Ringing Forums

I was curious about what practices you are offering your members — Roger Booth

Each month we offer:
1 - Traditional general Saturday practice. Varies between am & late pm. Replaced some months by AGM and striking competition
2 - General Tuesday afternoon practice
3 - Elementary practice
4 - Focused intermediate practice
5 - Advanced practice
We also run regular youth practices jpint with other branches but they are run seprately.
Demand for practices can vary from a lot to not enough so before each we ask who intends to be there and then either confirm or cancel depending on the response.. Out of 55 potential practices (excluding youth events, which are run separately) in 2025 we confirmed 42 and cancelled 13. Interestingly the least popular (5 of the 13 cancellations) is the traditional Saturday general practice.
The website (currently off line after the Guild server was attacked) has reports on attendance, but I've put a copy of the graph for 2025 at: https://jaharrison.me.uk/Temp/2025Attend.jpg NB although the key includes youth practices they aren't shown because I don't have a record of them.

Are we not wandering into a completely different matter here? — Nick C Cronin

Yes. Apologies for doing so. I was replying to someone else’s comment. On an email list I would have changed the subject line but not sure how to do the equivalent on the forum.

Is there not a case for the CCCBR to evolve into a truly National association of ringers — Mike Shelley

Yes, but it keeps getting kicked into the long grass because it’s difficult to work out how to get from where we are now to there. The topic has come up several times since the original proposal in the 1880s. When it came up in 2014 I produced this: https://jaharrison.me.uk/New/Articles/MemberOrgn.pdf It was also in the CRAG recommendation, but as noted above, no on has yet been able to make it happen.
Ideas on a postcard.

I suspect that most see themselves as members of the local Association / Guild — Mike Shelley

I suspect many don’t even do that, but just see themselves as members of a tower or maybe the local district. Half of the guild members in our district didn’t attend any of the 50 or so practices etc that we run during the year.

Several Guilds and Associations have been conducting reviews of how they operate — Roger Booth

ODG also been doing this over the last year or so, with the result of the first stage to be voted on at the AGM in a couple of weeks. The change is more following the CC than Bedford though. Documents on ODG website: odg.org.uk if anyone is interested.

Engagement is about more than voting. As others have said, if the ability to vote is divorced from engaging with the debate it can undermine the process.
Detached voting works for things like elections, where there’s not normally debate, and can be better if accompanied by position statements.
Where there is debate the logical way to increase engagement would be a hybrid meeting. Where travel is an issue, which it can be for larger societies, then it could increase engagement. But if engagement is already weak it could decrease in person attendance, with people taking the easy option.
It might be better to start by asking why member engagement is low in the first place.

to teach a complete beginner from a bell-down position rather than a bell-up position. I now believe this is how people in my situation should have been taught in the first place — Corinne Orde

I always start the first lesson with the bell down and it does indeed enable some problems to be tackled in a safe, non threatening environment. In my teens i taught lots of people starting with the bell down before I knew there was another way to do it. I first saw someone being taught starting with a bell up when at university, and I thought it looked rather dangerous.

My bad habit was there from the outset and we tried everything we could to stop it, with all manner of exercises using dummy tail ends etc and daily individual lessons for weeks on end — Corinne Orde

The best way to work on problems with hand transfer is with a static rope, starting slowly and gradually speedily up, before doing it with a moving rope.

His teaching was fine — it was more a case of me being so terrified of the quickly moving rope — Corinne Orde

You can’t expect to learn if you are terrified. Helping you to feel comfortable with what you are doing is a key part of the teaching process.

it took me nearly three years to eradicate that common “waving right hand” fault that many new ringers have. — Corinne Orde

Far better of course to avoid it in the first place by proper teaching, rather than trying to undo a habit that has been repeatedly practised and become automatic.
Have you looked at The New Ringer’s Book? There’s a lot of detail on the basic mechanics and how to get them right.

Yes, once some people feel they are no longer "raw learners" it becomes almost impossible to get them to work on it — John de Overa

The first order effect is that you can't help them, and so they continue to degrade the ringing in which they take part. But the second order effect is worse. The fear of offending deters anyone with ueful insights from sharing them with anyone, including those who might be receptive.

If you haven't already discovered it, you might like to encourage your ringers to look at Ringing Skills

there are lots of towers (including many in Kent I expect) who are always encouraging listening and learning and discussion about the tweaks which can lead to improvements — Lucy Chandhial

I would be surprised if there were 'lots' who do that for ringers other than 'learners' or in special situations where a band has agreed to work together to improve. I am sure there are many supportive towers but I would be surprised if many offer those past being 'learners' much more than 'encouragement' and basic advice on how to ring CCs or methods rather than performance technique.
It seems to be built into ringing culture (outside centres of excelence in both method and call change ringing) that striking and bell control are taboo subjects, like driving and lovemaking, where advice is likely to be resented and people therefore shy away from giving it. Culture is notoriously hard to change, and I'm not sure how we can do it.

If a person cant ring and strike their bell changing at one stroke how the hell are they going to be able to control and manage a bell changing at both strokes. — Robert Brown

They aren’t. But they aren’t going to be able to to ring good call changes either. The problem is not about what is rung but that there is a widespread culture that fails to value, and hence develop, good striking.

Every teacher has a slightly different approach, some things work well for one person but not another — John de Overa

Yes and no. People do teach in a lot of different ways. Some of those ways are good and a lot are bad. And it's true that one approach might click with someone for whom anoither didn't, so being exposed to different approaches can be helpful. That's fine as long as the approach that clicks is a good one. The problem is that exposure to bad approaches can also click,

I’m confused! — Lucy Chandhial

Sorry if I helped to confuse you. I think there are two slightly different aspects.
My original comment (in the context of whether the community of practices would support heritage recognition) was that a lot of ringers aren't really motivated by ringing itself, so might not feel strongly about its future. That raises the logical question of what does motivate them, and I suspect it's a whole bag of things including habit, meeting friends, being active and serving the church, and being lazy I rolled them all up into the last point.
By doing so I probably overstated the church motivation, which is what Roger picked up.
I think the reality is that a few are motivated by the church, a few are motivated by ringing, and quite a lot ring mainl,ly out of a combination of habit, social factors, etc, though I can't put figures on the proportions.
Any clearer?

That's an interesting analysis . My comment was based on a general impression rather than hard data. However I do know that in 2024 50% of our branch members never attend any of the 50 or so practices that we ran (elementary, imtermediate, advanced, Saturday, weekday afternoon) and in 2017 30% of members hardly ever rang at all (in their own towers).

It would be interesting to know how other areas break down motivational aspects (though Roger's categories aren't quite how I would break down ringers round here).

I think Roger might be over estimating the degree of attachment to service ringing. It is what we have all grown up with as the dominant form of performance, so we accept it as normal, but that doesn't mean they identify with it. I took a straw poll of what ringers would do if ringing at their church ceased and the options available were: (a) ring at a secular tower, (b) travel some distance to a church with service ringing or (c) give up•. Of the 30 people who replied 80% said they would ring at a secular tower rather than travel to find service ringing.
On a tangential point - while service ringing is indeed a Victorian invention Ellacombe's early writing when he was formulating his ideas in Bittern in the 1820s suggest that he didn't want ringing for services (hence the eponymous apparatus). He encouraged his ringers to practise twice a week and to attend services but I don't thionk they rang for them. I think it was later, probably with the influence of the Oxford Movement, that service ringing was being promoted. It's in the rules of the GDR, which Ellecombe founded, but that was 50 years later, and it could well have been the other, younger reformers who introduced the idea.

The assumption that only a tiny majority of older ringers want to ring methods — John de Overa

I’m not sure that age is the defining factor driving ambition. In my experience adult learners in general think more about all aspects of their ringing, including progress, than youngsters do. I suspect aspirations are influenced as much or more by the environment into which they are recruited.

too much concentration on "You are learning Method X" rather than "You are learning how to learn and ring methods" — John de Overa

Yes, I’m sure that is very true. And not just for moving on to advanced methods. Right at the start lots of explanation is missed out.
People argue heatedly over whether you shout tell learners the bells to follow or the places to ring in, but how many are never told that they have to change the speed at which they ring when hunting?
And when moving on to Plain Bob how many do not have it explained that the work happens when the Treble leads, and that dodges are backward steps in hunting?
The New Ringer’s Book has 25 pages on how to ring changes and actual methods appear quite near the end of them.

Even if people like that are in a minority, their existence is a sign of failure. — John de Overa

I don’t disagree, but my comment was in the context of how many of thee ringing community of practice would care about, and therefore support registration of, ringing as cultural heritage.

I don't see anything in there that requires being a teenager? — John de Overa

I didn’t say there was. It just happened to be an example where I knew, from both the inside and outside, of someone who was doing a lot to progress both self and others while being completely unaware of, and never thinking about, the heritage of ringing.

What proportion of them are doing that because they've been repeatedly told that's all they are good for and have restricted their horizons accordingly? — John de Overa

Very few I suspect. For most I think it's more likely a combination of not being given the vision of what ringing could be, not being taught and developed well enough to get to the point where they could realise it for themselves, and absorbing the culture of the band into which they were recruited.
But whatever the cause, I was merely stating (what I believe) the numbers are.

Except that's not preserving anything, it's choosing to let the heritage die out with them. — John de Overa

I don't think that's true. By 'doing it' I didn't just mean experienced ringers who ring by themselves, I meant the activists who as well as doing a lot of ringing also do teaching and development of other ringers, but do so 'in the present'.
That described me n my teens. I rang several nights a week, cycled miles at weekends to ringing, taught lots of other youngsters to ring and we developed a moribund tower to become leading QP tower in the county. But I didn't think about heritage or the future, I was just in the present, but the opposite of letting ringing die out while we were there.

Our ’community of practice' probably has a very narrow view of our heritage. How far do we go back? — Roger Booth

Our community of practice is numerically dominated by people whose interest is less in the art of ringing and more on doing somethinmg for their church on Sunday morning. And among those who are focused on the art of ringiing, many just want to get on with 'doing', so their view of preserving the heritage would be to ensure that others like them can carry on 'doing'.
While I agree with Roger that we need to understand the history of ringing (and making the case for conservation will include describing it) we can only preserve practice3 that exists now. We can't preserve things that have already died out.

We are the custodians of a very rich intangible heritage, firmly embedded in aspects of British culture and the historic soundscape, with wide public appeal. We need to celebrate that far more than we do. — Roger Booth

What's embedded is the result - the soundscape - but the culture that creates it is not. That's the problem. We do need to celebrate it more, and do so public;y if we want to turn ringing from a shrinking niche activity into a sustaibable mainstream one.

On the subject of community support I read that as the wider community, so for example statements of support from various church and conservation bodies, and even statements from local communicties in support of 'their' bells. — Tina

That's not what the guidance says. It refers to 'communities of practice'. The wording is:
"Living heritage should be recognised as such by the communities, groups or individuals that create, maintain and transmit it. It is therefore important that the element is being put forward by or on behalf of the community of practice and that the community has given its free, prior and informed consent for the living heritage to be submitted."
So they are not saying 'Do you have a willing audience'. After all not all cultural heritage is performance based, for example the craft of making bellropes by hand. I interpret it to mean 'do the majority of those involved with doing it want it recognised'.

The initiative is about safeguarding cukltural heritage, whach means ensuring it will still be carried on, so it is reasonable to look for support from a community of practitioners rather than a few individuals. (Unless there are only a few practitioners left, in whiuch case it really is endangered.)