Ringing Forums

we too run tower tours, both small groups and open days like last weekend when we had well over 100 visitors. But the original question was what is more successful at raising awareness. I don’t know whether an open day is more or less successful doing that than for example the series of half a dozen whole page articles I wrote for the local paper a few years ago, or the hundreds of school cildren i give assembly talks to, or the dozens of articles on many different aspects of ringing in the parish magazine, or the talks i have given to lots of community groups.
I have no way of measuring which of the have the greatest impact. In some cases I know the number of participants but not others, but impact is about more than just being present.

the majority have ringing parents — Simon Linford

Yes, but in the case here he didn't start long after his mother, rapidly overtook her and now helps to support her.

I suspect manny of those who attend the ARA are already doing their bit for others down the ladder. The one of our ringers who attended certainly is, including being Depety Branch Ringing Master.

a large bell-sized trapdoor in the ringing room ceiling, forming the floor of the clock chamber. For many years this was lifted and rotated a few degrees creating wedge-shaped holes in the corners, sufficient to aid ventilation but much too small to be a hazard — Peter Sotheran

Sounds like a trip hazard. And if the holesIf the hole is too small for a foot to catch in I doubt they do a lot for ventilation.

after Covid we had plans (and in fact still do but on ice) to install a fan in the ringing room ceiling, ie in the clock room floor, to draw air up through thee ringing room. To avoid it going Barack downs thee rope holes wwe were going to feed it via a flexible duct to the clock room window. It got as far as flows rated calculations, fan selection and outline design but didn’t get progressed when the urgency passed.
Our concern was to increase the air changed rate to avoid build up of anything harmful. Heat wasn’t an issue since we already have air conditioning.

We have a trap-door style entrance which has to be closed during ringing — Phil Burton

I once rang at a tower where they put a grid in the trapdoor while ringing, strong enough to stand on.

business cards with its URL ... in their wallet, ready for interested non-ringers wherever they come from ( — Susan Hall

I introduced them for our tower over a decade ago, and I've given them to all manner of people I've met on my travels because although it's our tower website much of the content is generic and aimed at non-ringers, including someone who walked into a tower while we were ringing near Birmingham a few days ago. I'm not sure how many of the rest of the band use them though.
BTW did you know they are called Push Cards? I discovered that when I was sponsor for the Reading University post grad branding project.

Lots of good ideas there, but my reaction was the same as when I first read it. So many bullet points can be overwhelming.
I wonder whether it’s the ‘what to do’ that holds most people back or the lack of a passion to engage with non ringers.
You have that passion and it shows in many of the things you’ve done, but a lot of ringers don’t seem to. Mostly it is passive lack of interest but I’ve been in meetings where people have vehemently said there is no point investing in PR that doesn’t get (immediate) recruits. It’s a transactional mindset that wants to take recruits from the community but is unwilling to engage with the majority who will not become ringers.

is it simply that she can't ring slow backstrokes? — Phil Gay

The inability to ring backstrokes at the required speed is something I see a lot, both hunting up and hunting down. To a degree it is masked by extra effort at handstroke but it is there. I hunting on 5, which is where many people start, the fact that the backstroke in 5ths isn't followed by such an extra effort to get into 6ths the following handstroke is why it shows up so badly. In effect the upward effort ended in 4ths place.
I believe there are two causes, one mental and one physical.
Mentally people tend to think about 'when to pull' more at handstroke, whereas the backstroke 'just happens'.
Physically to change the default speed at backstroke (ie the speed the body/bell will ring with no conscious effort) you have to move hands up or down the rope, and learners tend to cling on (to mthe same spot) for fear of letting go, whereas at handstroke each stroke is a fresh grip on the rope, and where the hand lands is influenced by the urgency or otherwise of thet arms' upward movement, which automatically varies between trying to ring faster or slower.

I think that is a separate debate, whether ringers should pay for the use of equipment or whether they should expect it quid pro quo for ringing for services.
But in the context of this discussion that is still paying for bells rather than paying for the provision of services.

If we all charged for teaching the bell funds would have way too much money in them — Lucy Chandhial

That assume that the only place money can go is a bell fund. Would the same logic apply to say piano teachers? Would we say they shouldn’t be paid because piano funds don need the money?

The challenge is how to get there starting from the current situation where everything is free — Nick Elks

Quite!

I am still happy to give my time and knowledge FOC — Phillip George

So am I, and so are many others. But if we limit ourselves to those who have both spare time and the inclination, as well as the relevant skills then we seriously limit the availableinstructor time. Lots of people do not have spare time, or do not have as much of it as could be used.

Better involve a website techy also — Bob Blanden

Decide what you want first. Words and pictures aren’t high tech.

even if it could be retrieved and made available. — A M Hodge

That would be easy. If the pages were moved out of the ‘archive’ directory to their original location then the links woukd automatically work again.

I am also surprised that nothing has been produced by the CCCBR since the 1990s. — A M Hodge

That’s not true. I don’t have a copy of the 1990s publication, so can’t directly compare them, but the online resource produced by the PR Committee in 2012 was definitely advice. It would still be available had the latest revamp of the website not thrown away so much content.
The pages are still on the archive site, but not really usable because as I explained the links were broken by the move.
For anyone interested, the move added ‘archive.’ before ‘cccbr’ in their URL but the links embedded in the still refer to ‘cccbr …’.
(And for anyone who wonders why the site used absolute links rather than relative links, which wouldn’t break - I can’t understand why they did that either.)
See: https://archive.cccbr.org.uk/services/pr/advice/

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

It doesn’t seem to be available any longer — Bob 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.

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 only — Peter 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.

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.