Ringing 2030 Now that I am not president of the central council I can say things which I might not have been able to say before in case they were viewed as in some way being official policy!
I have thought for a long time, that in order to keep ringing going it will need to be done in fewer places, but those places need to be conducive to wanting to learn and ring. The point Robin Shipp makes:
f the ringing room is damp and grubby, with fly-blown out-of-date notices, then people won't be inspired to take up ringing as a hobby; ditto if the ringers are set in their ways and not welcoming of newcomers, and so on. — Robin Shipp
That is why in the CC's new three pillars strategy there is a lot of emphasis on making sure environments are good. If we sell ringing as something great to do and the recruit turns up to their first lesson at the sort of place described by Robin, we will quickly extinguish that enthusiasm. That might mean focusing resources on places that are going to succeed at the expense of others.
That sounds harsh of course, and some will feel we must never give up on a tower, but we need to be realistic. I bet there's £10m of bell metal in towers in the UK that is probably never going to ring again - wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow spend that on the towers that could thrive!
I had a conversation a few years ago with the Chief executive of the Churches Conservation Trust about one particular heavy ring of bells that doesn't get rung much, and I asked him whether he would rather have the scrap value of those bells so that he could spend that money on other towers in his portfolio where he could attract more bellringers and hence visitors to those churches, which is what the CCT is all about. He said it was a no brainer - he'd take the money. Of course there are complex heritage considerations but it was the principle I was establishing - that they would quite happily sacrifice something that was not meeting their needs for something that was.