Discussing changing use of churches, intangible cultural heritage, marketing campaigns and writing. 

I finally got round to reading an extremely interesting publication on English parish churches by Trevor Cooper:Caring for English churches and chapels: the long view

The long view is a 200-year survey of some of the economic and social trends that got parish churches to where they are today.  Two things really stood out. One was that a certain amount of competitive capitalism (my words not his) meant that many parish churches were far too large for the communities that were meant to support them.  The other was that many of these were Victorian establishments, which are reaching the point where they need not just maintenance but serious repair.  Take this with some natural movement of population and a ‘lost generation’ of church attenders and we can see the type of perfect storm we are facing.

I say ‘we’ because the churches’ problems are our problem too (I use the lower case because more organisations than the Church of England are affected).    One of the key events of the Central Council weekend was the presentation on Changing Churches by Simon Linford and Alison Hodge.  This piece of work, if you haven’t heard of it yet, was a thorough piece of research on the trends and pace of church closures across the UK (this doesn’t have the same impact in other countries).

Part of the presentation featured work by the Lincoln Diocesan Guild, who have gathered information on the churches with bells in their diocese and evaluated the likelihood of closure for all of them.  As well as that and research in other parts of the country, there was useful guidance on how to recognise a church in danger of closure, and some good advice on what we can do to salvage the bells, or even help keep a church open.

This is a body of knowledge we need to continue to build, and that includes associations knowing, as the Lincoln DG knows, where their risks are.  Several associations have already taken action with their Bell Restoration Funds, so grants are not given to projects where the building is at risk of closure within the next five years.

If you haven’t seen it or heard about it yet, the presentation slides are on the Central Council website here: Ringing 2030 – Bells in Changing Churches Sunday 8th Sept

There has also been announced that a major Heritage Lottery Fund grant – about 5 million over 5 years – has been awarded to the Church of England for church fabric repairs relating to the conversation of an object, or for training in specialist crafts and trades to support this. This is part of a wider strategic initiative by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support places of worship:  https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/funding/strategic-initiatives.  Find out if your church is making an application, and if adding something about bells would improve their chances.

The bells are important, but so are the people who ring them.  A ringer asked me last month about progress on getting bellringing listed as an Intangible Cultural Heritage. I had to reply that the matter is out of our hands at the moment.  The UK Government has still to sign up to the programme and are still working through the initial consultation about how to go about it.

I don’t think that anyone is in any doubt about the visibility such a status would bring to bellringing, even if it didn’t bring in any automatic funding.  This would be something that recognises the activity of ringing rather than just the instruments.

Again, however, not all is gloomy.  One of the pillars of Ringing 2030 is raising greater awareness of ringing through better marketing.  Ultimately we want more ringers, but raising awareness of ringing, getting it out there into people’s line of sight, all of this gives us influence and makes us harder to ignore.

So I was pleased that one of my better meetings this month was putting together some plans for a collaborative and targeted marketing campaign in a single location.  This is a good way to put our new marketing material to use, to build up our network of ringing hubs and centres, and to apply this to local requirements and opportunities.    We will also learn how to do this together, which is important.

Another good meeting was with representatives from university societies, where we covered the impact of the recent change in Council affiliation fees, the very varied ways in which these societies fund their activities, and what kind of support would be helpful to them.  Some interesting topics were about keeping student societies informed of what resources were available, and how to present it, as these groups have a lot of turnover. A lot of university groups are still struggling to reach sustainable numbers and maybe there are ways to help get them information and support.  We are planning another meeting to touch base again in the new year.

Most of the workgroups have been giving some thought as to how to better communicate the work they are doing. And on this note is my volunteer call of the month – which is for some help with website content.  Maybe you are or want to be a content designer or a copywriter.  However, I’m interested in anyone who has a love of ringing and a love of writing about it for a short, focused project.  Contact me at