We have just come back from a thoroughly enjoyable family trip to the inaugural North West Ringing Course. I taught Advanced Conducting, Eleanor taught Stedman Triples, and Charlie flitted between learner and helper and ringing with the Lancashire Lads and Lasses (3Ls). No doubt there will be a full report in due course so rather than steal anyone’s column inches I’ll just share a few snippets which I hope are interesting.
One evening I came out of my accommodation to find five teenage members of the 3Ls talking enthusiastically to two members of the college staff who were amazed to find that bellringing was what young people did: “when we saw the booking we thought it was going to be a load of old people with handbells”.
Students were surprised that helpers are prepared to pay to help them (true of all residential courses I think). Quite a lot of participants were there because their associations had paid some or all of their costs. The 3Ls were there in force and made huge progress, benefitting from bursaries from the Lancashire Association. So, if your association has funds and doesn’t know how to direct them to ringing training, providing bursaries for ringers to go on residential courses, either as a student or helper, is a good way to go.
It is one of the Council’s Strategic Priorities that “no ringer should meet a barrier to their own progress”. More residential courses is part of that strategy and there is almost certainly room for more. Now that the North West organisation team has created a template, setting up a new course in another region is going to be a bit easier. Thanks team!
I have an idea of a scoresheet for all the things you might see in a really well appointed ringing room, with negatives for the things that will put people off (5 points for a whiteboard with methods written on, or for a copy of this week’s Ringing World, -5 for out of date notices, -10 for a 50 year old heater, etc) – Kirkham scored very highly with very few demerit points. I particular liked the tower book detailing all ringing, including last Sunday’s: “PH5, 60 on Thirds”. So, although my group was studying Advanced Conducting, five of the students rang 60 on Thirds for the first time. They all really enjoyed it, unsurprisingly delivering the best striking of the day, unencumbered by the challenge of thinking of four different things at once. “Perhaps we shouldn’t put method ringing on a pedestal”, said a youngster.
The Charmborough ring was put to good use on the course and participants were also supportive of the concept of the new Mobile Belfry. I went to see it last week as the structure has been completed and the first bell had been hung for ringing. I will go to Loughborough again this week as progress is quick now. A few donations have come in from towers, with the tower name to go on the donors plaque. I was sent a snippet of one tower’s WhatsApp chat where a suggestion to donate as a band became a whip round and a donation of £25 in a whisker. Could any more bands be persuaded? https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/mobile-belfry
Still on ringing training, the Learning the Ropes Festival takes place this weekend in Norwich and includes a ‘Something Heavy’ workshop to be led by Lesley Boyle. Ringing heavy bells is not often taught so this is a welcome development. It comes at a time when Alison Edmunds is organising a whole weekend of heavy bell ringing training specifically aimed at women (only) who might not otherwise get the opportunity to practice in a supportive environment. At least 18 participants from round the country will be ringing at three heavy 12s including York Minster, and if this pilot is successful it will be turned into a more regular course.
The team working on the ringing branding project has interviewed branding and marketing agencies and settled on one who we believe showed the deepest understanding of what we need to achieve with the branding, positioning and marketing of ringing. All of them recognised that this is a particularly interesting (i.e. difficult) marketing challenge, recognising for instance that not all towers want to attract the same demographic.
It was interesting talking to members of the 3Ls before they were given a lesson in playing pool (sometimes enthusiasm alone is not enough) – they had posted a ringing TikTok video that has had more than 50,000 likes and saw TikTok as the primary marketing channel to their age group. That will not work across the board!
One Diocesan Safeguarding officer showed a particular understanding of the bell ringing psyche when discussing the difficulty some Dioceses are facing with Leadership Training: “….[some Dioceses] will be experiencing particular challenges in encouraging ringers to do this training and which may reflect the type of personality that makes ringers good at ringing.”
As the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham was wrapped up, having provided many ringing opportunities as well as many ringers watching sport, the public focused their attention on the enormous bull which featured in the opening ceremony and which turned out to be made of fibreglass and foam and not Corten steel as it looked, I started wondering whether that big bell at the Olympics was similarly lightweight. Is there really 22 tons of prime bell metal hanging in the Olympic Park doing nothing? I wonder if we could swap that for a fibreglass replica and put the metal to good use!
Finally, if you are looking for your ringers’ Christmas entertainment, or looking for ideas on how to replace someone who has been in post for too long, you might be interested in a murder mystery evening at the Hotel Mercure in Tunbridge Wells “Ding Dong Murder on High”, featuring the bell ringers from fictional Killinton. The website is murder57.com and its on 8th December. https://www.murder57.com/events/detail/ding-dong-murder-on-high-4/2022-12-08
Simon Linford
President CCCBR