Why Volunteer?
There are lots of ways to get involved with the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers – from activities to recruit and train new ringers to providing technical advice on the maintenance of bells; and liaising with media to promote bell ringing to preserving the history and archives of bell ringing artefacts.
Who can Volunteer?
Anyone! We are always on the lookout for enthusiastic volunteers to be part of our workgroups and to support short term projects.
Have a look at the links below for more information on current projects and who to contact if you want to get involved.
- Making the activities of the Workgroup better known
https://cccbr.org.uk/about/workgroups/stewardship-and-management/
The Workgroup offers a wide range of advice and guidance to ringers, churches and local communities (as indicated on the webpage under the “What we do” link). In particular, we are looking for people with skills and experience to assist with our activities through use of:
*social media
*short videos etc to accompany advice and guidance and….
*organisation of seminars and events
- Financial matters
This will include keeping guidance up to date and providing occasional advice in response to specific enquiries. Experience in any of the following areas would be useful:
* Accounts (particularly of charities and non-companies)
* VAT (particularly the listed places of worship scheme)
* Gift aid
* Fund raising for bell installation and restoration projects
- Installation and maintenance projects
This will include providing advice to ringers, churches and other stakeholders involved in bell installation and restoration projects. Experience in any of the following areas would be useful:
*Bid writing
*Project leadership and management
*Community engagement
*Stakeholder liaison
*Church law, Church of England, faculties etc
*Previous experience of bell installation / restoration projects
(Note that engineering / technical skills may be helpful but are certainly not essential)
- Tower and belfry inspections, installations and maintenance
The Workgroup offers to inspect, provide advice and written reports on bell installations- and maintenance for parishes, towers, guilds / associations / diocese and other interested parties. We now need additional people to provide such advice. These people may choose to be full members of the Workgroup but alternatively, may opt to join a new network of “specialists” able to assist with these “hands on” activities in a specific geographical area.
Current membership is such that we have no people based in Wales, Scotland or Ireland, no one west of Somerset, north of Nottingham or east of a line roughly through Portsmouth, Oxford and Nottingham. We are therefore looking for people particularly in these areas, and who will be willing to visit towers to work with local ringers, diocese / guilds / associations etc.
Experience would probably come from:
*a similar role in their local guild / association area
*an interest in engineering and mechanics
If you are interested in such activities but do not have appropriate experience, then contact us and we will consider how you may be able to gain relevant skills.
Those willing to join the Workgroup (or offer specialist advice on any of our activities on an occasional basis) should contact the Workgroup Leader – Alison Hodge()
- Are you always trying to convince strangers that bell ringing is great fun?
- Have you tried to recruit new ringers from your local pub or social clubs?
- Do you want to unleash your creative side and produce exciting new publicity materials?
- Have you ever fancied writing articles for national publications and newspapers?
- Do you think you could help us get more followers than Justin Bieber?
If you have answered “Yes” or even “Maybe” to any of the above then the Communications and Marketing workgroup would love to hear from you!
The workgroup has a variety of activities to get involved in throughout the year and you can commit as much or as little time as you like.
If you want more information or want to get involved in publicity and events support, contact Louise Nightingale
The Central Council Website is maintained by a small group of volunteers with very big ambitions about where we could take it – and many hands make light work!
- Can you spare a few hours a week to help maintain the website and publish new content?
- Are you a techie with time to spare to help develop our knowledge base, archive and resource catalogue?
If you want to get involved to take our website to the next level get in touch with Louise Nightingale