Ringing Forums

James Joynson? https://www.joynsonmodelbells.co.uk/

All I said was that it takes longer, which it does. I am currently teaching people across approximately a 55 year age range, creating opportunities for all of them and spending a very great amount of time doing it. There are challenges at both ends of the scale and they are different. At the moment I have five learners at my home tower all of whom are in their 50s and 60s (I need to be careful) and they have just started method ringing with great enthusiasm. Will they get to Cambridge? I don't know - some of them would certainly hope so. On the other hand, the young Brumdingers rang a course of cambridge minor last week with two 10 year olds in the band. The older learners are coming ringing four times a week and are highly valued. The younger ones' commitment is varied and they are no less valuable.

Would you say it's almost impossible to teach a new band from scratch and expect them to be a method ringing band without considerable ongoing support? I think so, especially given that teaching entire bands from scratch tends to be older learners, who tend to take more effort to get into method ringing. I am not meaning that in a disparaging way - it's just the way it is. But on the other hand I don't think that matters because method ringing doesn't have to be the target. I have often said that good call change ringing should be the target of any inexperienced band, and getting there can be perfectly fulfilling.

The only time I have been involved in teaching a new band from scratch, the difficulty we had was getting out of being in charge - finding a way to either find a new tower captain or stick with it long enough for one to emerge. I remember sitting in the pub one evening with Tony Daw after a practice of a band we were teaching between us and him saying "what's our exit plan from this?" In case you get the impression that everything in Birmingham is marvellous, ultimately we did not succeed. We did persuade someone else to be in charge, but it only lasted a couple more years and the band gradually dissolved.

Two weeks ago I set a homework task for one of my local ringers (recently graduated, computer science - just to give some context). I told her to come back next week with a touch of spliced minor, using at least four out of Plain Little Cambridge, Norwich and London, with three courses and no more than 11 leads. No more information.

The first thing I heard her asking someone else was "what's a course?"

The point is though that I am not sure this sort of stuff is explained anywhere other than by asking someone else, which I was expecting her to do. I reckoned she would be able to do it and would learn a lot from just being set the task. Which she did.

I had a bit of a relevation though on the way to last year's Central Council meeting, when I gave a lift to Simon Percy and Jayden Milby - both young reps. Over the course of a couple of hours, Simon gave Jayden a lesson in composing using Complib. I had no idea that Complib had the functionality he demonstrated.

I suppose this is not teaching how to compose as such, but was teaching how to use a tool which helps you to compose.

"A festival without bells is like a house without bread"

The Italians do seem to have created a stronger bond between their communities and their bells/bellringers than we have.

Interesting - I have never thought of my own bodyweight in cwt! (1.5 cwt)

Bouncing heavy bells off is relatively standard practice, and on occasion I have actually taught people how to do it. I have never heard of a stay being damaged as a result. To insist on a heavy bell being pulled off without bouncing would go against any principle of inclusivity if it prevented people from ringing heavier bells.

It's interesting in that the focus of the project is to get out into schools and other places where young people and families are and attract them to the church, which is exactly what we want to do in ringing!

and it incudes the following:

"How do we know the congregation is there in church representing us? Our bell ringers tell us, faithfully ringing before Sunday services and for special occasions. They know themselves to be part of the Anglican Church in Cornwall and as churches fail, you our bishop, and your diocesan team soon to be enlarged by more cleric administrators, are preparing to throw them out with the baby and the bathwater."

When various of us with CC hats on looked at this a couple of years ago it was a non-starter because the UK had not signed the UNESCO treaty, despite some things elsewhere in Europe that looked far less deserving having such status. We also questioned whether it would actually make any difference at all. Looks like we're going to sign it now though.

Very good analysis. In another forum you regularly get ringers looking at big chunky towers and saying "we could get a ring of bells in there" but never the question of whether it's really a good place to put one, i.e. because there would be loads of people wanting to ring because it was a really active church with youth groups etc. There are rings of bells available already which cannot find homes (just ask Dave Kelley at Keltek).

If you talk to some people in the CofE who don't mind speaking their mind you will find sceptism over the longevity of the Festival Church idea. It serves to keep a church open for another few years, but it doesn't make the cost of doing that go away. There still needs to be a PCC responsible for insurance and upkeep of the bells. Bishop of Ramsbury spoke at the last historic buildings conferecne I went to and he said that given the Church has always taken a long term view we should do everything we can do keep churches open as long as possible as things might change.

Which sorts of place are most at risk? Is is small country parishes with disappearing congregations but strong local community support for the building? Or big Victorian piles built in times of urban expansion where there is no real need any more and no one to care?

That is effectively what happened in Spain when paid bellringers demanded more money and churches found it more effective to automate the ringing instead of putting up with bellringers.

In terms of your scenario though, there would probably be a limited number of cases where enough money could be raised to warrant the hassle. The DAC would hopefully object when the faculty was applied for, and I think there would be fairly heavyweight opposition from Historic England. Would any bellhanger dare to take on the work?

Perhaps the CCCBR could organise a new bell ringing centre in Wigan so that bell ringers own the bells they ring. In that case, some-one is going to need deep pockets. — Alan C

Wouldn’t it be for the Lancashire Association to do that? Needless to say, it’s a good point that bellringing is increasingly going to need to invest in its own infrastructure.

The Keltek Trust and bellringers are experienced in rehoming smaller rings of bells - there are probably lots of potential homes for a 10cwt ring of eight for instance, or a nice light six, but faced with the need to rehome a 30cwt ring of ten what would we do? Something outside the UK?

If bellringing was regarded as one overall 'heritage asset', made up of the ringing infrastructure and the ringers, and you were in control of all of it (in particularly you owned all the bells), you'd definitely get rid of the bells that are no good and never get used and sell them to raise money to invest in your places which have the capability of supporting ringing. It's a bit like pruning a rose I suppose.

As ringers we never seem to want to give up on a ring of bells or think they're beyond hope. The argument is that someone might restore the bells, a band might be taught, the congregation might just double, etc. There are instances of this happening which perpetuate the argument, but not many really.

I discussed this with Diana Evan who is Historic England's lead on church and cathedrai buildings and she got it completely. She thought it was probably something that could only be done on a Diocese by Diocese basis.

Another consideration though is what old bells are really worth as I understand from those who know more about bell founding than be that many older bells aren't made of particularly good metal, so would be quite difficult to scrap. By the time you've got the bells out safely, and compensated the donor church, it might have been worth the effort.

I thought I saw a figure of £3,000+ somewhere?

Now that I am not president of the central council I can say things which I might not have been able to say before in case they were viewed as in some way being official policy!

I have thought for a long time, that in order to keep ringing going it will need to be done in fewer places, but those places need to be conducive to wanting to learn and ring. The point Robin Shipp makes:

f the ringing room is damp and grubby, with fly-blown out-of-date notices, then people won't be inspired to take up ringing as a hobby; ditto if the ringers are set in their ways and not welcoming of newcomers, and so on. — Robin Shipp

That is why in the CC's new three pillars strategy there is a lot of emphasis on making sure environments are good. If we sell ringing as something great to do and the recruit turns up to their first lesson at the sort of place described by Robin, we will quickly extinguish that enthusiasm. That might mean focusing resources on places that are going to succeed at the expense of others.

That sounds harsh of course, and some will feel we must never give up on a tower, but we need to be realistic. I bet there's £10m of bell metal in towers in the UK that is probably never going to ring again - wouldn't it be amazing if we could somehow spend that on the towers that could thrive!

I had a conversation a few years ago with the Chief executive of the Churches Conservation Trust about one particular heavy ring of bells that doesn't get rung much, and I asked him whether he would rather have the scrap value of those bells so that he could spend that money on other towers in his portfolio where he could attract more bellringers and hence visitors to those churches, which is what the CCT is all about. He said it was a no brainer - he'd take the money. Of course there are complex heritage considerations but it was the principle I was establishing - that they would quite happily sacrifice something that was not meeting their needs for something that was.

It's coming. We have a second article in this coming Ringing World and then probably one more and then we'll have more stuff published. The most important stuff is what we commissioned two days ago which is starting the creative process, which we will get to review in a couple of month's time.

A key part of that discussion with yyy is how we want to start using new designs and messages and we said the priority was having outward facing stuff that ringers could start to use for recruiting in the first half of next year. I remembered what you had said about wanting to use it, and having a few campaigns which would test stuff out will be really useful.

So we were talking about the outward facing recruitment website (a bit like what is on bellringing.org), an adaptable powerpoint presentation, banners, posters, leaflets, etc. We will be asking what the most useful things are likely to be so we can prioritise them.

I agree with @Lucy Chandhial that the pathway isn't different, just the amount of time needed. People from time to time in this group and elsewhere suggest that adults can learn as quickly as youngsters but I see no evidence of that at all, except for ringers who have been learning methods, compositions, etc all their lives and are still as good at is now as they were when they were younger.

Example from my own tower - adult, middle aged, been learning Cambridge Minor for more than two years, gets a plain course every week and has only just managed to keep a clean sheet. This person is not stupid, they succeed in life generally, but learning a method and remembering it from week to week just does not come easily. Compare that with the 15 year old who I asked to look at Cambridge Minor at the start of the practice a couple of weeks ago, and rang it that evening. Not faultless, but he put the mistakes down as part of the learning process and erased them such that now he can ring it without a mistake. I am sure the aforementioned adult would have learned it as quickly had he been learning methods when he was 15.

Practicing on a simulator does seem to be part of the answer. I know there's lots the sim doesn't teach you but if it helps to embed that line without the learning process needing other human beings then that's great. Adults generally tend not to like making mistakes in the company of others, while youngsters just see it as part of learning. When my daughter Charlie crashed her way through something a little while back after a sub-optimal amount of homework she just called it 'experiential learning'!