Follow along with the bellringer’s version of March Madness, thinking hard about striking, getting grown up about sustainability.

If you play or follow basketball, you will be familiar with March Madness, which is an intensive 3-week elimination tournament for the NCAA Division 1.  That would be college basketball.  There are few other sports where a university level tourney can ecclipse the professional game.  But basketball is one of them.  I have roots in North Carolina, where three teams regularly appear in the Final Four.   

For me, bellringing has its own form of March Madness, which is the consecutive weekends of the ART Conference and the Qualifying heats of the 12-bell competition, bookended by training weekends in Tulloch and another budget-focused executive meeting. Let’s talk about money. 

ART Conference 

You will have read the flying summary of the myriad talks at this year’s ART conference in last week’s Ringing World, and  If I had a complaint, it was about the thought-provoking nature of every talk.  It was a lot to think about and discuss with other people.    There wasn’t a snoozy hour to be had (and certainly not for the organisers).  

A couple of things stood out for me.  One was the interactive talk on volunteering models presented by Lucy Chandial.  She reflected on research across the charitable sector, which shows that volunteers are getting hard to find by everyone.   Almost every ringing association has requirements that cannot be filled, including the Central Council.  From my own research, some organisations are bucking that trend, and they are doing it through a well-organised volunteer program, run by a paid volunteer manager, that offers training and other rewards in exchange for giving time.   

We are a long way from being able to offer that, and I can hear ringers everywhere grumbling that it shouldn’t be necessary, but I’ve looked at some case studies and it is hard to discount the results. 

Another thing was the venue, which was at the University of York, with all the lecture space, breakout rooms and high-tech audio-visual support you might imagine.   Ordinarily use of these types of facilities come with a hefty commercial uplift that is beyond most of our budgets, and ART was incredibly lucky to have them donated for the weekend.   

The difference between listening and striking (aka the 12-bell qualifiers) 

And thus I moved from the lap of academic luxury to the crypt of a church, where I experienced the terror, responsibility and excitement of being a judge.  For the first time.  I will confess that my first instinct when approached, was to think, ‘probably not for me’.  However, my mantra for a few years now has been to say Yes, even if it is scary.  It was totally worth it.   

It also brought home to me how few ringers have the opportunity to regularly experience and participate in good striking.  We have a toolkit for teaching listening skills, but we don’t have a similar toolkit for how to create a rhythm within a band.  We sort of hope people pick it up by ringing with more experienced ringers.  There are plenty of places where that critical mass of experienced ringers doesn’t exist or isn’t available. 

Money Money Money 

Since starting the Ringing 2030 campaign in earnest last year, we have instituted quarterly budget reviews to profile current spend and adjust the budget where necessary.   We also did some reviewing of 5-year spending profiles which workgroup leads are developing, including ambitions of what we could accomplish. 

Developing a recruitment network fronted by an international marketing and recruitment portal is a key plank of the Ringing 2030 strategy.   There are two benefits to bringing this together centrally. 

The first is to take the burden of trying to meet two audiences away from association websites.  Their primary audience is their membership, and efforts to add a line about new ringers is often lost within that wider remit.  With a central marketing portal, we can focus sharply on people who are not or are not yet ringers.   

The second is to establish a more consistent and faster route for potential new ringers.  The Ring for the King campaign starkly outlined the problems with using the traditional ‘cascade’ of communications.  One sent an enquiry into a mailbox and hoped for the best.  The best were associations with a well-organised means of getting a new ringer to a tower quickly.  The less than best were a lack of timely response or direction to ‘check the website’.   

The data for a good network exists, but it needs pulling together and it needs attention and updating.  It needs work to nurture and encourage communication where we know there are gaps.  I met with the recruitment project team, and they are daunted by the scale of the task ahead of them, and hesitant to commit to something which looks unending. 

I don’t blame them.  This is something that needs time and attention for a few hours each week.  For this reason the Executive decided, when setting the 2025 budget, to put paid resource into this project.  We will be looking to hire a part time recruitment administrator to maintain the network and support the development of it.  It won’t replace our volunteers, who have local knowledge and experience.  It will ensure we can maintain and sustain that initiative.   

I would love to be able to fund a Youth Development Officer as well, someone whose role is to develop young ringers networks beyond RWNYC teams, maintain regional hubs and be a point of contact for new university societies.  That is something I could spend another thousand words on, so stay tuned for next month’s blog…..