Ringing Forums

I do agree with you that more statistics would be useful.
But I also think we need qualitative research / input as stats like the decline in peal ringing don’t answer the ‘why’ and, as others have considered in past discussions, it might be partly just that people don’t invest three hours of a day in one activity as much as they used to years ago.

I have no problem with encouraging young people to teach but I am wary of the weight of expectation on younger ringers. I know myself (at 50) that people suggest I could take on the roles which people in their 70’s are giving up but there are only so many responsibilities I can take on and for every 70-something wanting to retire from responsibility there is less than one ringer under 50 to take over and we shouldn’t expect every ringer under 50 to be willing to take on responsibilities within ringing because many (like many over 50 ringers) just want it to be a hobby which fits into their wider life.

I fully get that ringing is in a difficult position now, growing ringing at a time when many of the past teachers and helpers are retiring means we left it too late to make it easy. I think that’s why we need ringers of all ages to work together to support good quality recruitment and teaching to give new ringers the best possible opportunity to enjoy ringing and stick with it.

But, yes, more stats would help us understand where we are today and Associations should be talking about and interested in the recruitment patterns and the retention rates within their area as this is essential to the health of the ringing community in the coming years.

I think it is partly simply the demographic of ringing.
Let’s say 10% of ringers are willing to learn to teach and to teach (as a hopeful guess).
This is probably roughly consistent from age 18 to 70 because the general willingness to invest time to support others doesn’t significantly change with age.
If only 10% of ringers are under 30 and another 20% 30-50 (a guess) then a teaching module with ten people learning to teach will only have 1 under 30 and 2 30-50 year olds.
I don’t think there are more people willing to learn to teach in the older age groups as a proportion, just that there are more of them to start with.

A couple of older ringers have told me that they think the origin of today’s problem is the people who learnt in the 1970’s and made little effort to teach or recruit for their whole ringing career.
Now a reduced population of people under 50 is being expected to take more responsibility because otherwise there will be no one left in 20-30 years time.
But the proportion of ringers wiling to make it more than a hobby and to invest time to support others (whether that is teaching, running practices, organising district practices, etc) hasn’t really changed so a few people are being asked to take on everything.
I am wary of expecting more younger ringers to take on more because this could push some of them away from ringing at all. Some people really don’t want additional pressure to take responsibility when they are studying or starting a career or raising a family and some people will never take on responsibility.

I think we can make it easier for those who are willing to take on responsibility by having good structure, like the ART programme does, and be supportive that new leaders will do things their way (within reason) and share positive stories of young people who teach, lead, etc (which we do) but I think piling on the pressure that ‘saving’ bell ringing sits with young ringers is not helpful so there is a careful balance to be managed.

If a survey in 1988 found 20-40 year olds were the most successful tower captains could those 60-80 year olds still be the most successful tower captains? What makes you think it was their age that made them successful rather than something about cultural development in learning to relate to others which helped that generation be better leaders and would continue to be part of their leadership style as they got older?
Just thinking locally about my experience I don’t see an obvious link between age and tower Captain success (if successful means building a band, seeing ringers develop and ringers enjoying the regular practice so continuing as ringers).

Ultimately willing ringers in their 60’s will continue to be very useful in most towers as they are fit to teach, have time they are willing to invest and represent a significant proportion of all bell ringers (whether they learnt in their teens or on retirement).

I’ll see if I can find out who is organising the survey but as far as I know the workgroups are not being asked to give any input. I was part of the pilot for the last survey and gave input before and after that but I don’t know what’s happened since to change it into a census.

This is true.
I think the Census is designed to be a moment in time but until we see the planned questions I don’t know what it will capture.
If it doesn’t cover this kind of capability question then maybe I can address that separately with the R&D workgroup via the Associations later in the year.

My understanding is that the recruitment portal is being set up because ART are focusing on teaching people to teach so whilst they offer a page to help people find a teacher they can’t offer a complete service to find a place to learn to ring everywhere.
Some Association and Guild websites are more accessible than others for someone who knows very little about bellringing but might want to learn so the Portal should help but a lot people do go through a local site from a Google search (or from a social media post, etc).

Hopefully the census (survey) which seems to be planned for November will help us understand the number of towers where no one can teach. Although it looks like it’s focused on individual ringers saying what they have done in a week so it might not capture the teaching gaps.

In the Recruitment and Development workgroup we have focused on sharing ideas / materials / case studies with those who are interested (as individuals rather than Associations) but I get your point that we are not pushing Associations to assess their capabilities or analyse the towers which are at risk of losing their band through inactivity.

I think the CCCBR has learnt from the Ring for the King experience and decided to aim for a steady recruitment drive, locally led rather than event driven. The aim of the new portal is to give people a useful place to land if they Google (or ask Chat GPT, etc) about where they could learn to ring.
It is definitely true that without people willing to teach at a tower the band will not grow. I think most parish bands do know someone from their local Guild or Association who offers some kind of support or advice, even if it’s simply by joining in and ringing with them once a month, but people are unlikely to be pushy about ideas around recruitment and teaching because the time investment means people have to want to take it on.
What would you like the Association / Guild or CCCBR to do differently to encourage or support towers to recruit and teach effectively?

I’m not sure of the exact diagnosis but I know a ringer who also has more than just carpal tunnel syndrome and has been unable to ring for a few months now while following up treatment options. She had tried a little ringing after carpal tunnel treatment and then had problems with cubital tunnel, which is also related to the elbow being bent while the hands are gripping so sounds similar to Lacertus.
If you want to message me with your email address I can pass it on to her so you can compare notes (if you would like to).

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.

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.

Next Ringing Recruitment Network event: Sun 19th July – Catch them young – recruiting new ringers through After School Clubs.

Join us at 8 pm UK time for this open on-line meeting of the Ringing Recruitment Network – anyone with an interest in recruiting new and returning ringers is welcome to attend.

This session will feature a talk from Adam Greenley (Winchester and Portsmouth Diocesan Guild) on recruitment of Young Ringers. The talk will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

Register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/mWk2Jf70QQCNz8AGZ0jpPg (you’ll receive an automated email with the joining instructions)

Sign up for the Ringing Recruitment Network mailing list: https://cccbr.info/recruitmentnetwork

Looking forward to the discussions! If you have suggestions for a speaker or topic, feel free to get in touch (rrratcccbrdotorgdotuk).

On behalf of the CCCBR Recruit, Regain, Retain subgroup of the Ringing 2030 Recruitment & Development workgroup

Next Ringing Recruitment Network event: Sun 19th July – Catch them young – recruiting new ringers through After School Clubs.

Join us at 8 pm UK time for this open on-line meeting of the Ringing Recruitment Network – anyone with an interest in recruiting new and returning ringers is welcome to attend.

This session will feature a talk from Adam Greenley (Winchester and Portsmouth Diocesan Guild) on recruitment of Young Ringers. The talk will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

Register for the event here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/mWk2Jf70QQCNz8AGZ0jpPg (you’ll receive an automated email with the joining instructions)

Sign up for the Ringing Recruitment Network mailing list: https://cccbr.info/recruitmentnetwork

Looking forward to the discussions! If you have suggestions for a speaker or topic, feel free to get in touch (rrratcccbrdotorgdotuk).

On behalf of the CCCBR Recruit, Regain, Retain subgroup of the Ringing 2030 Recruitment & Development workgroup

I agree that there are times when I would like to be able to ‘thumbs up’ a post to show that I agree with their point without having to reply and create a post to say so.
A relatively small number of people in the forum regularly reply to posts and I get that the point is to encourage discussion but enabling people to easily show support for a view expressed or for an idea posted could be helpful.

Yes! In the small world of ringing the General Secretary has asked me (and a couple of others) for some background and as this is a situation I know reasonably well we will see whether it can be resolved.
I have never heard of it being about a local complaint and I think it had more to do with the ringers not being part of the congregation (from my experience with this vicar and a local ringer who wanted to try to get ringing going again) but let’s see whether a two year gap since the last try brings a new opportunity.

Most Associations have someone in an Officer role who can help a tower captain to talk to a vicar about handling noise complaints. It’s useful to have an Officer of the Association to support because that keeps it relatively objective (rather than locally emotional) and demonstrates the level of organisation in ringing which aims to keep bells ringing without unduly upsetting the neighbours. So my first suggestion for your friend would be to talk to a district or Association officer and ask for support to set up a meeting with the vicar to discuss the complaint and the impact on ringing. There are some helpful guidelines on the cccbr website (https://cccbr.org.uk/resources/stewardship-and-management/dealing-with-complaints/ ) which can also help but if the current position is a kind of stand off with a lack of communication then it makes sense to bring in someone more objective if they want to re-open the discussion.

We (Middlesex) moved to MemberMojo three years ago and knew that one risk was that people would not renew when an email is asking them rather than a tower captain that they see face to face. Actually we’ve had very little drop off, at least partly because we had emails for 90% of people so could upload the existing members to start with. We have still encourage tower captains to remind people that it is renewal time and we download a report so each tower contact gets a list of who has renewed in their tower after the deadline but before the last chance for the annual report and that seems to help.
One big decision is whether emails about branch practices, etc are then only sent to members or whether you maintain email lists for interested ringers separately. In Middlesex we chose to keep out Google group for emails about practices, weddings, quarters, etc whilst Surrey chose to only email members. There are pros and cons to both approaches when it comes to creating ringing opportunities for engaged and willing to travel ringers.

They are on the cccbr website, in the briefings tab of the workgroup page: https://cccbr.org.uk/about/workgroups/recruitment-and-development/

Next Ringing Recruitment Network event: Sun 31 May - integrating ringing into the local community

Join us at 8 pm UK time for this open meeting of the Ringing Recruitment Network - anyone with an interest in recruiting new and returning ringers is welcome to attend.
This session will feature a talk from Dave Cropp (Worcester & Districts Guild) on recruitment through integrating ringing into the local community. The talk will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

Register for the event: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_N1WQ9nuT2mss2DCCXoxIg (you'll receive an automated email with the joining instructions)

Sign up for the Ringing Recruitment Network mailing list: https://cccbr.info/recruitmentnetwork

Looking forward to the discussions! If you have suggestions for a speaker or topic, feel free to get in touch (rrratcccbrdotorgdotuk).

Next Ringing Recruitment Network event: Sun 31 May- integrating ringing into the local community

Join us at 8 pm UK time for this open meeting of the Ringing Recruitment Network - anyone with an interest in recruiting new and returning ringers is welcome to attend.
This session will feature a talk from Dave Cropp (Worcester & Districts Guild) on recruitment through integrating ringing into the local community. The talk will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

Register for the event: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/_N1WQ9nuT2mss2DCCXoxIg (you'll receive an automated email with the joining instructions)

Sign up for the Ringing Recruitment Network mailing list: https://cccbr.info/recruitmentnetwork

Looking forward to the discussions! If you have suggestions for a speaker or topic, feel free to get in touch (rrratcccbrdotorgdotuk).

I agree that smaller groups tend to take more active responsibility in making decisions than big groups.
Roger talked about having workshops on a topic instead of business meetings (at Guild level) and this would also, probably, be more productive as a use of face to face time when people have travelled especially.

@Robert Brown - “if you take the cost of sending multiple reps to a meeting which could be done on line and used that money differently you could fund a lot more grass roots activity.”

I think that generally in ringing money is not the issue and what prevents more activity being offered (at any level, grass roots or centrally) is people’s willingness to invest time.
I like that people can now choose to be part of a workgroup and therefore aim to make some impact without needing to also be an elected rep for their Association or Guild but I do also see that this leaves some reps ‘only’ turning up once a year to represent and not actively contributing or questioning what’s being done.
We see that in many areas the enthusiasm of new ringers is being funnelled into activity which helps to grow ringing opportunities for everyone and this is definitely a good model which can support re-vitalisation of ringing but it does depend (usually) on good support and encouragement from more experienced ringers.
I think the big challenge with the demographic change in ringers across the years is the availability of free time and the willingness to invest time in organising ringing opportunities, including supporting less experienced ringers.

There are other threads in ringing forums which have discussed how to create more opportunities, what we learnt from Ring for the King as a big recruitment campaign with insufficient teachers available and much much more but I don’t think the cost of getting to the Central Council weekend is a significant factor in ringing opportunities for local ringers development around the branches and districts of associations and guilds which are affiliated.