Ringing Forums

I am an elder counterpart!!!
I organise a monthly quarter peal for an established group of friends. I email suggested dates and time to all of them. They reply within a couple days (part of the deal). I select a date(s) and confirm the details with them together with the time, methods, conductor, rope fees etc. I get the tower(s) by email using the annual report, association website or my own established contact list. Be sure you know if you will be met or not, and if not that you have specific instructions for clock hammers etc because they will be your responsibility.
A week before, I send a reminder email to include the tower contact (BCC everyone if necessary). On the day, everyone turns up (if not they don't get asked again). Probably best if only one person is involved in organising events, then you get into the routine and know exactly what is going on.
Don't be surprised if some towers want you to sign a safeguarding agreement about under 18s etc, to be signed and returned in advance. This is becoming more common nowadays.
If you arrange things well people will see you as dependable and will have confidence in your organising skills. I hope this helps. Good luck

the task splits into two, organising the ringers and organising the towers. I organise regular quarters in hand so I only have to do the ringer part. Obviously you need a pool of ringers who are interested in ringing, and who you are happy to ring with you. You need more ringers on the list than a band’s worth because they will have times when they aren’t available. So on any given date you might have more or fewer than you need.
Each month i ask who is available on all the dates that month (Sunday afternoons in our case). Then I select bands from who is available.
If I have just enough on a given week then I choose a method to suit the band.
If I have more than enough I make a selection, bearing in mind things like who hasn’t rung one lately or whether a particular combination would help someone to achieve something they haven’t previously.
If I don’t have enough then we don’t ring that week. However since there are more tower bell ringers around than handbell ringers you might be able to top up the band with someone outside your normal group.
I used to confirm each band during the preceding week but that meant someone who had said they were available at the end of the month not knowing whether they were needed for several weeks, so now I circulate updates as soon as I know what bands will work. That has the secondary benefit that anyone who hasn’t got round to replying might offer to ring on a week where we are one short.

There is this guidance on planning an outing which largely translates to organising quarter peals too: https://runningatower.cccbr.org.uk/docs/buildingateam/outing/
I agree with Philip and John that finding the ringers available on a given date, suitable for a chosen method, often comes first and finding the tower follows.

If your friend is struggling to organise there could be two main reasons:
Some people don’t find it easy to plan ahead and need a pretend deadline to force themselves to get organised in advance
If your friend is trying to arrange more challenging quarter peals they might struggle to get people to say yes because people will worry that the band will not be able to manage the chosen method (or perhaps the chosen bells)
Ask your friend why they think they struggle, consider splitting the responsibility in a different way so that one of you finds the ringers and the other finds the tower and collects the tower donation, you could alternate responsibilities on different quarters.
Consider whether someone else who regularly rings with you would like to sometimes be the organiser, to share the workload.
If someone isn’t able to organise that doesn’t mean you need to exclude them from ringing in the quarters but I can understand that relying on them to organise and then having a last minute cancellation is frustrating.

For ringers we use the SPOND App. It's free and you can invite people to a specific attempt 'Event' or you can send out a 'Poll' and see who is available for a series of specific dates and times. One advantage is that you and the others can see in real time on your smartphones who is available and who is not, and you can set a deadline and the app will chase those who have not responded so many days before. You can also set a maximum number of participants to each event, and there is a waiting list in case people drop out. There is also an e-mail option for those that don't have smartphones.

A practical tip is to invite key members of the band first e.g. conductor, and the method, and then add add other people to the invite list once you have the nucleus of the band. You will then end up with a balanced band. Otherwise if you invite everyone at the same time, you could end up with a band that it too inexperienced and people will lose confidence if you lose too many attempts.

Don't try to run before you can walk either. People, even very experienced ringers, will appreciate scoring quarters in simpler methods with good striking, especially helping newer ringers. Keep it simple and progress in baby steps.

https://www.spond.com/