Greetings from Iceland! No relevant bell related stories from up here, other than a lovely information board in the Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavik about two new bells being cast to go in a rebuilt church on the tiny island of Grimsey which, given they are going 25 miles off the north coast must be some of the most northerly bells in the world (a quick google search did not dispute that).
Greatest excitement of the last couple of weeks has been seeing the first cut of George Perrin’s film to promote ringing. A group of us watched the eight minute version (there will be two much shorter social media friendly versions too) and it was difficult not to spend the whole time smiling. Filmed at a number of different towers around the country, it has a good range of people speaking about ringing, and seems to get across all the things we hope will interest and excite potential recruits. Of course, we see it through the lens of the existing ringer and we need the views of some non-ringers, but it is very good work in progress.
The experience of teaching my tower’s half a dozen learners shows the range of people who may be attracted to ringing. Mary (not her real name), has got to the time of her life when she wants to try something for her own enjoyment, has always loved the sound of church bells and wanted to learn, is not religious but feels some sort of spiritual draw to the bells. “I can’t imagine my life without bell ringing now”.
I have seen a couple more good uses of QR codes in ringing contexts. You may remember the Truro Guild’s initiative of putting QR codes in all church porches which bring up a recording of the bells from that tower. On a recent visit to St Mary’s Cheltenham, I saw a notice with QR codes for six different levels of tower donation. I would have taken a picture but it was about to charge me a total of £32.50. Now the SMWG has produced QR codes for their various online publications, which can go on tower notice boards and link to the eBooks.
The North West course needs more helpers. Short but sweet – can’t dress this one up much more other than to say I think it’s a great feature of ringing that people go on residential courses year in year out not because they want to learn but because they want to help, and get pleasure from doing so. There are loads of extra curricular activities to enjoy as well as just helping your group. So if you fancy a weekend away seeing people making progress with their ringing, making new friends, then the NW course team would love to hear from you.
A day trip to London for the Heritage Religious Buildings Alliance conference was a good way of seeing most of our external stakeholder contacts at the same time; Historic England, Churches Conservation Trust, Church Buildings Council, Church of England. One speaker was Bishop Andrew Rumsey, the joint Lead Bishop on church buildings who is keenly interested in the future of church buildings and saving them from closure. He outlined an idea for a new status of church that sees them dormant for a period – a status in between the current black and white options of live and closed. He thought that in the long life of a church, 5 or 10 years of inactivity should not be unmanageable. “Our heritage churches are signposts to a kingdom that is yet to come”.
There were interesting statistics from the Church in Wales, which has lost 10% of its churches in the last 20 years but is expecting to lose the next 10% in half that time. The CC is going to be developing guidance on how we and other stakeholders deal with bells in closing or repurposed church buildings, an area in which we are currently very grateful for the work of the Keltek Trust.
We continue to prepare for the Council weekend in Ipswich, and in preparing the meeting papers Secretary Ernie has got together the membership returns from all affiliated societies. After knocking out an educated guess for duplicate memberships, the total number of ringers represented is about 32,000, 2% down on last year on a similarly adjusted basis. I expect there are more ringers in that 32,000 who are inactive than there are ringers who are not in that 32,000, which would bring us down around 30,000?
It was about four years ago that I had a call from Phil Barnes, asking me if I would be prepared to be Central Council President. After many years of sterling service to the Council, Phil has announced that he is going to stand down as a Trustee at the AGM which will leave a vacancy, and of course an opportunity for someone wanting to get more involved in shaping and delivering the Council’s work. You don’t need to be a Rep, you do not need to have been involved before – I wasn’t.
After the success of the National Call Change Competition last month, the date has been set for the next one which will hopefully be in Bristol on the first Saturday in June next year. The website has been updated for the results of this year and will have details of the next event as soon as the tower is finalised. We might even break with tradition and have a different test piece…
Finally good luck to all the young ringers travelling to York for the Ringing World National Youth Contest this weekend. It promises to be a wonderful experience on top of the challenge of the competition itself. As a team leader, seeing all the information flowing from the organisers makes you realise what a logistical challenge organising this competition is, so good luck to the organising team as well.
Simo Linfordsson
President CCCBR