Ringing Forums

I have been studying this for my Masters and looking at adaptive reuse of church buildings around the world, mostly where worship has finished but I have tried to find examples where worship is retained. There are actually relatively few examples of bringing in commercial complementary uses that help cover the costs of the church building though. There are a few that have put a post office or community shop into a vestry, but not many that have gone beyond just trying a cafe at the back of the nave.

The best example I have seen, which works in London but would probably not work everywhere, is the Sherriff Centre, https://thesherriffcentre.co.uk/ "The Sherriff Centre at St James’ Church is a not-for-profit organisation. We are a registered charity and have a trading subsidiary that operates our Post Office, the café, soft play plus events and private hire. Profits from our trading activities go to fund the work of our charity to provide services to the local community" Most of the churches with lots of other uses tend to be at the more evangelical end of the spectrum.

Looking at what Festival Churches have done is a good starting point as mentioned above. Festival Church status is giving churches a relatively short window of time (about 5 years) to reinvent themelves and bring in additional uses that will contribute financially (Festival Church status does not remove the church's financial obligation to the Diocese). Some are apparently making good progress.

There's also tremendous selection bias going on here - the ringers who are picked up by programmes such as ARA have already been subject to a heavy pruning process. — John de Overa

And the majority have ringing parents - about 80%. Having ringing parents is a huge advantage.

I guess ARA students could be asked to offer their time for a next level down RA the following summer, something targeting surprise minor / Stedman triples, for young ringers who may have had less opportunity to be seen and less opportunity to get into surprise ringing which would ease the burden on the grown ups and set the culture for paying it forward. — Lucy Chandhial

Oooh that's an interesting idea. That could be done for instance in conjunction with the YCRA

I think this is the main concern for many of the threads on this forum.
There is a reasonable size group of ringers spread across the country (world) who would like more opportunities to ring with ringers more experienced than them so that they can progress in a better development environment but there are not enough experienced ringers to go around and many of them are not that interested in ringing to support the progress of others (sometimes because they have experienced ringing with ringers who are not particularly keen to improve their ringing and then that’s frustrating). — Lucy Chandhial

I am reopening a discussion from a year ago but it is because I was going to open a new discussion before finding that we were discussing this a year ago.

It comes on the back of the completion of the second Advanced Ringing Academy (ARA), about which an article will appear in next week's Ringing World. I intend to write a follow up article which has the provisional title 'The Death of the Red Zone'. I was thinking about structured training, and the gulf there is between the structured training ART does, the structured training that the very small number of residential courses do, and the structured training of the ARA which is essentially taking young ringers who can (or will be able to) ring Bristol Maximus and helping them to get better at it, as well as pushing them on beyond that. There is nothing in the middle because that is really what guilds and associations are supposed to be doing, but of course in most cases they struggle, not least for the reason mentioned by Lucy here. It was the idea of the Cast of 1000, which I still think could work, but it would need a huge culture change of the Red Zone in particularly being willing to invest time helping others (I know many do, but not enough).

The ARA needs a very high level of supporting expertise, because to help people ring beyond B12 you need people who are better than that. I had 40 different helpers at various times over eight days. They are willing to help because they see the potential of these young ringers, and seeing them progress so fast is ver rewarding. At all levels, in order to make progress you need to ring with people better than you "If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room". To do that at all levels between LtR5 and the ARA would need a different form of organisation, and it would need to be quite ruthless in not expending too much resource on people who are struggling at a particular level.

If we get 10,000 new ringers into the Blue Zone, particularly if they don't learn at university or younger, the reality is that they will not enter the Red Zone - they won't get over that hurdle of ringing methods that aren't Plain Bob and Grandsire. In those zone articles I called this the first 'discontinuity in the learning curve'. There are exceptions of course, but even in Birmingham where the Ringing School is very well established, we have not churned out surprise ringers except in the case of school and university students. We acknowledge that we can create competent Bob Minor ringers, but continuing a training programme beyond that is hard.

If the established Red Zone, where the vast majority of peal ringing happens, doesn't help, then I can see the Red Zone dying out. There will be a fast track through for people who learn young, and a small number of cities plus the SRCY and ASCY will support them.

Is there anything we can do about that? Does it matter if there isn't?

Sadly I don't have it any more

Do we even know what level the majority ring at? — John de Overa

I did some analysis for a Birmingham School of Bell Ringing conference a few years ago which concluded that the median ringer can ring Bob Minor.

Last week I organised and ran the first 'Advanced Ringing Academy', which over eight days took 25 young ringers (17-25) all of whom started with an ability range from simple surprise major up to surprise maximus. We had nearly 40 experienced helpers throughout the period, always enough to ring the most difficult thing on the agenda with enough to help ring inside but also stand behind. With 50 hours of tower bell ringing on 8 10 and 12, plus handbell practices, the progress was great, but I would have expected it to be with such a cohort.

A lot of what we did was what is talked about here - very focused targeting of tuition and opportunity. We pretty much had a plan in advance for all of the students, and for instance someone who'd only rung Cambridge Major was able to ring Cambridge Maximus really pretty well by the end, and those who could already ring a bit of Bristol Maximus were able to ring touches of cyclic spliced. We incorporated teaching how to learn, teaching how to listen, very active feedback, and a sprinkling of history and wider ringing knowledge. It was not just the depth of methid ringing that improved - we went to Birmngham Cathedral on days 1 and 8 and the difference was remarkable. The ARA will also have follow up in that those who put forward young ringers to come have now been sent feedback on their students and what the next steps for them in their local area ought to be.

So the concept of this Deliberate Practice and Expert Performance is definitely possible, but it takes very great effort. Those who benefit from it, e.g. all those on the ARA, are starting with inate ability and we knew they had in advance. I think there is a limit to how far you can get without inate ability, which was part of my definition of the Black Zone in those articles some years ago. If you have inate ability and opportunity you can go far. Plenty of ringers have inate ability but don't get opportunity, and then there are plenty for whom lack of inate ability is or will be the thing that limits their progress, even if they don't realise it because opportunity never presents itself.

Does age really have anything to do with that? — John de Overa

No you're right - it is not the age per se but established peal ringers, organisers and bands tend to ask their own, the people they know because they see them or know them to be reliable, or they organise the band for the next peal in the pub after the last one. In order to ask the up and coming youngster, or indeed the keen older ringer who would like to be peal ringing but does not get the opportunity, needs thinking outside the box. Young ringers have the additional complication of travel, especially if they have non-ringing parents. Plus of course for many bands ringing peals is a social thing, and you can't really criticise anyone for wanting to do something with their group of friends.

I little while ago I proposed 3000 as a target, which meets the point Jack makes about establishing quality ringing but would be more accessible, especially in the evenings. A bit like only playing 15 holes of golf. Don Morrison produced a load of compositions but it didn't catch on at all!

Perhaps the OP simply isn’t ringing with the younger generation of peal ringers any more. I can assure him younger peal ringers do exist. — Jack Page

My point really, or one of them, was that the majority of the established peals bands don't routinely give young ringers the opportunity to join them. It's understandable - asking young people takes effort, they might not be able to get there, etc. It's easier just for them to ask their usual mates, especially if they ring daytime peals as the fit retired community does.

I agree with Jack that peal ringing is really important but it requires special effort to provide the opportunities.

There were only three in his original articles about the barriers to progression in method ringing, red, blue & black. Green was added later to cater for those who hadn't got into method ringing. — John Harrison

You're quite right. I had not thought at the time I wrote those that there were barriers to progress earlier than the Blue Zone, and had initially described the Blue Zone thus: "The Blue zone goes from learning to handle a bell through to ringing methods inside." I now appreciate that there definitely is a barrier to getting into method ringing at all, and of course that is a barrier that does not have to be crossed for a ringer to enjoy their ringing and contribute to a band.

The savings don't come so much from the largest associations, but from those which are paying sub-£500 and where the minimum premiums are a significant part of the total cost. When we looked at it in some detail with our ringing contact at the main insurer, he reckoned the saving could be over 50% of the total cost spent on insurance by associations. Definitely worth trying to do even though it's not simple.

James Joynson? https://www.joynsonmodelbells.co.uk/

All I said was that it takes longer, which it does. I am currently teaching people across approximately a 55 year age range, creating opportunities for all of them and spending a very great amount of time doing it. There are challenges at both ends of the scale and they are different. At the moment I have five learners at my home tower all of whom are in their 50s and 60s (I need to be careful) and they have just started method ringing with great enthusiasm. Will they get to Cambridge? I don't know - some of them would certainly hope so. On the other hand, the young Brumdingers rang a course of cambridge minor last week with two 10 year olds in the band. The older learners are coming ringing four times a week and are highly valued. The younger ones' commitment is varied and they are no less valuable.

Would you say it's almost impossible to teach a new band from scratch and expect them to be a method ringing band without considerable ongoing support? I think so, especially given that teaching entire bands from scratch tends to be older learners, who tend to take more effort to get into method ringing. I am not meaning that in a disparaging way - it's just the way it is. But on the other hand I don't think that matters because method ringing doesn't have to be the target. I have often said that good call change ringing should be the target of any inexperienced band, and getting there can be perfectly fulfilling.

The only time I have been involved in teaching a new band from scratch, the difficulty we had was getting out of being in charge - finding a way to either find a new tower captain or stick with it long enough for one to emerge. I remember sitting in the pub one evening with Tony Daw after a practice of a band we were teaching between us and him saying "what's our exit plan from this?" In case you get the impression that everything in Birmingham is marvellous, ultimately we did not succeed. We did persuade someone else to be in charge, but it only lasted a couple more years and the band gradually dissolved.

Two weeks ago I set a homework task for one of my local ringers (recently graduated, computer science - just to give some context). I told her to come back next week with a touch of spliced minor, using at least four out of Plain Little Cambridge, Norwich and London, with three courses and no more than 11 leads. No more information.

The first thing I heard her asking someone else was "what's a course?"

The point is though that I am not sure this sort of stuff is explained anywhere other than by asking someone else, which I was expecting her to do. I reckoned she would be able to do it and would learn a lot from just being set the task. Which she did.

I had a bit of a relevation though on the way to last year's Central Council meeting, when I gave a lift to Simon Percy and Jayden Milby - both young reps. Over the course of a couple of hours, Simon gave Jayden a lesson in composing using Complib. I had no idea that Complib had the functionality he demonstrated.

I suppose this is not teaching how to compose as such, but was teaching how to use a tool which helps you to compose.

"A festival without bells is like a house without bread"

The Italians do seem to have created a stronger bond between their communities and their bells/bellringers than we have.

Interesting - I have never thought of my own bodyweight in cwt! (1.5 cwt)

Bouncing heavy bells off is relatively standard practice, and on occasion I have actually taught people how to do it. I have never heard of a stay being damaged as a result. To insist on a heavy bell being pulled off without bouncing would go against any principle of inclusivity if it prevented people from ringing heavier bells.