers and local ringing societies offer more commitment and support in advising advising PCCs and church authorities about the value of their bell installations and the risks of poor or no maintenance? Ringers like to ring the bells owned by churches and in many cases the churches appreciate us ringing for church events. So perhaps more of a dialogue would help. How often do we communicate and host events for PCCs, church wardens, clergy, Diocesan buildings teams etc in our areas?

- Not servicing equipment is a false economy! The costs will be much higher and consequences of not doing so possibly much more serious. Although self-evident to many of us, the report "The Value of Maintenance" by Historic England showed this from fuller analysis. https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/value-of-maintenance/

- If there were to be a serious incident with major damage to a tower and bells and / or serious injury, then the church could be found to be liable if they had not taken appropriate precautions, including frequent, regular checks and maintenance. Extrapolating from this, it could then become a requirement for all bell related work to be done only by qualified and accredited professionals in the same way as, for example, is required for electrical installations.

- As ringers, while we pursue our activity and hobby, should we consider whether the equipment and facilities are in good condition? Do we look out and listen for things that may not be working as they should and consider whether they may need attention? Or is that also a skill that we are losing? (We used to have to be able to judge what was going wrong with a car that we were driving when it made a certain squeak or knocking noise - now it is diagnosed by plugging in the computer - or not diagnosed as the case may be, but that is another story!)

- ... and finally, what would be the views and capacity of bell hangers to take on maintenance contracts for all the bell installations?

As a quick update, we are now almost certain that these handbells were restored by Frank Barnett in Malvern. Here they are
in the box:

Since this seems to be diverging from the original topic of keeping churches open, i will start a new discussion under "Running a tower" about the environment and conditions in bell towers

Then for that purpose, isn't Peal Base a better starting point? I don't ring peals or often search peals so someone else may offer better advice on that than me (and probably via a new topic, rather than this one headed Old report disposal).

Sue - Re searching The Ringing World (and I am digressing further from "old report disposal", the subject of this discussion). Are you aware of the excellent indexes that are available free for The Ringing World? These are invaluable for finding information in back issues. https://www.ringingworld.co.uk/news-articles/indexes.html
I am sure the one for 2021 will appear soon.

Sue - yes, this seems to me to have the same limitation as those done by WDCRA - they are not searchable. Readable, yes - great! But searchable would be so much better.

And as a separate point about scanning, we should mention that there are "wand scanners". These, i have been advised, are quicker and easier to use, especially with bound books. However, i have heard that the quality is variable both of the scanned copy produced and the reliability / durability of the wand.

Does anyone have any experience of using wand scanners?

Simon - here is the pdf of a WDCRA scanned report. As I said before, we have these in this format from the first (1882) to 1996.
i have picked 1922 at random, but obvious reasons. But also for the reasons below:

Although people say that there is no problem with GDPR, we do need to be cautious and courteous. For example, there are names and addresses plus phone numbers that are still applicable for the people concerned, that were printed in relatively recent reports (eg in the 80s and 90s). At that time we were less concerned about GDPR. We understood that those personal details were only being included in printed reports distributed to members plus very limited other distribution. To make these reports openly available now is inappropriate, even if strictly not contravening any regulations. We need to ask members for their views; some members may not be content for such information to be released. When asked now for their personal details to be disclosed in a new document, they would definitely decline.

... and did that cause the visible strobing? Or perhaps you are not sensitive to the effect - not everyone is. Also was there some daylight or was it dark outside?

It may be an industrial standard specification unit installed there, as we recommended. Perhaps also they had single colour sallies - it is only striped multicolour sallies that will cause the strobing, and some colour combinations may be more problematic than others.

Simon - moving to the retention solely of electronic media needs a very big caution. Technology moves on so it probably would not be scanning just once, but repeatedly updating and overseeing the storage from one medium and / or format to the next technology as it becomes the new standard. Many individuals and organisations have found this out the hard way! We certainly have more than once, even at work in attempting to defend patent infringements!

Who still has the readers for 5.25inch or 8inch floppy discs? Even 3 inch cassettes are a thing of the past and CDs and DVDs are going that way. It is the same with film and video cassettes - remember beta max, 8 and 16mm cine film?

Yes, scanning and making available a copy is great. WDCRA did that - it took many, many months of a dedicated individual as all the reports had to be either cut up or carefully scanned sheet by sheet. He used a scanner of the era - this was about 1990s. However, they are not searchable and not as good quality as has now become available so really need doing again. Many reports can't be scanned by machine automatically as the pages are not in modern sizes. Copies also need checking carefully as pages can be missed, miss collated etc.

A related question is society minutes and accounts. The old ones were often written in fountain pen in magnificent ledgers, some leather bound; yes they do smudge if wet but wetting is not a good idea for any medium! Records then moved to biro (some that age and fade) in cheap exercise books in which the paper yellows. More recently many records are on personal PCs and circulated by email. Even going back a few years, we find that there are gaps in the records as no hard or electronic copies were retained when secretaries handed over.

So i say again, having electronic copies is great for routine use, but think carefully before relying on electronic copies ONLY of reports, minutes or anything that may be required in the longer term.

Most ringing societies organise outings and a good way to learn is to help someone who has done such things before. Offer to help organise an outing and I am sure that most society committees would welcome such an offer!

Most ringing societies have contact details for towers on their websites and Dove shows maps of towers so you can work out potential routes. Sites like Google maps will help you work out travel times between towers.

There is a desperately old publication on this topic free to download from the CCCBR shop from the link below. If you "translate" the suggestions forward by about 25 years (from letters with stamped addressed envelopes to emails etc), then this should give you some ideas.
https://shop.cccbr.org.uk/product/organising-an-outing-download/

Organising outings is far, far easier now than suggested in this old booklet with the availability of online information! I would certainly not be too ambitious in your first few outings. Have fun and good luck! Let us know how it goes.

Would someone offer societies some examples of what a closed group could be used for and how it would operate please? What would be the merits for using Forums; I expect many ringing societies already have their own "internal" communication routes using member only sections on their website, Google groups, facebook or similar.