Ringing Forums

exactly so, well said!

I’d suggest that maybe there isn’t a one size fits all solution, especially when the objective is different to different people.

What isn’t a solution is failing to recruit at all times and all places. I explained the basics of change ringing to the tower’s latest ringer in a tea break during a church cleanup.

Agreed.

However ringing is generally well out of date in its attitude to money and what people would be willing to pay. If only we charged a little more we would be able to do far more.

I've just done a quick google search to see what it would cost to take up one of the alternatives to bellringing. — Roger Booth

As a parent who is always having to pay for those alternatives, when I took up ringing I was quite surprised to find that, other than £8 to join the county's association, there were no other actual costs involved. No tower/session costs, no materials/equipment costs etc

Personally I'd put ringing in the "local football" and "workout classes in the village hall" category, where you'd normally have a taster session or three free, and then a weekly/monthly/yearly subscription. This morning I've just paid £40 to the community radio station I volunteer with for a year's fees, and £40 for my daughter's Rainbows subs for the year.

As far as I'm concerned, the mix of learning, improving (or not!), doing your first x, y or z is all part of the same thing ("you never stop learning"). It became obvious that the two limiting factors for ringers are their own ability and their ambition. Ringers who are happy to do rounds and call changes on a Sunday and still need a bit of help when the bells in front of them move are just as welcome as those who do a peal of spliced caters once a month.

Training shouldn't be a chore, and not everyone can be a trainer; the limiting factor often seems to be those who have little patience for learners taking longer than they would like to get decent striking in, but also aren't willing to come in 20 mins earlier with some others from the band to help get that person to a point they feel relaxed, even if it is only ringing rounds.

@Steve Pilfold as @Alan C said "there isn’t a one size fits all solution". All the talk of training and charging or not is totally irrelevant if we can't get people through the door. The limiting factor may well be that there is no-one to train!

At the end of 2022 we decided to introduce a charge, or what is now commonly called a donation, for training in ringing.
This was set at an amount per lesson for 10 lessons, but a first lesson is free to determine interest on the part of the learner, and a capability assessment by the tutor.
Lo and behold, by co-incidece, someone contacts us because their son wants to learn. Email discussions ensues to explain what is involved and a meeting is arranged for them to tour the tower. (That already ticks off a few boxes in the LTR scheme before the student even touches a rope). The outcome - the student gets an intense 1 hour lesson weekly and also attends our weekly practice night, where, after 4 lessons he is ringing Rounds with help.
Anyway, it was made clear before we met that a donation is requested. This contributes to all teaching materials, (LTR books are given to the student as part of the package), tuition by an LTR accredited teacher, and a whole load of encouragement, which of course is free but a VITAL part of teaching. Oh and lots of smiles). In future, there will be opportunities for him to use the sim and visit other towers etc.
The money goes into the bell fund, the tuition, care and enthusiasm is given free of charge.
This is the first time we have done this and it felt a little uncomfortable initially - asking for money. But, the donation was forthcoming, which will contribute to our annual tower expenditure and capital projects. If the donation had not been forthcoming we would still have taught the learner but would have charged for the teaching materials. The tower should not be out of pocket! After 10 lessons we will continue FOC.
Ringers can't keep giving all the time. We have to maintain our towers and give real value to what we are doing. Pay back by ringing for church services is insufficient, especially as in our case we have only one service per month.
I think charging for tuition, with a flexible approach, is the way forward but we must be dedicated to giving value for money.

I have only just joined and just caught up with this so is it still going and if so how do you/would I know?

is it still going and if so how do you/would I know? — Richard Norman

Afia discussions never 'close', people just stop commenting when they have no more to say.
Each comment has its age at thee bottom so you can see how active the discussion is.
But if you want to say something then do so and it will be seen by others interested.

How can you be sure that a fee, be it £10 or £100 will weed out only those who will never quite grasp the art of handling a rope or mastering the magic of change-ringing? It strikes me that there is better than a sporting chance that the fee will also weed out some of those 'magical' learners who take to it like the proverbial ducks to water.

Money is a really interesting subject. I do not think I am supportive of an upfront cost which makes it prohibitive for anyone to be able to start their ringing journey. But having said that... if we offered ringing as a night school for example (say £50 for ten lessons) along the same lines of college classes: an introduction to french, or drawing, or whatever it might be: would demand for our Art suddenly appear?, if the supply was created? has anyone actually tried this?

Looking at it in another way, if a very modest charge was implemented instead, so that a "culture" developed of giving little and often then could this achieve a similar amount of funds to the future of ringing? My tower has a considerable amount of funds available to it so in one sense there is no need to introduce a culture of regular small donations, but if we did, and half the average attendance gave £1 that could easily raise £300 a year. That would be equivalent to getting 3 new learners who had stumped up £100 up front and may or may not still be with us. (if everyone on the books gave a £1 donation a week we would easily be talking £1,000). Some of that money could then be diverted to local or central activities.

And then, the new recruits would enter into an environment where the small donations just happened, naturally. And would probably join in with it at an early stage, either immediately or after they had caught the bug. Its harder now, because we are getting much closer to a cashless society, but there must be ways around this I am sure. Would this be a better way of raising funds rather than trying to extract a fairly significant sum from a small pool of new learners that may or may not make it in the medium to long term? When I was learning to ring the standard eight (surprise major), I regularly attended a tower that didn't have its own band as such. But the ringing was of a very good standard. This tower had that culture where most people gave something most weeks. I'm talking 30 years ago but I would be surprised if they were not raising at least £5 a week back then... Much more could be raised now.

We lost some learners who were showing progress during their 'free' practices as they thought that they were doing something like "try before you buy". They wanted to go to learn properly as they would expect to do to learn to play football, French, art classes etc.