Comments

  • A new start for the Marketing Workgroup
    Another thing I remembered when digging out the Guidance was a series of articles I wrote for the PR Committee, that didn't find favour with the powers that be and so were never published. Form your own view: http://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/ReporterCalled.pdf
  • A new start for the Marketing Workgroup
    It doesn’t seem to be available any longerBob Blanden

    That happens with a lot of CC resources, and not just in print. The second time the website was reinvented a lot of resources were lost, including the advice I produced in 2012 for the PR Committee. The content is still on the archived version of the old website, but the way it was archived broke all the links between pages. There's an early version at: http://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/PRAdvice.pdf . There were some changes after that version, but as Bob says, anything that old would need updating anyway.
  • Some advice and ideas please
    at the bottom of the backstroke their hands tend to dwell in front of their lap, as they will have been told when starting to ring backtroke onlyPeter Sotheran

    That’s why it’s a good idea to introduce the two stroke action as early as possible. Otherwise their bodies will learn that ringing is about ‘move and pause’, which makes it difficult to learn the desired ‘move and move and move, …’ action.
  • Some advice and ideas please
    the fact that the wheel can push the rope faster than gravity has been known for a long time. So where there are dramatic videos of the rope being pushed away from the wheel. Any tendency to move sideways while ‘in flight’ can obviously mean it doesn’t land back in the groove.
    You sometimes see a ‘flapping board’ fitted to a frame where an outward flying rope could hit another wheel or a bearing housing. We have one.
    Btw i sent John an email a couple of weeks ago asking about progress since I rang his simulator a year ago but not heard so far.
  • Costs of learning to ring
    believe that if we want ringers to take on the implied contract that, having been supported in our development as ringers, we are duty bound to support others following on behind (at whatever stage we happen to be at), then it gets a bit muddied when a financial transaction is introducedMary Jones

    The idea of a contract is a myth. People learn for nothing and some of them give back freely, but there is no contract. I there were then there would be no shortage of teachers an£ helpers.
  • Some advice and ideas please
    pulling down at 30mph and then the hands rising up at 40mph to catch the sally'.Peter Sotheran

    Regardless of the actual speeds that must be wrong. First the speed varies a lot, from zero to quite fast in under half a second, and second because the bell swings symmetrically, so the movement of the rope up and down is also symmetrical, at least during the relevant part, ie ignoring what happens during the lower parts of the stroke, where they differ, and also ignoring the fact that the handstoke rises very slightly more to give the open handstroke.
  • Some advice and ideas please
    if the problem really is not knowing how far they have gone that might help but sadly in many cases the problem is execution. Saying the name of a place doesn’t help them to know where it is and how far from it their bell is, nor the action they need to get it their. The counting goes on in one part of their brain, separate from the rest which carries on doing the same unsuccessful actions as before.
  • Some advice and ideas please
    place making is a useful exercise but not really a transition to hunting. There isn’t time in one blow to change to ringing at a different speed. It is a single step rather than switching to going up or down hill.
    Failure to get right to the back is made worse in Doubles because you arrive at backstroke, which with most ringers tends to revert to rounds speed.
    Many ringers who ring by following ropes don’t consciously change speed, they merely make a number of enforced steps, the aggregate effect of which is an approximate speed change, but one that is always a bit behind the curve, and fails as soon as they fail to see the next rope to follow. That might be what happens at the back.
    A very good exercise if you have access to a simulator is to get them to ring rounds at normal speed (say 3h peal speed) and then ring rounds at 3h30 speed and at 2h30 speed, which correspond to hunting up and down on 6. If you simulator has visuals turn them off because you want them to feel what ringing at different speeds is like, without the distraction of jumping to follow ropes.
  • Plump Sallies
    I’ve never specified sally parameters when ordering a rope. I don’t know whether firmness can be varied but thickness presumably could. The rope markers I’ve dealt with, most recently Avon Ropes, have always been very helpful so you could try asking what is possible.
    However be warned, in my experience ringers will complain about Sallie’s being too thick as well as too thin.
  • Determined Underachievers
    public absolutely can tell the difference between good and bad ringing.John de Overa

    While on an outing once we went into the village shop to buy an ice cream, and when we mentioned ringing they said how nice it was to hear thei bells rung properly.
  • Determined Underachievers
    even our practices are public performancesJohn de Overa

    They are public, but they are not performances!
  • Determined Underachievers
    It sounds to me like you are putting a lot of responsibility and stress on yourself, I don't think that's a good idea, either for you, or the band. I think you need focus on your and the band's enjoyment of ringing, the rest may well follow. It's hobby, not a job.John de Overa

    Yes, it's easy for a leader to take on too much of the burden, especially those who don't find it easy. There's a tendency to blame yourself for all the things that still aren't right, rather than accepting that you've managed to get some things right that otherwise wouldn't be.
    It's an occupational hazard. An effective leader has to want to make things better, and that makes them sensitive to all the ways in which they could be better but aren't (yet).
    Yes, a band needs to get satisfaction and reward out of what it does now, rather than postponing satisfaction until it achieves some (possibly unachievable) goal. But interpreting satisfaction as enjoyment is a short step from that over stated desire for ringing to be 'fun', an easy slide into superficiality. Ringing (in public) is a performance, not 'messing round with bells'.
  • Determined Underachievers
    How does a band decide where on the continuum it lies? Does a consensus develop? What role should the Tower Captain play in this?Barbara Le Gallez

    Decide is too specific. Individuals will have a natural tendency towards somewhere on the spectrum, and they will influence the aggregate position of the band. If they are similar the aggregate position will easily coalesce. What happens if they are different is more interesting. A keen majority might inspire a less keen minority to join them, or might put them off so they dig their heels in. A non-keen majority might encourage a keen minority to stop trying and take it easy or might make them frustrated. (And many other variants).
    The Tower Captain's role is to help the band to coalesce and to find its purpose. How to do that will depend on the mix of individuals, and might not be easy. With a large band some two tracking might be possible, with the keener ones pushing themselves forward while others take it more easily, but with a small band one or two who 'don't want to' can prevent the rest doing anything.
    Even a performance oriented band is about more than just ringing, and needs social and community elements, and these aspects can be used to help hold it together a band with more divided inclinations, and the sense of cohesion can then help outliers move towards the collective position.
    Like all management, it's not easy, can take time, and can feel a bit dispiriting since there's always something not right yet
  • Determined Underachievers
    people struggle to progress beyong plain hunt and I believe that we expect them to pick up a myriad of micro-skills by magicRosalind Martin

    That's very true. The most important thing a teacher can do is to try to determine through observation what the deficient micro skills are, and then work with the pupil to try to find ways to strengthen them.

    we may over-focus on ropesight and memorising the circle of work,Rosalind Martin

    We obsess about ropesight as a magical power but it isn't ofte taught or even coached. And it's only one skill - a navigational aid. And memorising the circle of work is a relatively trivial task compared to the underlying skills needed to translate it into making the bell do the right thing.

    , the missing micro-skills are mostly around bell handling. The plain hunt they have "mastered" is actually badly struck. They are not yet ready for bob doubles!Rosalind Martin

    Agree entirely. They've not mastered hunting they've merely found a way to survive getting through it after a fashion - often relying on lots of tricks that don't carry across to ringing a method.
  • Determined Underachievers
    I run weekly simulator sessions and as far as possible I make them participant led. It's a low pressure environment and if they want to spend half an hour practicing the same thing over and over, that's fine.John de Overa
    Yes, I agree. Much less pressure, and although I am typically sharing my attention between two or three people each gets more `individual' coaching and attention than they would in a typical practice (as well as getting far more rope time).
    people's first attempts at PH are done that way as wellJohn de Overa
    Many of the people in my sessions have been taught by others and already tried hunting the traditional way but the great value of using a simulator (without visuals) is to give them the experience of what ringing at the three different hunting speeds 'feels like'. I get them to experienced ringing rounds at 2h30, 3h and 3h30 peal speed before they try to switch between them while hunting.
    That helps get over the problem with the traditional approach (whether learning numbers or counting places) that whatever the brain is doing the body wants to keep ringing at the same speed.
  • Determined Underachievers
    Techniques for gaining ropesight can be taught, but almost universally aren't, instead people are told to just hope for divine intervention.John de Overa

    It’s worse than that, they are often told to look at the bell they are following (or the one they are about to follow, though how they know which one without learning the numbers isn’t explained). Either way, looking at individual bells narrows the field of view and makes it harder to develop ropesight, ie the ability to make sense of what the other ropes are doing.
  • Determined Underachievers
    If others don't see it like that, how do they see it?Barbara Le Gallez
    That's a fascinating question, which could be the subject of some interesting research.
    I don't know all the ways ringers think about ringing, but just from observation it's clear there are some quite different views. To understand them I think you would need to account for several dimensions, for example:
    Importance:
    'I ring because there's a gap in my life it happens to fill' through to 'I can't imagine ringing not being a major part of my life'
    Performance quality:
    'Ringing is an enjoyable social activity, I don't think about quality' to 'Ringing is a performing art, I try to ring as well as I can'.
    Purpose:
    'I ring to satisfy myself' to 'I ring as a service to the church / community'.
    And so on. As I say, it would make a good research project.
    At the day to day level, we just have to recognise that we don't all have the same motivation, qualitatively and quantitatively.
  • Determined Underachievers
    I think there might be a bit more to it than that.
    From what you say she sees the ringing on offer as either enjoying where she is or tackling the next pitch of a (steep) climb. Masochists and those who are competitively driven will choose latter while anyone else will choose the former. And the longer they do so the harder it may be to change.
    To keep a band of less driven (and often busy) ringers moving requires the offer of something less start than a gruelling climb up the next pitch.
    (As another aside, that's why I gave up rock climbing and took up fell walking. You still go up - usually a lot higher - but it's less stressful, you can vary the pace, take detours to anything interesting, and enjoy the view as you go, as well as at the summit even if it's not a high one. That's better than hanging around on a cold damp rock face interspersed with strenuous pitches clinging on by your finger tips and at risk of 'peeling' at any moment.)
    In a ringing context, if the band has regular enjoyable and not too strenuous excursions through interesting terrain anyone on the sidelines is more likely to want to join in.
    I realise that's easier to say than do, but it seems a more achievable target than 'everyone up at camp 3 by the summer'.
  • Determined Underachievers
    How to MOTIVATE a ringer who has reached a plateau and wishes to stay there, and becomes stressed when I guide her towards the next ascent?Barbara Le Gallez

    You are right, it is about motivation. Maybe there are clues in the language used to pose the question. Should we be using mountaineering analogies in the first place, since most people do not aspire to climb mountains?
    Even if we do, a plateau is a good place to be, because it's easy to move around with little effort and there are good views to all around laid out below you. Also, you cannot go up from a plateau, it is a flat top.
    I think the concept in your mind is a ledge, a level part of an ascent where you can rest ahead of the next climb. I don't think that is how most people think about ringing, even the ones who want to progress (and the ledges I've sat during climbs were not places you would want to hang around anyway).
    You said she just wanted to 'have fun'*, ie to enjoy her ringing. That's fine. It's possible to enjoy doing familiar things and it's possible to enjoy playing round with novel things, including laughing about it when you get it wrong. It all depends on what mood you are in.
    In the right mood, trying something new, messing up a bit, maybe succeeding a bit and maybe learning a bit in the process can be fun, and even fodder for yarns in the pub. But in the wrong mood it won't.
    Harking back to my hang gliding days my instructor said he would never tell me when to fly, I had to decide that for myself. On that occasion I didn't, but if I had done I would have been in a very different frame of mind if I had decided, rather than having to go because it was my turn.
    Not sure whether any of this will help, but you never know.
  • Determined Underachievers
    people can be adamant that they are counting placesJohn de Overa

    People can also be thinking about places but where they are bears no relation. The ‘overheard’ story in this episode of The Learning. Curve was based on a real incident. https://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/200305.pdf