Being fed and watered (and flowered)

Most of Saturday daytime was taken up by attending the virtual meeting of the Central Council of Church Bellringers Executive and Workgroup leads meeting. Although technically neither of those things, I am generally invited in my role as Public Relations Officer so that I have some idea of what’s going on.

The Exec and I meet once a month (the Exec meet otherwise as Trustees at different times so I’m not party to discussions I shouldn’t be), then once a quarter there’s a larger meeting that includes the Workgroup leads too. Saturday was that day.

On these occasions some element of logistics is required with regard to lunch and other refreshment throughout the day. C and I have it well sorted.

Before the meeting started in the morning I put in my lunch order, as there’s only half an hour break allocated. This time C sourced vegetable samosa, garlic and herb focaccia and a custard doughnut whilst he was in town, from the bread stall in the High Street. The samosa and bread were duly served warmed up at the alloted time.

C had also sourced a poinsettia whilst he was out, which made its way on to the windowsill during the course of the early part of the meeting, before the lunch break.

At lunchtime the afternoon cuppa order was placed and timing agreed. At the alloted time, whilst I was on screen, my mint tea accompanied by a chocolate orange brownie that I’d made yesterday was delivered, in full view of the other participants on the video call.

This prompted 2 participants to message me privately, via the chat function. One simply said “you’re lucky” the other put in their order for “tea with milk and no sugar“.

A little while later the first messager advised that his tea cuppa had now arrived. I replied to say that mine had come with the brownie, which was met with raised eyebrows and mouth gaping, and a tiny spec of jealousy me thinks!

I’m lucky that C helps me facilitate attending these meetings by picking up the domestic slack. Its all in the planning you know.

Remembrance Ringing

#bellringing traditions run deep. From Christmas morning, New Years Eve, weddings, funerals, but especially Remembrance Sunday.

In 2018 I was the project coordinator for the #Ringingremembers campaign, an initiative to recruit at least 1400 new bellringers to symbolically replace those that were lost during WW1, on the 100th anniversaryof the Armistice. The project was a massive success due to the community spirit in wanting a way to remember those who had died, as well as the hard work put in by the #bellringing community, who recruited and taught new ringers in the months leading up to the anniversary. So successful was the campaign that we recruited over double the original target.

Fast forward 2 years and it was a very different story this Remembrance Sunday. Due to lockdown restrictions #bellringing has been severly curtailed since March, and there hasn’t been a full return to ringing since the first lockdown yet.

Therefore #bellringing this Remembrance Sunday featured the lone tolling of one bell to mark the Nation’s tribute to the fallen. For many ringers this has been one of the most painful days of not being able to ring.

What is worrying is that all the efforts put in 2 years plus ago, might be undone, as we’re nowhere near a return yet. And when we do return, how many of our number won’t? Whether age, infirmities or loss of interest, those who can’t or who have found other things take up their time, I’m sure the number of ringers will have diminished.

The Central Council of Church Bellringers is working hard to keep things going and formulating plans for a return to ringing, but there may not be another hook for us to regain a recruitment campaign in quite the same manner.

As with most #bellringing activities the rewards are commensurate with the amount of effort put in. In the coming months and years we are going to need to put in a huge effort to reap the rewards.

Time to get the thinking caps on and start planning.

Optimistic October

Every month I download a copy of the Action for Happiness Calendar. I don’t always do what it suggests but sometimes things are relevant or a good reminder to do something positive. As today is the 1st October, todays new month starts with writing down your most important goals for this month.

OK, where to start….

1. Get new job description – I am aware that a secondment opportunity is in the offing and its something that appeals to me. I know that the JD is being authorised, so the job should be being advertised soon. Need to sharpen up my Expression of Interest notes.

2. Find more ways to spend quality time with C and R – there has been an awful lot of things going on at the moment with work, ringing meetings, talks etc that sometimes it feels that C and I don’t spend any real time being together. Getting to see R now is more difficult too as her working patterns have changed so her days off no longer coincide with mine. I need to give some priority to finding things that we can do together that mean we spend actual time with each other to the exclusion of it being perfunctory, like putting in a new front door. Sure, we will spend time together to do that but it’s a job that needs doing, not something that is necessarily spending quality time together.

3. Focus on some PR activities – as you know I’m the PRO for both my local #bellringing association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers and we need to get some more good news out in the public domain.

4. Bake – I want to carry on with the weekly baking challenge of making something from the collection of magazines that I’ve accumulated.

5. Lose weight – probably counter intuitive given #4, but I really must put more effort into this area instead of just playing at it. My overall health will thank me for it.

There are probably many more smaller ticket things to focus on too, but by spending more time on each of these bigger areas, my whole wellbeing should be much improved and I will feel more resilient and ready to tackle most things.

Knowing your audience

I was assisting on the panel for some interviews for another department and it really interested me how different people respond to the same question.

One of the questions asked the candidates to give an example of how they would modify their communication tactics to fit their audience. This got me thinking about who was the audience, what was their preferred method of receiving communication, what level of detail do they need, or should they need, what information is it I’m trying to share?

I was thinking all this because of the talk I’m giving this evening. The who is my audience is anyone that registered for the talk, so the assumption is that they have an interest in the topic in the first place. What their preferred method of communication, as well as my preferred method of delivery are moot points, as due to gathrring restrictions, it is being delivered by video conference and inevitably includes death by powerpoint. What level of detail do they need? Given that the audience is a mixed bag of individuals, tower, district or association officers it needs to encompass all levels and they’ll just have to pick out the bits that are relevant to what they need. What information am I trying to communicate again, is a broad spectrum across different levels of interest. I’m not pretending to be an expert, I have some knowledge about the subject and have some experience at it. That doesn’t mean that I have all the answers, or that if you follow everything I say, all your worries will be over.

Apparently there are nearly 50 signed up to come and listen to my talk this evening. I hope they find it interesting and informative and some people might learn something new. I’m sure I’ll get some form of feedback afterwards.

Busy week ahead

Monday night is the only evening this week when I haven’t got something in the diary. As well as a full time day job, I have 3 #bellringing meetings on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, one presentation to deliver on Wednesday and 2 RingingRoom sessions on Thursday and Friday. Everything has come at once. Thankfully its not like that every week otherwise my head would explode.

Considering that there’s very little actual ringing being done, there’s still a lot of work to do.

In order to be able to get to a point when ringing can return to anything like it was previously an awful lot of things are bring planned and delivered behind the scenes. Some people are saying “what’s the point if we can’t actually ring?” To me, the point is that if we don’t do all of these things now, there may not be ringing to go back to.

I fear that we will have lost an awful lot of ringers during this hiatus. Some due to age or infirmity but others who were only just setting out on their learning may find other things have tempted them away.

Within our own Association I see that some districts have been really good at getting people together virtually having district quiz nights, even having their scheduled meeting by video conference. Some have even managed to meet up where social distancing can be maintained and before the Rule of Six came in. Others have barely tried. It demonstrates the variety of leadership styles and levels of expectation rather starkly. I’ve done my bit in our district by holding a virtual district practice on the evenings when we would have been holding a proper district practice but attendance hasn’t been overwhelming, but then it never was at the real thing anyway. The district meeting and training day that we should have had didn’t place. There has been no discussion about plans for next year yet.

One of the meetings, on Saturday, is the Association management committee meeting. All districts are required to report on activities since the last meeting and I am looking forward to hearing about what’s been going on in other districts. I’m hoping that there will be some direction on how we should approach next year, particularly with the Annual District Meetings that take place in January and how they can successfully be conducted.

I will keep doing my little bit to keep things going as long as I am able.

Busy doing nothing

Apart from an interview to record in the evening we had nothing planned for Saturday. There was a time when we should have been helping at the District Training Day but with current restrictions, that got cancelled 😞

I demanded that the alarm clock be turned off. I have to get up at 6am for work, so I was going to take this rare opportunity for a lay in. Still wide awake at 6am though. Didn’t get out of bed until nearer 8am but couldn’t get back to sleep properly.

Once up and showered Mr presented me with coffee and a bacon sandwich for breakfast. Blessed. Then I just sat playing games on my tablet until he’d showered and dressed.

We wandered into town for nothing in particular but still managed to spend money on not a lot. I did buy a new pair of work shoes and Mr spotted a poster in the shoe shop of someone bearing the same surname as my family. Random.

Spent the afternoon back home reading and generally not doing much. Mr made dinner and we watched TV for a bit.

I recorded a #bellringing interview later on, then back to the sofa for more of doing nothing in particular.

Part of me thinks that I’ve wasted a day, but then there’s nothing wrong with having some solid “do nothong” time to recharge the old batteries.

Back on it tomorrow.

Give it a go

I hosted our district virtual #bellringing practice last night. It’s tricky in that you’re never sure who is going to turn up and what their ability is. There are some who positively indicate they’re coming then don’t turn up and those who don’t indicate they’re coming and do turn up. We ended up with 8 ringers, we did have 9 but she had internet issues so logged off.

One lady was new to us, we’d not seen her before or knew where she was from but we made her very welcome. We enquired where she rang and what sort of thing she was capable of. That really is one of the best things about #bellringing, you can pretty much pitch up anywhere and join in and are generally made welcome.

This particular lady said that she could ring plain hunt doubles, one of the first more complex things that you start to learn, it forms the basis of everything to come as you progress through more complex stuff. I assigned her to one of the bells and other ringers around her and off they went. She rang really well. To be honest I was pleasantly surprised.

With other people we rang a range of different things, some with greater success than others, but some of that was technical issues. Then I asked this lady if she’d ever tried plain hunt minor, the next step up from what she’d rung earlier. She said she’d never rung it before but recited the pattern perfectly using places rather than what number bell to follow. I assigned her to a bell and the rest of the band and she proceeded to ring it flawlessly. She said it was genuinely her first attempt at it. We rang some other things then I suggested she had another go at it from a different starting position. Again, she rang it brilliantly. I think she was also very pleased to have done it too.

To join in with a different group of ringers you don’t know takes some guts, especially as a relative learner. To then ring something you’ve never rung before as well was just fantastic. I do hope that she feels able to join us again on the next virtual practice. I think she could gain a lot from ringing with others apart from her own band.

Seasonal change

The colour of leaves is changing, the morning’s are noticably darker longer and the night draws in earlier. We are half way through September, when autumn starts.

Its that time of year when you’re never quite sure whether you’ll need a jumper, or to take an umbrella 🌂 and what shoes to wear. Its the symbolic end to summer hedonism, even if there’s still the odd really hot and sunny 🌞 day.

I love autumn above any of the other seasons. I love the colours of leaves as they turn from green to red, orange and brown. The fruits and berries on trees and bushes seem more vibrant and remind me of hot puddings with custard. Once the leaves have fallen I love to kick about in them and hear them crunch underfoot. The morning mists and dew that make spiders webs sparkle. The clear night skies when you can see all the stars clearly. I even love rain showers. I love the fact that it heralds cozy nights in, wrapping up warm and drinking more hot chocolate (with cream and marshmallows obviously) than is good for you.

Some see autumn as the prelude to winter when harsher times may be ahead, but I welcome its warmth, colour and contradictions.

I tube, me tube, we all tube on YouTube

One of my volunteering roles is as Public Relations Officer for the Essex Association of Change Ringers and I have been looking at our online presence recently. We have a website https://eacr.org.uk/ a Twitter account, Facebook page and an Instagram profile @essexbells. All of which need some work on to make them better at engaging with our members and our external audiences and stakeholders. The one thing we didn’t have yet was anything on YouTube.

Well that’s all changed now and I’m pleased to announce that the Essex Association’s YouTube channel is now live. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwQcGeDDYSzKVw-m4huwKZw The difficulty being, with no actual ringing meetings, competitions, dinners, socials or other events actually happening, other than online, there’s not a lot to post.

Never fear though. I’ve kicked off with a recorded training module based on the ART and Central Council of Church Bellringers recruitment and retention workshop, and it would be great to get some other training materials posted too.

The other thing I’ve been doing is recording a series of getting to know people interviews with ringers from across the Association. The first one is with the Master and we get to find out a bit more about his work for the Association, his memories of learning to ring and what he gets up to when he’s not ringing. It was really interesting to hear his story and what he enjoys about ringing.

I have 10 other interviews “in the can” ready to upload every couple of weeks or so and a couple more interviews lined up ready to record. I’m looking forward to finding more people to talk to and get their stories.

Its been a great little project to do and I’m not an expert at interviewing, nor at editing, but I think you’ll see over the coming months that my skills have improved a little bit and I am trying to make it look a bit more professional. 😜

I’ve always found it quite sad that although we spend time with people in a ringing room, we know so little about them really. We might get a sense of what they do for work or study and maybe where they may (or may not at the moment) be going for their holidays, but other than that, we probably don’t delve too deeply.

One of my interviewees flies light aircraft, another ski’s regularly, another has spent time with tribes people in Africa and another makes acrylic art. Everyone has something interesting about them and I hope that this series allows others to find that out and sparks different conversations and maybe inspire people to try something different.

Its good to talk 🗣

Learning from experience

On Wednesday evening a select few of us gathered on a video conference as a dress rehearsal for our #bellringing Association AGM which takes place on Saturday, again by video conference. The event is being hosted as a webinar so that only the active participants are visible but other means are available for members to be able to communicate. Having had the experience of a similar event the weekend before I was able to suggest some changes to our plans to avoid any pitfall this time around. Learning from that previous experience will hopefully mean it all goes smoothly.

Early(ish) Friday morning a different select few gathered on the virtual #bellringing platform and video conference to try to ring a quarter peal of Cambridge Surprise Minor. The ringing itself was rather good, very few hesitations. However the technology wasn’t going to play nicely. Before we’d barely started the conductor’s internet had thrown him out and he had to log back on. That happened twice. Things then went along reasonably well until everything just froze. None of the bells rang and the video conference just hung for a few seconds before springing back to life. By then of course it was too late and we had to stop. However, attempting these longer lengths of ringing really does help cement the method into your brain, so if nothing else, we’re a bit more experienced now.

Then, as I mentioned yesterday, I was going to bake some biscuits from a magazine that I’ve had kicking around for yonks. The pic above is the result.

Making the biscuits was simple enough and being the piggies that we are I doubled the qualities. Then came making royal icing from scratch. Something I’d never done before. Well, I got in a right mess. Icing sugar all over place, then the mixture was too stiff for the runouts so improvised which meant that you could no longer see the outline definition. In the end I just chucked it on, added a few sprinkly bits et voila! Something vaguely resembling royal iced butterfly biscuits. At least they’re edible. I learned something new. I also learned that I’m not going to make royal icing from scratch again. I’m sure you must be able to buy it ready made in a tub!