Ringing Census – 16th-22nd November 2026
In support of Ringing2030, especially the intention to be recruiting significant numbers of new younger recruits, we want to undertake a new census to give us a current view of ringing. In short, we need to know how many ringers we have and a bit about what they are doing and how they feel about it.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. There were efforts to put together a Ringing Survey at the start of Ringing 2030, and a pilot was run with very interesting data. This is an effort to revive this on an international scale.
However, this isn’t just waking up that Survey. For the past few months a small team have been looking at past surveys, what worked well and what didn’t, including the rich data gathered by the Ringing Trends Committee, and have designed a fully digital census that is repeatable, allowing us to continue to benchmark ringing activity.
Much like the 1988 ringing survey, the 2026 Census will happen over the course of one week, and will ask ringers to describe their ringing activities in that week. Participation in the survey is entirely voluntary; however, the more ringers who participate, the more accurate will be our count.
Find out more about the census design.
How you can help
To do the thing properly, we need a team of helpers, in particular a group of volunteer Enumerators who will help us ensure we have good coverage.
Enumerators will play a critical role in ensuring the accuracy and credibility of the 2026 Bellringing Census. The census relies not only on voluntary responses, but also on targeted follow-up to ensure that a representative cross-section of towers is included — particularly those less likely to respond independently.
The committment is for November, and in particular the survey week. In addition there will be some time late summer or early autumn for training and coordination.
We also welcome more data analysts or data scientists to get involved with either the survey design, the subsequent analysis, or both!
Finally, one or two people who can help us to craft the data processing, protection and retention governance, so that we can ensure fairness and privacy.
If you are interested in helping, please fill in the early response form here: