What no bells?

Although there has been no group #bellringing for such a long time now C and I have been going to the Cathedral and ringing two bells just to keep things going.

This week however we are away visiting E&M so not able to go to ring. In ordinary times we would go with E&M to their tower to ring on Sunday bit as they’re not back ringing yet either, we had the morning off.

An odd feeling to not go ringing but after yesterday’s marathon walk around Hardwick Hall we were all exhausted and enjoyed a couple of extra hours sleep.

I am looking forward to returning to the Cathedral next weekend when we will have a couple of extra of ringers for the first time in many, many months. The rules still only allow six people with social distancing, masks and good ventilation but it will be fantastic to hear more than ding and dong and try real ringing methods.

As we head into June and the possibility of no restrictions after the 21st (fingers tightly crossed) we may also be able to start practices again. I know many towers already have but because we are very reliant on people from other towers supporting our practice we’ve decided to hold off for a while.

It will be interesting to see and hear how we get on when trying to raise and ring the heavy bells for the first time in 16 months. Managing people’s expectations of what they could and should ring might be a challenge.

From what I’ve read on social media from other towers it seems that there has been a positive community reaction to bells being rung again but then I upoose no one is going to share any negative responses they’ve had.

I always share details of what ringing we are planning and what we’ve done on our Twitter account and tag local radio, the diocrsan office, the cathedral, local city sites as well. Some are really positive and like and share our posts which is lovely.

I want to build a closer relationship with the cathedral and diocesan offices and local community sites so that they start to fully consider the advantages that bellringers bring to church and community.

I’ve already had conversations with the cathedral office about a diocesan wide ring to mark the enthronement of our new Diocesan Bishop later on in the year and look forward to some closer links.

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!

Be happy

There’s so much clap trap out there about how we must be joyful and have happy and meaningful lives. There are courses designed to help you find your inner happiness and top tips on the best ways to find joy in every day life. Type “finding joy in life” into Google and it offers you at least 259,000,000 results. But what happens if you don’t know what makes you happy?

I’ve been told before that I must LOVE #bellringing because I do it all the time and I get involved with the organisation and running of things, and if I’m not actually ringing I’m at a meeting about ringing, or writing a report or article about ringing. So I must love it right, to be investing so much of my time and energy into it?

I like ringing, for sure. I like the challenge of making a bell ring in the right place and learning complex methods. I like the social aspect of meeting new people, or even the same people each week. I sometimes like the challenge of writing an article or report, and even sometimes attending meetings can be entertaining. I like listening to a good piece of ringing (and have judged my fair share of competitions). I have lots of books about ringing. I play at least twice most weeks on a virtual #bellringing platform with different groups if people. I follow lots of different people and towers and associations and the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers on social media. I enjoy a good ringers tea, or apres ringing pub session. I’ve gone on ringing holidays, I’ve travelled overseas and been ringing, I’ve travelled around the UK to ring in peals or quarters. I used to organise the Essex Ringing Course, I’ve been a Principal Officer of our Association and I’ve taught multiple people how to ring. I’ve been a student on courses, I’ve helped on courses. I’ve looked after ringing when the tower captain has been absent. I’ve managed international projects about ringing. I’ve been interviewed and filmed about ringing. I’ve been quoted on the front page of national broadsheets about ringing. I spend a LOT of time on ringing related stuff.

Does it make me happy? Do you know, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s too much like hard work having to get up on a cold, dark, miserable Sunday morning to ring for Service. Sometimes meetings are boring and go on and on unnecessarily. Sometimes other people wind me up (as I’m sure I do others). Sometimes I could quite happily tell it to do one. Go on, take a hike.

I had that opportunity once when I was 19 and moved away from my home area. I thought ‘great, this is my time to give it up. Nobody knows me here so they won’t know if I don’t turn up”. I’d moved up on the Saturday morning and in the afternoon I wandered into the town centre. Now, anyone who is a ringer is somehow automatically attuned to the sound of bells. You can hear them a mile off. When you hear bells on TV or radio you find yourself stopping what you’re doing to listen. When I went into the town centre I could hear bells. Instinctively I walked towards where they were coming from. They were ringing for a wedding and the bride had just come out of the church so I figured they probably wouldn’t ring for more than about 10 mins. So I hung around. When the ringers descended the tower and came outside I looked them straight in the eye and said “hello, I’m a ringer and I’ve just moved into the area”. Doh! what was I thinking? Of course, ringers being the friendly folk that they are, stopped for a chat, explained what night practice was on, and there you have it. Far from giving up, I’d just committed myself to a new tower and a bunch of strangers. The rest, they say, is history and it has become a way of life.

So, does #bellringing make me happy? I guess on the whole it must do. 😁