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?