Comments

  • Ringing Lite?
    The analogies with running and cycling are interesting. They are not necessarily as easy as Simon claims. Not everyone who starts doing parkrun is able to run 5km immediately and some people will spend weeks or months walking, or alternating running and walking, until they can run the full distance. Many people learn to ride a bike as children, and famously they never lose the skill, but I expect that learning to cycle as an adult is more difficult and takes longer.

    I have limited experience of teaching handbells to people who are not tower bell ringers. Tina ran a handbell club at our children's primary school several years ago, and it was quite successful, with most of the children getting to plain hunting on four and then six fairly quickly. The school liked it because it was an after-school activity other than sports, which gets a lot of attention but leaves out children who are not so interested in sports. Unfortunately we didn't get any of them into the tower, partly because Glasgow isn't really suitable for teaching primary children (it's a 32cwt 10 with quite a long draught).

    The question would be, what kind of events do we have where members of the public could be given a go at handbell ringing?