Ringing Forums

I receive the learning to ring enquiries for the bellringing.London site and therefore receive enquiries mostly related to the Middlesex Association but sometimes beyond. I agree with your approximate stats on the number of enquiries which actually lead to someone who learns.
Last year we had 60 enquiries (43 in 2024 and 66 in 2023).
Alongside this I hear of many enquiries made within a specific church, from people who hear the bells whether church goers or not, and are drawn to ask about ringing.

The Recruitment and Development workgroup held a briefing on 8th Feb that shared a newcomer’s perspective on Association websites and how we could improve the learning to ring accessibility. The slides and recording are available here: R&D briefing slides for recruitment via websites

It is still obvious to me, from the enquiries I receive, that we don’t always have the teaching capacity to match the enquiries and that the Ring for the King style big uplift in recruits is hard to handle so a steady drip feed is easier to work with.

I’m sure the recruitment portal will help. But it still relies on local availability of teachers with time to commit so that enquiries are followed up and people are given their best chance to learn.

We will need more ringers to be willing to learn to teach handling. ART is willing to run the courses to support people to learn to teach but many people shy away from the time commitment or the responsibility / risk factor or both.

Associations could do a review of which towers are unable to teach new learners and try to address this as a fundamental key to building a band is being able to teach from scratch.
This is probably more important now than whether or not people get the chance to ring Bristol maximus or how many peals are rung but I agree that our Association Annual Report and committee meetings tend to focus more on the ‘elite’ end of ringing and less on ensuring we will have ringers in the future.