Ringing Forums

I make sure that ringing is regularly included on the church facebook and twitter pages. For example, last weekend we rang a quarter after the Remembrance Service and we got over 100 likes and positive comments from locals listening to the ringing. Also during lockdown last year, I ran a series so every week I posted about one of the inscriptions on one of or bells, with an occasional video of the bells ringing to keep people interested in the bells, so that when we restarted we didn't get any complaints.

As we came out of lock down, I started a bell ringers Facebook page to try to raise the local profile. As well as sharing to the church FB page, I selectively share onto the larger local groups.

However, it's a long slow process to start from scratch.

At the risk of a bit of self promotion: Caterham Valley bell ringers

I quite regularly post about local ringing on an external 'Everything Moseley' Facebook group - there doesn't seem to be a better way of getting to people in the local area especially if there is one dominant Facebook group used by the community. It won't get to kids but it will get to their parents - I know that parents of the Brumdingers are members of 'Everything Moseley' because they like the ringing-related posts.

Oddly enough, the banner stuck on the fence outside the church has had better immediate results than a fair spread of social media accounts.

This seems to work at other towers too. Banners are not that expensive, give them a try!

We are blessed with easy access to the bell chamber, the clock chamber and the tower roof. Once a year, in the summer months, we hold a tower Open Day and allow visitors to see the bells, clock and to take photos over the roof tops of the town from the tower roof.

We place ringers as Rooom Stewards at every level of the tower to watch over the visitors and to provide explanations. Depending on the number of visitors and the number of ringers on hand we include one or two ringing demos. We also have a 7 minute Ppt slide show that loops round continuously onto the white walls of the Ringing Room. We will double muffle one bell and encourage visitors to try a few assisted backstrokes.

Our most successful day attracted over 140 visitors. We control the flow of visitors going up to the bells and on to the roof. Curiously the last time we did it, one more visitor came down from the roof than we had allowed to go up!

we hold a tower Open Day and allow visitors to see the bells, clock and to take photos over the roof tops of the town from the tower roof. — Peter Sotheran

We have a similar situation with regards to access, and we do pretty much the same as you describe, usually a couple of times a year. We also do evenings for the Brownies & Scouts. The highlight for everyone who comes, regardless of age, is chiming a bell. We don't really regard it as a recruitment event, mostly it's for community engagement, although we have had new ringers as a result.

Our bells have been unringable for 15-120 years due to the condition of the tower so, in 2016, I began chiming the bells. There has been a steady influx of visitors to the tower to discover more about the bells and their various ways of being sounded. They're heard regularly, and we often get favourable comments from the community. The eye-watering anticipated cost of fixing the tower, then refurbishing the bells for full circle ringing, are daunting and unlikely to be found for many years yet, but we're still doing our bit to spread the word about bells and bellringing.

we too run tower tours, both small groups and open days like last weekend when we had well over 100 visitors. But the original question was what is more successful at raising awareness. I don’t know whether an open day is more or less successful doing that than for example the series of half a dozen whole page articles I wrote for the local paper a few years ago, or the hundreds of school cildren i give assembly talks to, or the dozens of articles on many different aspects of ringing in the parish magazine, or the talks i have given to lots of community groups.
I have no way of measuring which of the have the greatest impact. In some cases I know the number of participants but not others, but impact is about more than just being present.

Local Tower:

Inviting all wedding couples to a ringing practice (bringing their bell fee). Introducing them to the ringers and to ringing (so they know what they're paying for!) and the history of the tower & bells, and (as our bells are easy-going) give them some goes at backstrokes then backstrokes in rounds (all assisted).

Annual visit to the tower by all of the local junior school pupils. Each year there's a 5-min interactive talk on a different aspect (e.g. History of the tower/bells, Maths: Factorials and time to ring them on different numbers of bells explained simply). All have a go at a few assisted backstrokes on a light bell. Then they all absolutely love trying to chime the tenor!

Special ringing (e.g. for the Bells' Centenary, Charity events, Thomas Linacre celebrations), Try Ringing sessions (e.g. The Big Help Out*) and fun ringing attempts (e.g. non-stop ringing relays).

The bells have an Instagram account - and share posts, including special/local ringing events, with church/local/BellringingDerbyshire social media platforms.

Colourful articles in local papers and free magazines with wide-reaching readerships.

We have had many recruits (*12 from the Big Help Out alone, 4 of whom are now key band members), and the local community appreciates the bells.

Local Association:

A portal for non-ringers from anywhere (https://bellringingderbyshire.org.uk/) and, to go with it:
- Matching social media - Instagram, Facebook* (sharing to numerous local groups) and Nextdoor.
*The Facebook page had 7,359 views in the last 28 days.
- Weatherproof hanging banners with the portal's QR code and URL, for towers to borrow.
- Matching business cards for all ringers to carry so non-ringers can scan the QR code or take a card.

With thanks to ART and the Len Roberts Award for the Promotion of Ringing 2024 for making the portal, weatherproof banners and business cards possible.

Providing a wide range of resources to help towers to do their own publicity: https://derbyda.org.uk/resources/promoting-ringing/