Central Council of Church Bell Ringers

Annual Report for 2016

1. The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (“the Council”) was founded in 1891 and is a registered charity, no. 270036. Its address is that of its Honorary Secretary for the time being, namely 11 Bullfields, Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, CM21 9DB. The constitution and conduct of the Council is governed by its Rules.

2. The Council’s Trustees during 2016 were as follows:

   President	Mr C F Mew
   Vice-President	Dr C D O’Mahony
   Hon Secretary	Mrs M Bone
   Hon Assistant Secretary	Mrs C N J Franklin
   Hon Treasurer	Mr A C Taylor

3. The Council’s bankers are Lloyds Bank plc, Westminster House Branch, Dean Stanley Street, London, SW1P 3HU. Its Independent Examiners are Mr J D Cheesman and Mrs W E Godden.

4. At the close of the Annual General Meeting on 30 May 2016 the Council’s membership comprised 6 Life Members, 8 Additional Members, 7 Ex-officio Members and 193 Representative Members representing 66 affiliated societies. Since then three Additional Members have retired, one of whom was re-elected at that meeting and took office. During that annual meeting one Life Member was elected, references to the Ringing Foundation were removed from the Rules, a revised procedure for committee elections was agreed, the Terms of Reference of one committee were amended, and the Council agreed that a working party should be established to review its rules and activities. Details of the changes to the Representative Membership are set out in the Appendix below. Subject to any further changes, at the start of the 2017 Council meeting there will be 7 Life Members, 5 4 Additional Members, 6 Ex-officio Members and 189 188 Representative Members representing 66 affiliated societies. There are 11 other vacancies.

5. The Object of the Council is to promote and foster the ringing of bells for Christian prayer, worship and celebration and in furtherance thereof:

   (i) To promote awareness of and educate the general public in the ringing of church bells and the art of change ringing;

   (ii) To make available advice, assistance and information to church authorities, ringers and ringing societies and to promote good practice on all matters concerned with bells and bell ringing;

   (iii) To encourage development of the art of ringing through innovation;

   (iv) To bring together ringers to discuss matters of common interest and to represent ringers both nationally and internationally;

   (v) To encourage high standards of performance in ringing;

   (vi) To recommend technical standards in change ringing and maintain such records as may be necessary to uphold these standards;

   (vii) To assist in the provision, restoration, maintenance and transfer of church bells.

6. The work of the Council in pursuing this object is for the most part carried out by its sixteen committees and by working groups appointed by them. Summaries of their activities during 2016 are given in the committee reports, which appear elsewhere on the Council’s agenda and are being published in the 28th April 2017 issue of The Ringing World.

7. The public benefits from the following areas of activity of the Council:

   (i) the promotion of public worship by the ringing of church bells;

   (ii) the preservation of the tradition and heritage of change ringing;

   (iii) the encouragement and promotion of high standards of ringing;

   (iv) the provision of financial and specialist knowledge in the support of belfry repairs and maintenance;

   (v) the provision of guidance and specialist knowledge with regard to health and safety, safeguarding, noise control, data protection, fire risk assessment and insurance matters, as they relate to ringers and ringing;

   (vi) the preparation and publication of educational and training materials.

8. The Accounts for 2016 show total funds at the year-end of £418,592 of which £257,557 is in restricted funds. Income for the year totalled £29,151 compared with £36,108 in 2015. A grant of £1,000 was received from the Worshipful Company of Founders. The costs of the 2016 Council Meeting at £1,829 were lower than the previous year (2015 £4,059). We paid the full cost of The Ringing World Supplement of £2,191 (2015 £1,627). Council Review and Action Group expenditure was £1,052 (2015 nil).

   The 2016 figures include further donations for the Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, bells restoration and the Kilifi project. The Trustees have the power to invest money and adopt such measures as seem to them necessary in the interest of the Council. They do not have any power to borrow money.

9. It is confirmed that the Council’s assets, together with the expected income for 2017, are available and are likely to be adequate to fulfil the objects of the Council in that year.

10. Reserves policy:

    (i) General Fund - the balance on the General Fund is invested to produce income which, together with member societies’ affiliation fees, provides sufficient funds to support the work and activities of the Council. The balance also facilitates cash flow and enables the development of new projects and initiatives.

    (ii) Education Courses - the balance provides cash flow to enable the Education Committee to run various training courses, in general the costs are recouped from attendees.

    (iii) Bell Restoration Fund - the balance is fully allocated to bell restoration projects and paid on satisfactory completion of the work. Grants are made in proportion to the types of applications received and in accordance with priorities agreed by the Council and reviewed annually.

    (iv) Fred Dukes International Bell Fund - Grants from the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund are made in accordance with the terms of Mr Dukes’ legacy. Grants are awarded from the interest on the legacy and reviewed annually.

    (v) Publications Fund - the balance represents the stock of publications held and a cash balance to facilitate the production of new titles and the reprinting of existing publications.

    (vi) Library Fund - the balance represents the value of the library, which is maintained for use by council members and affiliated societies.

11. Funds are invested in low risk investments and bank accounts. The need for regular income from investments is considered important to support the work of the Council.

12. No significant fund-raising activity has been carried out during the year.

13. The Council had no employees during the year. All of its work is carried out on a voluntary basis.

MRS M BONE
Honorary Secretary

April 2017

Appendix

Membership of the Council 2017-2020

Arising from the triennial elections of Representative Members by the affiliated societies, the Society of Royal Cumberland Youths has and the Durham & Newcastle Diocesan Association have each one member fewer. Of the 189 188 Representative Members, 150 (79.4%) 146 (77.7%) were members of the previous Council (of whom two are representing a different society and one was formerly an Additional Member) and 39 42 are new members (of whom 4 6 have been members at some time in the past).

42 43 Representative Members of the previous Council are not returning. Special mention should be made of those who had been members for more than 15 years: George Bonham (Ely Diocesan Association), elected 1974; Leslie Boyce (Guild of Devonshire Ringers), elected 1999; Mike Chester (Coventry Diocesan Guild), elected 1999; James Clarke (Guild of Devonshire Ringers), elected 1972, served until 1981, re-elected 2002; Patricia Halls (Derby Diocesan Association), elected 1996; Julia Lysaght (Irish Association), elected 2002; Andrew Mills (Southwell & Nottingham Diocesan Guild), elected 1993; Margaret Oram (Sussex County Association), elected 2002; Alan Roberts (Worcestershire & Districts Association), elected 1987; Chris Rogers (Middlesex County Association & London Diocesan Guild, Guildford Diocesan Guild) elected 1969; Bernard Stone (Oxford Society), elected 1984; Tony Smith (Winchester & Portsmouth Diocesan Guild, President 2008-2011), elected 1981; Winifred Warwick (Leicester Diocesan Guild), elected 1998. Thanks are due to these, and all others not returning, for their services to the Council.

Central Council of Church Bell Ringers

Notes to the accounts for the year ended 31 December 2016

1. Basis of accounting

The accounts have been prepared under the historic cost convention and in accordance with applicable accounting standards and the Statement of Recommended Practice on Accounting by Charities.

2. Accounting policies

The accounts have been drawn up in accordance with the going concern, accruals, consistency and prudence concepts.

• 2.1 Incoming resources

  Interest is accounted for when receivable. Donations, grants and legacies are accounted for as soon as the Council is notified of the legal entitlement and the amount due.

  2.2 Resources expended

  Expenditure is included on an accruals basis. Grants are accounted for when paid over.

3. Consistency

The accounts are prepared on a consistent basis with the previous year and in accordance with the accounting policies.

4. Funds

The General Fund is unrestricted and includes designated funds raised and held for a particular purpose.

The Education Courses Fund and Publications Fund are unrestricted designated funds.

The Bell Restoration Fund, the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund and the Library Fund are maintained for restricted purposes.

5. Transfers between funds

No amounts have been transferred between funds.

6. Tangible assets and intangible assets

The major tangible assets of the Council are the Investments in National Savings Income Bonds and the Library Collection. The Library Collection is valued at a replacement cost of £95,000. The revaluation was undertaken by Roger Barnes of Church Green Books as at 31 December 2014. The policy is to revalue the collection every five years. It is being depreciated for accounting purposes at 2% on the reducing balance per annum. An asset register is maintained for other tangible assets. The policy is to treat assets of an individual cost up to £1,000 as fully depreciated in the year of purchase.

The major intangible asset of the Council is the copyright of Dove’s Guide.

7. Interest receivable

The interest was received from:

7. 8. Donations and grants received

• 7.1 8.1 Christchurch, New Zealand

  Donations received in respect of Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, bells restoration following the damage caused by the earthquake to the City of Christchurch are included in the Bell Restoration Fund as a restricted item and, together with the related gift aid, amount to £275. The total amount of the donations received to date is £15,494. A grant payment of £10,000 was made in 2013.

  7.2 8.2 Kilifi, Kenya

  Donations have been received in respect of Kilifi, Kenya, for ropes and a training project. These are included in the Bell Restoration Fund as a restricted item and, together with the related gift aid, amounts to £4,930. Expenditure to date on air fares is £2,476 leaving a balance available of £2,454.

8. 9. Committee expenses (General Fund)

These were as follows:

9. 10. Grants paid

During the year, the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund awarded and paid one grant of £1,000.

During the year, the Bell Restoration Fund awarded no grants. Sixteen grants were paid.

10. 11. Charitable commitments

There were unfulfilled charitable commitments at 31 December 2016 in respect of three grants totalling £4,700 awarded but not yet paid by the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund, and ten grants totalling £14,900 awarded but not yet paid by the Bell Restoration Fund. There is also a charitable commitment to Christchurch Cathedral New Zealand bells restoration in respect of the balance of donations received but not yet paid amounting to £5,494 and £2,454 in respect of Kilifi.

11. 12. Publications fund

Storage and distribution cost of £2,450 was paid to a Council member.

12. 13. Payments to trustees

There were no payments to Trustees.

13. 14. Emoluments of employees

The Council had no employees during the year.

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELLRINGERS

Registered Charity Number 270036

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 DECEMBER 2016

The Notes to the Accounts appear on page 430

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELLRINGERS

Registered Charity Number 270036

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 31 DECEMBER 2016

Administrative Committee

Since the 2016 Council meeting the Committee has met twice in London in October and March. Two new committee chairmen were elected during the year and joined the Committee, and Richard Allton now chairs both Compositions and Peal Records. Leslie Boyce continued as acting chairman of and contact for Ringing Centres. Members were updated on the recent conference and plans of the Association of Ringing Teachers. The Ringing Foundation was removed from the Charity Commission register on 12 August and from the Companies House register on 30 August; there were no outstanding financial liabilities on either the Council or its members. The Chairman of the Ringing World Ltd has continued to report on the future of the journal. The Methods Committee review of the relevant Decisions was discussed at both meetings. The Public Relations Officer has prepared summary accounts of the meetings for publication in The Ringing World. The arrangements for the 2017 Council meeting were discussed and agreed. Papers for the meeting will again be placed on the website with information circulated electronically to those Council members with email.

Change Ringing for the Future: A full report by the President is given in the Appendix to this report.

Reform of the Council and of the Administrative Committee: The October meeting of the Committee was extended to the afternoon for an “Away Day” session. The meeting received a full report and demonstration on the development of the new Council website and its communication possibilities. A small working group, with the active involvement of members of the Lancashire Association, is organising the 2018 annual meeting weekend based at Lancaster University. This group has also considered arrangements for future meetings and has recommended a change in the date of the meeting to early September. The Vice-President will report. Active co-operation by committees has been encouraged. Committee annual reports received prior to the March meeting were circulated to the elected members of the Administrative Committee for comment and review before publication; a number of constructive comments were passed to the relevant committee chairmen. The new procedures for committee elections have been implemented. The Library/Biographies Outreach Day and both the Open Meeting “Question Time” at Portsmouth and the Council meeting itself were streamed live to the Internet.

Council Review Action Group: A paper was presented to the October meeting, at which Clyde Whittaker, a member of both the Administrative Committee and CRAG, reported and responded to questions. The March meeting had a full report from CRAG Chairman Phillip Barnes on its findings and recommendations to date. The executive summary and recommendations from the final report are included in this Supplement and the full report is available online.

Other matters considered by the Committee included:

Council Finances: The General Fund for the current year (2016) and next year (2017) was reviewed at both meetings, considering income levels and planned expenditure. Committees are expected to prepare detailed forward programmes of activity and expenditure plans for several years to enable the Council to plan appropriately. In view of the continued deficit a motion to increase the affiliation fee appears on the agenda. Further work on a different basis for the fee was held over pending conclusion of the CRAG study.

Church Buildings Council & Historic England: The regular meeting was held on 19 July. The main topic for discussion was again bells in closed and closing churches. Harvey Howlett of the Church Commissioners Closed Churches Department, who also attended the meeting, explained the use of maintenance and bells covenants when churches were made redundant and passed to different ownership. Sir Tony Baldry, Chair of CBC, has accepted an invitation to address the Open Meeting at the 2017 Council meeting. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 25 July 2017. The 2016 DAC bell advisers’ conference was held in Warwick on Friday 8 July; the 2017 conference will be held in Lincoln on 30 June.

Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG): Through the Tower Stewardship Committee, Council maintains a healthy dialogue with Ecclesiastical Insurance Group. An annual liaison meeting is followed up by ongoing correspondence throughout the year. In 2016 a meeting to discuss matters of mutual interest and concern was held on 11 April, and the notes of the meeting were published in The Ringing World. Discussion topics include such items as Health & Safety, Fire Risk, Metal Theft, Safeguarding, insurance for ringing outings and policies for Guilds. The next meeting will be held on 13th April 2017.

Central Council 125th Anniversary: A programme of events for the weekend of 23-24 April 2016, centred on Duffield, was organised by the Council and the Derby Diocesan Association.

Appendix
Change Ringing for the Future

The rôle of the Council in encouraging and supporting ringing for the future has been the subject of special meetings of the Administrative Committee, plans of individual Committees and the break-out session of all Council members in Hull. The past year has seen considerable progress and positive action in areas of the Council’s activities which were identified as needing improvement and further initiatives which will continue to be pursued.

One of the most evident examples has been the modernisation and launch of the Council’s new-style website. There are several elements covered, these being changed logo and image, making the site friendly for ringers, non-ringers and media and the ability for ringers anywhere to subscribe for direct newsfeeds. The latter provides a doorway for wider direct contact and possibly a conduit for any future direct membership.

New downloadable material has been made available as part of Public Relations initiatives including bespoke visual presentations aimed at recruitment. The need for new publications to complement those produced by other agencies continues to be examined and joint working with ART regarding “Leadership Training” is one aim. Emphasis on attracting ringers to maintain or indeed take up ringing skills at universities has been followed up with contact profiles for individual campuses and the Council has sponsored a University achievement award.

Close consideration has been given to the format and timing of the Council’s annual meeting with a three-fold objective of streamlining administrative proceedings, reducing cost of attending and, most importantly, to encompass activities which will involve all ringers. Some of these intentions will be the subject of this year’s agenda.

The committee structure is also under review, again with a view to removing overlap, grouping where common interest exists and ensuring that future work is developed in a co-ordinated fashion. In terms of securing records and data for the future, the Council has been working with The Ringing World and is also in the process of ensuring that the Dove database is protected. During the year, the assets and distribution of Sherbourne Teaching Aid materials have been transferred to the Publications Committee.

Finally, in recognition of work being achieved at local level, a series of seminars has been held with officers of societies both to recognise common problems but also to share achievements. It is intended that the information from the seminars held at Southwark, Derby, Bristol and Doncaster will be incorporated in a booklet of “Good Practice” to be made widely available.

CHRIS MEW

Public Relations Committee

We welcomed Caroline Stockmann and Clyde Whittaker to the Committee in 2016 and are grateful to them for their immediate significant contributions to our work.

While 2016 has been an interesting year in terms of political upheavals in the UK and elsewhere, it has also been an interesting year for ringing public relations. We aim to prioritise publicity for two major events each year, but it is often the unexpected and unplanned-for events that create the most work. In 2016 such events included a public debate about whether or not ringing should be officially classified as a sport and events at York Minster.

PR Matters Conference

We held a very successful conference at Wellesbourne in February 2017 attended by some 50 ringers from around the country (and beyond) with an interest in using public relations to raise awareness of ringing as well as to recruit new ringers. We had excellent external speakers, including the Media Manager for 2016 Heritage Open Days, a BBC Broadcast Manager and a print editor. They all gave inspirational talks and answers to question sessions, leaving everyone ready to set-to in groups to identify our personal objectives for the future. There were ideas of additional things the Central Council ought to be doing as well and we called for the delegates’ help in delivering these.

Julie McDonnell

The Council has always rather shied away from lending support to the many charities that frequently ask us to “arrange for bells everywhere to be rung” for their special events. However, Julie was a little different as she is a ringer and was creating interesting challenges for ringers that they did not have to pay for or even raise sponsorship for. Her story is an attractive one for the media and we have been helping with making sure ringers are aware of her work and getting publicity for it.

New Central Council Website

We have contributed significantly to the development of the new website and continue to help with its ongoing evolution. It started with the same content as the old site and the challenge now is to get the content updated and improved. All committees will be doing this for their own parts of the site.

Ringing as a Sport

There was a short media frenzy about whether ringing should be registered with Sport England. We investigated this but it would require ringing to have: a National Governing Body with all ringing societies and competitions abiding by its rules, and an anti-doping policy with a means of enforcing it. We did develop a draft policy but we decided not to pursue registration. This need not preclude the promotion of the sport-related aspects of ringing where beneficial. The publicity created was substantial and not unhelpful.

Planned Events for 2016

The planned events were ringing for HM The Queen’s 90th birthday, and Heritage Open Days. The Queen’s birthday ringing achieved much local publicity when local bands and associations had put effort into publicising their activities.

Heritage Open Days achieved considerable publicity, because of a combination of the assistance of their media manager and the BBC survey that was carried out at the 2016 Council meeting in Portsmouth. While some ringers publicly expressed views that this was too negative, with its focus on the need for more ringers, most ringers who opened their towers benefited significantly from the additional publicity. Many reported great interest in learning to ring and actual recruitment, although this was not primarily the aim of the event, which was intended mainly to raise awareness of ringing.

The Heritage Open Days people were delighted with the impact of having bell towers open as a new attraction. Their focus these days is much more on doing things rather than just looking at things and they are now enthused to pursue such activities with other groups in the future, as well as retaining ringing, and the ringing logo, for the future. They had excellent feedback on the open towers and we are sure that many towers will wish to repeat the experience, to help local people understand more about ringing and to recruit new ringers.

More general projects

Completed and ongoing work:

• We respond to regular Learn to Ring website enquiries. To help us with this we have created a list of nominated individuals for each territorial society affiliated to the Council of those who will receive enquiries from those wishing to learn to ring. These individuals will ensure that those enquiring are passed on to suitable active towers where they will be welcome and well taught.

• We are in regular contact with PR Officers for affiliated societies to tell them of forthcoming PR opportunities and about the Council’s work.

• We have continued to distribute quantities of the Learn to Ring Leaflet on request.

• We continue our successful relationship with the BBC over Bells on Sunday and are also in other discussions with the BBC and Premier Christian Radio.

• We have updated our leaflet for clergy Bells in Your Care and the revised version will be on the website shortly.

• We remain active in social media, ensuring that as much news as possible about the Council, and our Committee’s work, is spread in this way for the wider engagement especially of the younger ringing community. We still have much more to do here and would value help.

The future

The two key events we are focusing on during 2017 are St George’s Day (23 April) and the Queen and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary (20 November).

We will also be continuing with our general projects listed above.

Ernie de Legh-Runciman, Giles Blundell and Alan Marchbank are standing down from the Committee in May and not seeking re-election. We thank them for their contributions to our work during their time on the Committee.

International Reports

Australian and New Zealand Association

The number of ANZAB towers continues to grow slowly but steadily. The upcoming ANZAB festival (June 8th to 12th) includes the chance to ring at two of the new light sixes: the Uniting Church, Bowral and St Paul’s, Camden. The most recent tower to start ringing is St Hilda’s, Katoomba, a slightly heavier six with a 5-3-13 tenor. Ringing has also started again at St Paul’s cathedral in Bendigo, after a six-year gap imposed by structural problems which closed the cathedral. Many other new towers are at various stages of planning, development and fund-raising, suggesting that the present rate of increase of one or two new towers per annum will continue for the foreseeable future. ANZAB is also providing financial support for the growing number of towers that are fitting simulators, the most recent being St Bartholomew’s, Burnley and St Pius, Heidelberg.

We are continuing to run ART modules, with four in 2016 - modules 1 and 2C in Sydney in April, and the same in Brisbane in November, along with various other training events.

Lastly a notable performance was the peal of 5040 Little Bob Sixteen at the Bell Tower in Perth on 5th November - this was, among many other firsts, the first peal on 16 ever rung for ANZAB.

DAVID SMITH
President ANZAB

Central European Association

The CEA has enjoyed another successful year during 2016. Membership has remained steady and despite one or two resident members returning to the UK the Association continues to do well and continues to achieve a high standard of ringing both on tower and handbells. It is a pleasure to welcome ringers who have moved to Europe either on a permanent or temporary basis to our weekend ringing events which take place at ’t Klockhuys in Dordrecht and we currently have ringers living and working in 6 European countries.

We organise two weekends during the year at which time CEA members can get together, the first of these being the AGM in May. This was very well attended this year with members travelling from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, UK and The Netherlands. We all enjoyed an excellent weekend together at ’t Klockhuys in Dordrecht with a mix of ringing and socialising both carrying on until late into the night in true “Dordrecht” style! We were also successful in ringing 3 peals of Surprise Major, a handbell peal and one quarter peal over the course of the weekend.

An Autumn peal weekend followed in November and was enjoyed by all and included a jovial and very tasty evening dinner in a local Dordrecht restaurant on the Saturday evening.

Dordrecht bells

Congratulations must go to the resident CEA handbell band who completed their project to ring all 8 Standard Surprise major methods to peals on handbells. A peal of London Surprise Major was rung on 15th October in Leiden by Nicola Bright, Martin Bright, Harm Jan de Kok and conducted by Mike Trimm - a great achievement! The same band had rung a peal of 8 Spliced Surprise Major the previous month being a first of spliced in hand for all the band except Mike.

L-R: Martin Bright, Eric Trumpler, George Campling, Margaret Gamble, Pauline Campling, Brian Diserens, Cathy Ockwell, Thirza de Kok, Harm Jan de Kok, Clive Smith, Geraldine Diserens, David Ockwell, Elizabeth Mason, Heather Forster, Jeff Ladd, Peter Mason, Graham Scott, Paul de Kok.

The CEA continues to welcome many visiting bands from the UK to Dordrecht and we appreciate their support and encouragement. Peal weekends from visiting UK bands have become a regular feature at Dordrecht and it was especially fun to track on BellBoard the progress of the band who attempted to ring 9 peals in a day - they were successful in ringing 8 peals!! It is very satisfying to see that ringing in Central Europe has become so well established and we look forward to further exciting developments in the future. Thanks of course go to Paul de Kok and Harm Jan for their tireless enthusiasm and dedication to make things run so successfully!

Ringing at ’t Klockhuys is by way of appointment only. For enquiries please contact Paul de Kok by email - p.m.dekok@hetnet.nl or visit our web page at: www.change-ringers.eu

MARGARET GAMBLE
Secretary

North American Guild of Change Ringers

Ringing in North America is healthy. Two areas that demonstrate this best are in the number of peals that were rung in 2016, and the opening of yet another seminary tower.

We had twenty-six peals in 2016 ranging from Plain Bob and Stedman, up to Glasgow, and 23-spliced surprise major. While some of these peals, it is true, were rung by visiting bands, most (and notably, the 23-spliced) were rung by North American ringers. Recruitment seems also to be progressing - and one tower has established a second novices-only practice. There can be few better ways of bringing new ringers on at a good clip than giving them their own practice. The investment is in time, on the part of the leader of that practice, and for any extra helpers; the return is a committed group of ringers who are able to take their place in the regular practice without much concession to their status and experience.

The second thing of which we can be proud is the establishment of a bell-tower at a second seminary, in Nashotah, Wisconsin. Our hobby is more than usually dependent on the goodwill and relationship between ringers and the Church. It is delightful to see how the future leaders of congregations are being exposed to ringers and ringing, during their seminary experience. Some seminarians are even taking up ringing themselves, and discovering how enjoyable a hobby it can be.

TONY FURNIVALL

South African Guild

Ringing continues in South Africa, based in our major centres of Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg, but there have been no major events that we would consider “newsworthy”. Our Central Council representative, James Champion, keeps us informed about Central Council matters and we participate in surveys and forums as requested by that body but, as I said, there have been no significant events to report.

RICHARD ROBERTS
Chairperson

Zimbabwe Guild

Last year I reported that I thought that the Zimbabwe Guild was still a viable entity. I am not so confident this year.

Communication between the towers is difficult and although the Harare Tower paid 2 visits to Kwekwe during the year which were both well attended by both towers, the frequency of Sunday ringing and the general standard of ringing has I think deteriorated.

At the Harare Tower in January 2016 we welcomed three new young adults as learners. One is still with us and is becoming an ever more competent ringer. The other two have gone to universities outside the country. At the same time, other ringers have suffered from ill health and one of our older, more experienced ringers has emigrated.

Thus the numbers of our band remain static, but the overall standard of ringing drops. Those who are experienced are often frustrated because the general standard is not good. Beginners find it more difficult to learn because the band around them is not good enough. Practices are cancelled due to low numbers of people attending making the problem more severe.

These are problems common to Kwekwe as well as to towers all over the world, but in our isolated state they have a more marked effect. Neither are they new to the Guild.

I thought I would try and look at the problem with an historical perspective.

It is now

• 55 years since the Mashonaland Guild was formed;

• 54 years since the bells were installed in the Harare tower;

• … years since 4 bells were installed in the Kwekwe tower and the Guild changed its name to the Rhodesia Guild;

• 50 years since Rhodesia declared UDI;

• 50 years since Kwekwe was augmented from 4 to 6 although the actual hang was later as the bells were landed at the Beira docks just before the border was closed due to UDI;

• 36 years since Zimbabwe became officially independent;

• 20 years since the Zimbabwe economy started to experience hyperinflation;

• 8 years since the Z$ was abandoned and the country became a multi-currency economy with the major currency in use being the US$;

• 4 years since the Harare Cathedral was reopened after a 5 year “exile” during which time it was closed to all, including the ringers;

• 1 year since the government reintroduced the concept of a unit of trade not an international currency.

The best years for ringing were I think the period from the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s. So what makes the position different now to previous years?

Obviously the instability of the country and its economy does not help the situation (the last influx we had of ringers from other communities was in the 1980s and all of these have now left). However I think that the problem has been exacerbated by the period of “exile” as during that time no new learners were taught, beginners who might have continued didn’t, good ringers found other spare time activities and the congregation moved its allegiance to other churches. (I wonder if Christchurch has the same problem?)

So what have we achieved?

The more experienced ringers continue to push for a high standard of bell control and striking even if it is only rounds.

We held both an AGM and a half yearly meeting in 2016.

The 2017 AGM is scheduled for 25 February when we plan a whole day of ringing and social events.

A Facebook page has been established to which we try and post items of interest to local and overseas ringers.

We have a visiting peal band the week after the 2017 AGM when both towers plan to use their talents to assist those who can handle well enough to plain hunt, and those who can plain hunt to ring Plain Bob and Stedman (hopefully with calls) as well as socialising with them.

The Harare Tower is currently exploring ways in which to involve the Cathedral congregation and gain more young adult recruits.

Mostly we keep on keeping on. Sometimes we dream of an enthusiastic, experienced ringer being posted to Zimbabwe based either in Harare or Kwekwe for a couple of years (or better, two or more experienced ringers for more years), but we know that the real answer is to train up Zimbabweans who are committed to keeping ringing alive in this country.

Finally, we really appreciate the email contact maintained with the Central Council through Anne Phillips who forwards these emails to those of us with email addresses.

• Officers:
  Master: Tendai Dzuda
  Honorary Secretary: Linda Hyde
  Honorary Treasurer/Librarian: Fiona Thomson
  Central Council Liaison Officer: Anne Phillips

LINDA HYDE

Stocklist at December 31st 2016

Publications Committee

During the year we assumed responsibility, on behalf of the Council, for the production, marketing, sales and distribution of Pam Copson’s “Sherbourne Teaching Aids” series, apart from the wooden goods. Ted Copson transferred all rights to the series, together with the existing stock and a reprint of One per Learner, to the Council entirely free of charge. The Council is very grateful indeed to Ted for this most generous gift and we look forward to publishing the series for many years to come.

One new book was sent to us for publication, an updated edition of Organising a Bell Restoration Project. Nine titles were reprinted: Beginners Handbook, Ringing Jargon Made Easy, Beginners’ Grandsire, Beginners’ Plain Bob, Listen to Ringing CD 1, Listen to Ringing CD 2, Teaching Tips, Splicing Bell Ropes, and the DVD. At year end a book which we commissioned, On This Day by Bill Butler, was nearing completion, and should be on sale at the next Council meeting if not before.

The following nineteen titles are currently available for download free of charge: Triples and Major for Beginners, Learning Methods, Method Splicing - Practical Hints, Understanding Place Notation, Conducting Stedman, Tower Captain’s Handbook, One way to Teach Bell Handling, Teaching Beyond Bell Handling, Getting it Right - Guidance for Officers of Ringing Societies, CC Rules and Decisions (2013), Giants of the Exercise Vol 2, A J Pitman Biography, Collection of Plain Minor Methods, Treble Dodging Minor Methods, Handbook of Composition, Collection of Stedman Compositions, Collection of Grandsire Compositions, Collection of Ten Bell Compositions, and Collection of Twelve Bell Compositions.

Pam Copson’s One per Learner immediately became a best seller and The New Ringer’s Book, Ringing Circles and Teaching Tips continued to be popular. Sales of Dove’s Guide 10th Edition dropped to 81, leaving a stock of 127 books. Once again we note that significant new titles are needed.

The new Central Council website should enable us to charge for downloads and we intend to pursue this option as and when appropriate. We hasten to add that the titles which can currently be downloaded free of charge will remain so, and other titles will be added to the “free download” list in due course. We believe that it is now viable to offer some titles on a “print on demand” basis and this option will also be pursued when judged appropriate.

Three Committee meetings were held during the year, and the usual large number of telephone and e-mail conversations took place. Bulk discounts were offered in March and advertisements were again placed in a number of Association reports.

The income from sales rose to £10,200 from £8,600, largely due to sales of Sherbourne Teaching Aids, and expenditure exceeded income by £660. The value of stock held fell to £5,780 and at year end the total cash available had increased by £1,100 to £16,800. The fund remains well able to finance any likely future work. The popularity of PayPal transactions continued to rise and the facility remained trouble free.

Derek Jones was again closely involved in a consultative capacity, and we thank him for his contributions.

Committee for Redundant Bells

The Committee met twice during 2016; other business was carried out using email and Facebook.

We have heard nothing further following the 2015 review by the Church of England’s Buildings Review Group. We look forward to the Church coming forward with proposals, especially concerning the improvement of the redundancy process.

In anticipation of increased redundancies in the years ahead, the Committee has been working to develop a prioritisation tool. Two different versions were developed and are to be tested during the early months of 2017.

As at December 2016 the Committee had 39 open cases which it was keeping under review. In some towers there is positive news, for example Crewe, where local ringers are taking a lead and hope to bring the bells back into use.

In other cases news is less positive; Council members will be aware of the recent fire at St. Michael on the Mount, Bristol, where the bells were previously available for occasional ringing but, for safety reasons, are now out of action.

Aware that the Churches Conservation Trust now owns over 100 rings of bells and that its portfolio is likely to grow, the Committee is seeking to establish contact with that Trust and to develop a protocol for management of its bells.

There have been no calls on the Bells Rescue Fund during the year. As this Fund has not been used at all in recent years, beyond making a loan to Keltek Trust, the Committee, as Trustees, is recommending to Council that the Fund be closed down.

Ringing Centres Committee

Last year’s report noted several resignations from the Committee. We were pleased to welcome Maureen Frost this year, but remain a small Committee and therefore must tailor our work plan to the limited resources available. The previous report also noted that we were reflecting on the future of the Committee. We have decided, in the light of the CRAG initiative, not to propose any immediate change. We have, however, engaged in discussions with the Education Committee about co-operation and are keen, in the spirit of the Council Review, to pursue a joint agenda for ringing education and training. We meet twice a year and conduct an email dialogue between meetings.

Maintaining an up-to-date directory of ringing centres and gathering information about the activities of recognised centres through an annual survey remain our key priorities. Editing access to the new Council website allows us to make small updates without the need to trouble Peter Trotman. We are grateful to Peter for his help and prompt attention to our requests in the past. We were pleased to offer Central Council recognition to Stretham Ringing Education Centre, near Ely, during the year. We are also following up other prospective centres and are keen to receive news of other developments relevant to our remit of supporting any facility providing training to ringers outside the home tower.

It is good to report that the Bell Ringing Centres Facebook pages are now attracting several posts per month and the list has grown to 190 members. Along with our annual newsletter Training Times this actively encourages discussion, the sharing of new ideas and best practice.

It is clear that good quality initial training and plenty of opportunity for subsequent ringing development are crucial elements for success in retaining ringers. The Committee is committed, in partnership with others, to supporting those who provide these facilities.

Ringing Trends Committee

The Committee remained without a Chair following the resignation of Elva Ainsworth in October 2015. The remaining members of the Committee resigned at the Portsmouth meeting and no new members were elected (Minutes, p.423).

Towers & Belfries Committee

As a Committee we have met three times during 2016, first at Evesham, then Great Malvern and finally in London. After the meeting in Great Malvern we had the opportunity to inspect the recent work carried out to the installation at Malvern Priory and try the bells for ourselves. All were impressed with what had been achieved and, after the various delays, trust the local ringers are well satisfied.

We have given advice to a number of towers during the year; much of this has been by correspondence, but there have been tower inspections carried out by our members when required. As with last year many enquiries have concerned the installation of mobile communication equipment and at present we are in the process of updating our guidance on this subject. During the year we have updated various sections of our information available via the CCCBR website and added others covering new subjects; there are a number of additional items already in the pipeline. So as to avoid duplication we have added links to information already provided by different organisations.

Gordon Breeze, a consultant on the Committee, is continuing his work on further developing theoretical and experimental methods that refine the ability to predict tower movement when bells are rung. Early results show that bell towers are more flexible in their movement than has been thought in the past.

Real progress has been made on the new Maintenance Handbook and it is hoped that this will be ready for publication in Spring 2017. Whilst on the subject of maintenance, we are always willing to arrange day seminars for local guilds and associations; we had no requests for this service during 2016. We are hoping to arrange a day seminar in 2017 to introduce the subject of bell frame recording. There are various reasons why this is an important subject but at present there are very few experts in this field and apparently no one seems to be showing an interest in developing their knowledge.

After the 2016 Council meeting our Committee was left with two vacancies; this year we will be losing two longstanding and experienced members: James Clarke and Bernard Stone. We are always looking for those willing to join our Committee; having said that I am also keen to collaborate with those who have experience and an interest in our work who are not members of the Council.

Tower Stewardship Committee

2016 has been a busy year for the Tower Stewardship Committee. Yet again, the topic of safeguarding was high on the Committee’s agenda. We are indebted to Chris Mew for managing our responses to this topic. We have also been looking at a number of other topics, including secular towers and health and safety.

The Committee manages the Council’s liaison with Ecclesiastical Insurance. We have a very good working relationship with Ecclesiastical, who are in general very happy with the bell ringing Exercise, especially in health and safety matters. For example, Ecclesiastical will review and advise on our H&S guidance notes every time they are updated.

During the year there continued to be contact with church authorities regarding several updated safeguarding guidelines issued by their Westminster office. An update was published in The Ringing World in November 2016 and further advice will be published as appropriate. A number of more local questions regarding safeguarding interpretation and specific cases have been dealt with.

The Committee has recognised that there is a significant need to establish stewardship guidance to answer the specific needs of secular towers. Some preliminary data has been gathered from a few civic/secular towers.

This information shows that management arrangements and relationships between local ringers and the tower owners differ greatly from one tower to another and significantly differed in effectiveness. In some circumstances, there is the potential for the tower to become lost to the Exercise despite the good endeavours of local ringers.

The Tower Stewardship Committee believes that there is a need for it to provide specific guidance on stewardship for towers in such a variable environment in the form of a draft model of agreement between local ringers and the secular (or non C of E) owner.

We also feel that the best time to put in place such an agreement would be at the point of change of ownership. We are therefore looking to work closely with the Redundant Bells Committee on this issue.

So far, we have received emails from ten individuals during the past year to the Complaints Helpline email address. Of these, eight have been non-ringers complaining of either the clock, or general ringing. One has been to aid a London gallery to find out times of when a carillon is played. Only one email has been seeking advice to deal with a complaint.

There have been some requests this past year for advice on the access and security of some of our larger church buildings. This also has implications on the safety of not only ringers but contractors working in the building and members of the public. This is on-going work and further discussions are needed to formulate a policy.

Part of the terms of reference of the Tower Stewardship Committee is to monitor regulatory issues that might impact on the Exercise. An example of this is the General Data Protection Regulations, which come into force in 2018 in the UK. This will affect most aspects of data protection. The Committee is looking at these regulations with a view to updating our advice in Guidance Note No. 8.

The Committee has answered a number of enquiries regarding varying topics, including insurance, safeguarding and health and safety. One recurring theme of these enquiries is that of communication between ringers and the church authorities. In at least one case, the problem has been solved by suggesting that the ringers open a dialogue with the church wardens at the church concerned.

In addition to the above, we will also be carrying on with our normal “day to day” activities:

• The annual review of our guidance notes, in light of changes to national legislation and guidance;

• The annual liaison with Ecclesiastical Insurance and the Church Buildings Council;

• The provision of the Complaints Helpline;

The provision of reactive advice.

A key aspect of the Committee’s remit is the production and review of a set of Guidance Notes. These are reviewed annually, and are available via the Central Council website, as follows:

cccbr.org.uk/services/tower-stewardship

• GN1 Insurance and Ringing
• GN2 Tower Management
• GN3 Child Protection in Towers
• GN4 Tower Safety and Risk Assessment
• GN5 Church Law
• GN6 Fire Risk Assessment and Protection
• GN7 Noise, the Law and the Environmental Health Officer
• GN8 Data Protection and Bell Ringing

The Committee is well served by the wide range of skills, qualifications and experience brought by members. The Tower Stewardship Committee is very open to suggestions and recommendations from all areas of the Central Council regarding our remit, our communication methods and any other component of our work.

Bell Restoration Committee

Introduction

The Bell Restoration Committee (BRC), which met three times in 2016, works proactively to ensure that advice to parishes and others concerned with bell restoration is updated as necessary, continually monitoring for changes in guidance from government departments, grant-awarding bodies, etc. We also make great efforts to bring our services to the attention of those contemplating bell projects to offer help and advice. All members of the Committee have clearly defined areas of responsibility, which are reviewed on a rolling basis.

St Mary Magdalene, Taunton (Som) - supported by a grant from CCBRF (Photo courtesy of Peter Wilkinson)

Activities in 2016

A new and updated edition of the booklet Organising a Bell Restoration Project was published in time for the Central Council meeting in May. Our thanks go to the Publications Committee for their help and support in publishing this new edition.

Guidance Notes have been regularly updated and posted on the Central Council website.

Having agreed to provide material for the 2018 Ringing World Calendar, we are intending to feature towers supported by the Committee since 2015. We hope that the calendar will bring our work to the attention of a wider audience. Work on this project will continue during the first half of 2017.

During the Spring we were approached by the landfill company SITA (now Suez) with the offer of a one-off large donation to a bell restoration project in memory of one of their board members who passed away recently. Some 30 projects expressed interest and a shortlist of six was passed to Suez for their decision. The project at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, was eventually selected by the Suez board to receive almost £57,000 to rehang their unringable 5 and augment to 6. Completion is expected in September and a new band is being trained in readiness.

Central Council Bell Restoration Fund

In 2015 grants were awarded to 29 projects of which 7 had been completed at the time of our previous report. Since then a further 14 projects have been completed. The projects at Brading, Brant Broughton, Combe Raleigh, Ipstones, Lindfield, Michaelchurch Escley, Rochdale (Christ Church) and Whitestaunton are yet to complete, but most of these will complete in the coming months. The Committee monitors situations where there are difficulties.

Fred E Dukes International Bell Fund

A grant of £1000 was agreed for Lindfield, NSW. Work on this project is now well advanced and, at the time of writing, it is anticipated that the bells should soon leave England and the bell frame is almost complete.

On projects to which grants were offered in previous years, the project at Bunbury WA (2010) has been affected by the closure of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, whilst the project at Queenstown, South Africa (2011) is now looking unlikely to proceed. At Katoomba, NSW (2013) we understand that a new band is being trained and the project at Bangalow, NSW (2015) is still fund-raising.

Advice to parishes

Following the demise of FunderFinder and Ffoenix, we are compiling our own database of grant-awarding organisations. The feedback we receive from parishes who have been awarded grants or have been helped in other ways provides very valuable information to add to our growing database, which can then be used to assist future projects.

We have had contact with over 60 projects during 2016. We provided advice ranging from sample dedication service sheets, bell-appropriate music for services, fund raising ideas and sample appeal leaflets to suggestions for possible sources of funding, advising about grant applications and visits to parishes to advise project leaders.

Jigsaws

Stella Bianco has indicated her wish to retire from her rôle of co-ordinating the production and sales of the popular series of ringing jigsaws. The sales of these jigsaws have raised very useful funds for the Bell Restoration Fund and, with Stella’s agreement, future production and sales will be dealt with by the Committee. We thank Stella for her work on the jigsaws over the many years since the series began.

Membership

Graham Hills joined the Committee during 2016. Pat Albon and Peter Kirby will stand down at the 2017 meeting and will be available for re-election. Chris Rogers will no longer be a member of Council and we thank him for his valuable service on the Committee.

Ongoing tasks include:

• Revising and producing new Guidance Notes as required;

• Continuing to administer the Council’s Bell Fund and the Fred Dukes Fund by inviting applications when funds are available;

• Updating our extensive area of the Council’s new website;

• Providing information on possible sources of funding;

• Providing general support to projects including local fund raising;

• Provide articles for The Ringing World as appropriate; and

• Continuing to raise awareness of the work of the Committee via associations, DACs, PCCs and the bell trade.

Future work

• In 2017 and 2019 - holding further seminars on bell restoration;

• Providing material for the 2018 Ringing World calendar;

• Reviewing and updating our advice on charity registration, VAT and Gift Aid; and

• Taking over production and sales of the jigsaw series.

Biographies Committee

The Committee met at Portsmouth in May and at Wellesbourne in October. Patricia Halls stood down and Anne Anthony was elected a new member.

At the end of 2016 there were 941 biographic records on the website. Stuart Piper of the ICT Committee supported us by managing our pages.

Bill Butler, although no longer a consultant to the Committee, has continued work on the Prolific Peal Ringers articles for The Ringing World, reaching number 44 by the year end.

The outreach day on “Ringing History and Future Trends”, organised jointly with the Library Committee, attracted a good attendance and addressed important topical issues. It was the first Council event to be live streamed, courtesy of the ICT Committee.

We continue to hold basic information, photos, press items, etc on current & former Council members, on paper or digitally.

Other projects progressed less than we hoped, notably developing advice for ringers wishing to undertake biographical / historical research and developing information on the history of ringing societies.

Future plans and aspirations include:

• Getting to grips with managing our pages and biographic records on the CC website;

• Working with ICT Committee to develop the management of biographic information;

• Completing advice on biographical / historical research, and making it available from our web pages;

• Seeking links with the wider world of social and family history research;

• Further collaboration with the Library Committee where our interests overlap;

• Augmenting the historic records with additional information where available;

• Providing archival hard copy of on-line records;

• Developing online submission and access to biographic information about ringers.

We are grateful to all those who have helped us by providing information and we look forward to working with other people who are interested in ringing history, or researching the history of their societies or local ringers.

Members and former members of the Council who died in 2016 are:

• John Esmond Chilcott, Ancient Society of College Youths from 1960-1963, attended 1 meeting, died 23 February 2016.

• Edward George Mould, London County Association 1990-2005, attended 14 meetings, died 19 March 2016.

• Andrew D Barnsdale, Sussex County Association 2012-2016, attended 4 meetings, died 20 March 2016.

• Denis Albert Frith, Lincoln Diocesan Guild, 1972-1993, attended 21 meetings, died 11 May 2016.

• Brian David Threlfall, Cambridge University Guild 1954-1984, Honorary 1984 - 1990, Hereford Diocesan Guild 1996-2002, Gloucester & Bristol Guild 2002-2008, attended 43 meetings, died 3 Jun 2016.

• John Edward Camp, Oxford University Society 1969-1978, attended 8 meetings, died 17 October 2016.

• David Beacham, Worcestershire and Districts Association from 1957-1975, attended 17 meetings, died 30 October 2016.

Compositions Committee

The Compositions Committee hold regular conference calls and are in contact by email.

The key work of the Committee is to maintain and update the web collection (www.ringing.org) of peal and quarter peal compositions and to encourage new submissions from a wide range of contributors. Many thanks to all our contributors for their wide variety of compositions.

The readily accessible websites are a very valuable resource for conductors. The compositions range from relatively easy to highly complex on all numbers of bells, so there are compositions for all requirements. 217 peal compositions and 122 quarter peals were uploaded to the website in the last twelve months. Our particular thanks go to Don Morrison for continuing to host this service. The web collection is backed up on the CCCBR Web Services account on a daily basis.

Two articles have been written and published in The Ringing World for publication during the year. The article about the compositions of Richard (Dick) Speed was prompted by the review of his ringing papers carried out by Richard Clements on behalf of the Worcestershire and Districts Association to whom they were bequeathed. The second article was on the work of Sir Arthur P Heywood to coincide with the activities to mark the 100th anniversary of his death. Both of these were mostly researched and written by Paul Flavell.

There seems to be little scope for simpler compositions of standard methods these days as most of the obvious combinations have already been discovered or generated. Breakthroughs in composition tend to be discussed on ringing theory chat lists, reducing the necessity for detailed reviews in The Ringing World, although we are perfectly happy to review compositions as required.

No publications were produced this year, as the availability of compositions on the Internet and in electronic format has vastly reduced the demand for books. At this point in time it is not obvious if there will be demand for books of compositions in the future.

Finally, to reiterate, we very much welcome submissions of new peal, quarter peal and special length compositions and these should be sent to compositions@cccbr.org.uk.

Education Committee

Highlights of the past year

David Smith of the Education Committee wrote a series of eight articles in The Ringing World supported by Will Bosworth, under the title “The Education Column”. The RW Editor took the unusual step of printing these as colour centrefolds. These articles aim to help the teacher with a student who has sufficient bell control to start to ring with others, and is moving towards plain hunting and the very early stages of method ringing. They proved very popular, with many requests for reprints; slightly modified single-page versions can be found on the CC website at https://cccbr.org.uk/services/education/the-education-column/.

Problems encountered during 2016

For a variety of reasons there was a loss of focus of the Committee in early 2016, and a large effort is being put into forging a new sense of purpose before the 2017 CC Meeting. The Committee is not complacent and intends to make a sharp change during 2017. Other organisations are making a significant and welcome contribution to education, and the Committee needs to consider giving added value, acknowledging other organisations’ and people’s work and filling in any gaps that it identifies, rather than reinventing the wheel.

Liaison that has taken place with other CC committees

The Committee is open to work with other groups and take on work in support of the Council. It has been seeking to engage the Ringing Centres Committee to see if closer working or a merger could be achieved.

Plans

The Committee has been looking at costs and resources needed to produce other services such as short tutorial videos, and how these could be disseminated. The Committee would be happy to develop new approaches with others such as ART. Its aim is to facilitate and collaborate, as opposed to duplicate, and sees its future rôle very much as one of coordination and bringing things together. We also hope to produce further “Education Column” articles in the coming year.

Information and Communications Technology Committee

This year has been dominated by the preparation and launch of the new website. Many have played a part in getting the system live, but special thanks should go to Doug Davis and Andrew Hall on the ICT side and Caroline Stockmann and Clyde Whittaker on the PR side.

Despite the fact it has been several years coming, getting this system running on WordPress doesn’t represent the end of the story - in fact, quite the opposite. There is evidently a reasonable body of work still to do in terms of refinement of the site and a large job to do in terms of communicating with other committees to allow them to get the most out of the new structure. All those chairing committees should have details to update their own area of the site, but several committees have nominated another member to look after their area of the site. If that sounds applicable to your committee too, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with someone on the ICT committee.

The ICT committee was pleased to support the PR Matters event at Wellesbourne in February this year. The offer to help committees with technical arrangements for their events stands - particularly those which help improve the accessibility of Central Council such as webcasting or streaming of events (either live or after the event).

As we look to the future, there are several projects which the ICT Committee will be working on outside the new website:

• Migration of the hosting for cccbr.org.uk, felstead.org.uk and dove.cccbr.org.uk;

• Looking at Microsoft Azure and Office 365 to see how it could be of assistance to the Council;

• Getting moving with the “protection of digital assets” project.

The final project on that list has been mentioned at the last two meetings, but progress has been slow. The aim is to provide a shelter for any digital resource (website / software / app) such that it is not “lost” to the community if the original author is unable or unwilling to continue development. The Council has built up a technical capacity to host this service and the next round of work, but does not yet have the “paperwork” side ready (i.e. to lay out the basis of agreement between the developer and the Council).

Several projects have indicated a desire to come into the scheme, and we would welcome more.

Library Committee

2016 saw an increased use of the Library’s resources. There was one extended visit for research, thirty-three items were borrowed and eighty-six queries were dealt with, by sending scans or written replies, by our library steward Alan Glover.

A very generous donation from Alan Ellis has been made of a 1698 edition of Stedman’s Campanalogia: or the Art of Ringing, Improved, an edition which the library previously lacked.

George Morris presented a number of books in Italian about ringing in Italy; Steve Coleman provided the 2016 reprint of The Bellringer’s Bedside Companion; and George Pipe and Fraser Clift both continued to donate a number of interesting items.

In February 2016, the CC Library committee joined forces with the Biographies Committee to hold an Outreach Day entitled “Ringing History and Future Trends” at Wellesbourne. Three speakers provided interesting and provocative content. (See RW 15.4.16 p364/365). This event was attended by 50 people; it was the first CC webcast which showed 56 viewers overall. Thank you to David Richards (ICT Committee) for making this happen.

At this event, a number of items were donated by Chris Mew and Clive Smith, who gave the Library both books and a large number of 78 and 33 rpm records of ringing. Those that are new to the collection will be considered for transfer to DVD.

Unforeseen circumstances prompted Stella Bianco’s late decision not to stand for election to the Library Committee at the Portsmouth CC meeting in May 2016. We wish Stella and husband Anthony all the best. Stella will be greatly missed as our chairman.

Work continued throughout the year on updating and extending coverage of the library catalogue and more issues of Bell News and The Ringing World were added to the Central Council website. We look forward to making full use of this site to enable every ringer to have greater access to the Library. The routine binding and repair work has continued and a further group of valuable items has been provided with clam-shell boxes for their protection.

Paul Johnson reports we have now sold all the original DVDs, apart from the latest edition (RW1971-2000). We are now selling Bell News and pre-1970 Ringing Worlds by the volume or year.

John Eisel is making good progress with the next volume of Order and Disorder. Because of the volume of material he has discovered, this will be the last one to be published in book form. We plan to make later material available online.

Jenny Lawrence is standing down from the Library Committee and as a Council representative at the 2017 meeting in Edinburgh. I would like to thank her for all the hard work she has put in to the despatch of Order and Disorder books. Thank you to Sue Marsden who has taken over these duties.

The “Friends of the Central Council Library” saw an increase in membership subscriptions; three Honorary Life members and five Life members. William Willans wrote another essay to accompany the newsletter entitled The “Remarks and Collections” of Thomas Hearne. Without the Friends of the CC Library we would be unable to acquire new and rare books. For the fourth year, the Library Committee has waived the CC grant. Thank you to Ian Self for coordinating the Friends, along with Linda, and for being our Treasurer.

As the new Chairman, I would like to thank the Library Committee members and Stella Bianco for their support.

Methods Committee

Three consistent themes have come out of our consultation on the CC Decisions:

1. The value of having a consistent set of names for Methods, and the value of having collections of named methods.

2. The need for a framework of definitions for Peals and Methods in order that consistent method collections and peal records can be maintained.

3. These definitions should reflect current ringing practices and should not inhibit future developments in ringing, and should not impose value judgements on what people choose to ring.

We realise that there are discussions going on about the nature and constitution of the Council and its committees, but we believe there is a need for a body to steward the collections and to maintain the definitions on which they are based. We therefore feel that this is an appropriate time to review the purpose of the Committee, and so have prepared a revised Terms of Reference, with some input from the Ringing Theory Group. These new Terms of Reference are based on what the Committee currently does, but also includes some additional things that we feel it should do in the future.

The bulk of the Committee’s time this year has been spent on the Decisions on Peals, Methods and Calls. We published a new consultation paper, listing the areas where we think changes could or should be made, and we picked some of these changes to be made as updates to the current Decisions in 2017. We asked for comments, and the responses we have received to date are shown in the diagram.

As you can see, the favourable responses outweighed those who were against, with the biggest concerns being raised with the proposal on the use of simulators.

We realise that the rate of change has not been as rapid as some might like, and that the idea of making further updates to the current Decisions has been criticised as a diversion, or as minor tweaking. In defence, we can point out that if the changes in this year’s motion are passed, we will have moved the Decisions on significantly from where they were in 2014. It also means there will be less items of substance to change as we move forwards.

Our plan for 2017/8 is to build a new, more descriptive, decision framework incorporating:

• Changes in the substance of what they say, based on feedback from our consultation;

• Changes in their style and structure, to make them more consistent and appear less authoritarian.

In addition they need to be adaptable and responsive to change.

The Committee has made two innovations this year to the way it has been working, and which we hope will help us move forward faster with our work on the Decisions:

1. We have been fortunate to have enlisted the assistance of Tim Barnes and Graham John as advisors to the Committee. They have both been active in the Ringing Theory group, and Tim led their Rules sub-group.

2. We have been using new collaboration technology to help us in our work. We have been holding regular video-conference calls using Skype, and we have been using an online collaboration tool called Slack. The Slack tool has been particularly effective in letting us communicate quickly online and share work, in between our conference calls.

Throughout the year we have continued to answer enquiries about method names, extensions, CC Decisions and other matters received on the Committee’s email address: methods@cccbr.org.uk.

Once again, we would like to record our thanks to Tony Smith for maintaining up to date method collections at http://methods.org.uk. As we noted earlier, the collections are recognised as an important service that the Council provides to the wider ringing community and we are very grateful to Tony for updating them each week.

Peals Records Committee

The Peals Analysis

We have recorded a total of 4875 peals rung in 2016 and published in The Ringing World up to February 24th, of which 4003 were on tower bells and 872 on handbells. The revised total for 2015 is 4960 (4134 t/b & 826 h/b), an increase of 176 over that published in the last year’s report. Full details are included in the methods table that accompanies this report. The figures for the last five years are shown below.

The Yorkshire Association is again the leading society with 369 peals, 85 more than the second place Oxford D.G. with 284, similar figures to last year’s. The leading society for handbell peals in 2016 was the Oxford D.G. With 124, while second place Chester D.G. rang 99; again these were similar to the previous year. Fourteen affiliated societies rang 100 or more peals in 2016, three fewer than in 2015. Please see separate tables for details of peals rung for each society and by method / method type.

There are a number of peals known to have been rung but not yet published in The Ringing World including some from the first half of the year. We would encourage the organisers and conductors of peals to submit their peals for publication promptly, and then ensure that they are printed as expected.

Record peals

There was only one record peal rung in 2016, on tower bells. The record peals are detailed in the Records table below.

Peals not complying with the Decisions on Peal Ringing

There were two peal length performances in 2016 which did not comply with the CC Decisions on Peal Ringing. These were: on 7 April, at Hurstpierpoint, The Wickham Ring, 5024 Pudsey Surprise Major for the Sussex CA, which was rung on a simulator; and on 20 December, at Whiteparish (handbells), 5160 St Albans Delight Minor for the W&P, which contained an 840 change touch.

Leading Towers

Ten or more peals were rung in the following 71 towers in 2016 (79 towers in 2015):

There were also 28 handbell venues where 10 or more peals were rung in 2016 (26 venues in 2015).

First pealers and firsts as conductor

In our report for 2015, after 375 first pealers were recorded in response to the FirstPeal2015 initiative, we hoped the number of first pealers in 2016 would not drop down to the levels of 2014, when only 139 ringers achieved their first peal. It is of considerable concern, therefore, that we have to report only 98 ringers rang their first peal in 2016 - a serious decline.

34 people conducted a peal for the first time in 2016, which is a little above the average number for the last 5 years of 30, but is nowhere near the Central Council challenge for 2016 of having 125 ringers conduct a peal for the first time in 2016.

So all in all, 2016 has not been a good year for first peals, and the data adds weight to the suggestion that the number of active change ringers is declining year on year.

Corrections to the 2015 Analysis

There are several alterations to the 2015 Analysis owing to late publication which are detailed below. Corrections relate to tower bells except where specified.

The amended methods analysis for 2015 is shown in the 2016 methods table, which forms part of this report. Revised totals for 2015 are: tower bells 4134, handbells 826, total 4960.

The Felstead Project

During the year the work of maintaining the accuracy of the Felstead database has continued. The number of previously unrecorded peals added through John Eisel continuing to search a number of eighteenth and nineteenth century newspapers as they become available on line has dropped to 58. There are almost certainly others still to be discovered by searching through local newspapers not available on line; the searches have also resulted in a number of corrections being made. Details supplied by other ringers have resulted in a further five peals being added and corrections being made to some 76 others - mainly by comparison with Association records. Alan Glover has once again been very helpful in answering a number of queries by reference to materials in the Library; this has enabled a number of corrections to be made and the Committee is grateful to all who have in any way contributed to the accuracy of the database.

Andrew Craddock continues to be responsible for all the data for post-1989 peals and downloads the data regularly from The Ringing World, BellBoard and Campanophile websites; the Committee wishes to thank him for doing this important work.

Doubles Variations

A doubles variation is where a Doubles method is rung with a non-standard call to produce a touch or an extent. However, as a call is not part of a method definition, any method can be rung with any call, and for recording purposes the parent method is rung. Therefore, whilst the peal rung at Killamarsh on October 3rd for the Derby DA was published as Julie McDonnell Doubles, it is recorded above as the first peal in the parent method, Callender Bob Doubles, no previous peal in the method having been recorded.

Report of the Stewards of the Carter Ringing Machine Collection

The past year has been very quiet as far as the Carter Machine is concerned. We have had no requests for demonstrations and the Carter Machine has been a static exhibit at Taylor’s Museum. We have given two demonstrations of one of the Cummins simulators, one to a small group in Shropshire (Stoke St Milbrough) and then at St John the Baptist, Tuebrook, Liverpool for the Heritage Weekend. The latter event saw a failed attempt to ring a quarter peal! We hope to attempt this again, hopefully with more success.

In addition some work has been done tracing circuitry on one of the other, non-working, Cummins simulators. This is incomplete, and other things have take priority over it, but we hope to continue this work as time permits, with the hope that the simulator can be made operational again.

We are happy to consider invitations to give demonstrations of either or both of the Carter or Cummins machines.

BILL PURVIS
JAMES BLACKBURN

Report of the Steward of the Rolls of Honour

The original Great War Memorial Book and World War II Memorial Book are usually kept in their display case at St Paul’s Cathedral along with the new Great War Roll of Honour. Once again the Great War books have been out of the case for several months having been taken to Great War commemorations and have also been to St George’s Memorial Church in Ypres in connection with the memorial bell project that is taking place there. The books are in good condition and when in their display case the pages are regularly turned.

The original Great War Book records the names of 1207 fallen ringers. Research has continued to discover names of ringers that were not originally recorded; the new Great War Book records 152 names, and I have 22 additional names that will be added when the new Roll of Honour is next updated. The WWII Book records 300 names.

I am still following up the practicalities of extending the existing display case; this is much more complicated than anticipated!

“Rolls of Honour” have continued to be published monthly in The Ringing World, and I am grateful to the Editor, Robert Lewis, and compositor, Chris Caryer, and more recently Will Bosworth for their help. I am very grateful for the huge amount of help with family history research I have received from Yvonne Cairns of Jesmond, Kathryn Pearce of Bradoc, Beverly Faber of Stamford CT and David Willis of Braunton. These Rolls of Honour give details of the ringers who fell in the following month a century ago. All articles included a number of photographs of individuals, graves and memorials and were published as follows:

• April 1st 2016, pp.329-330, giving details of the 13 who fell during April 1916

  April 29th 2016, pp.426-427, giving details of the 11 who fell during May 1916

  May 27th 2016, pp.553-554, giving details of the 17 who fell during June 1915

  June 17th 2016, pp.633-635, giving details of the 35 who fell during early July 1916

  June 24th 2016, pp.666-667, giving details of the 31 who fell during late July 1916

  July 29th 2016, pp.786-787, giving details of the 32 who fell during August 1916

  August 26th 2016, pp.880-883, giving details of the 45 who fell during September 1916

  September 23rd 2016, pp.977-980, giving details of the 28 who fell during October 1916

  October 21st 2016, pp.1072-1074, giving details of the 34 who fell during November 1916

  November 25th 2016, pp.1189-1190, giving details of the 9 who fell during December 1916

  December 23rd / 30th 2016, pp.1300-1301, giving details of the 14 who fell during January 1917

  January 20th 2017, pp.52-54, giving details of the 21 who fell during February 1917

  February 17th 2017, pp.151-152, giving details of the 17 who fell during March 1917

These will continue over the coming months and years, right through to the last recorded ringer casualty who died on 12th March 1921 from wounds received in action.

I have continued to contact local ringers encouraging commemorative ringing, and I am pleased to be able to report that the majority have been commemorated on or close to the centenary of their death. Ringers may have seen these reported in The Ringing World and on BellBoard and I am most grateful to all those ringers who have taken part. Some Guilds and Associations have continued to co-ordinate efforts to assist with these commemorations. I hope ringers will continue these commemorations. I am keeping a record of commemorative ringing that has been done which has ranged from tolling a single bell to quarter peals and peals.

Peter Trotman and, more recently, Doug Davies have been undertaking updates and corrections as and when these are found and I am most grateful for their help. The website continues to generate a number of contacts and is clearly a very good way of making sure that information is available both to ringers and the wider public.

As always I am grateful to ringers and others for supplying information that enables us to remember those who gave their all.

ALAN REGIN

Report of the Stewards of the Dove Database

2016 was an exceptionally busy year for the Dove Stewards. We made 944 updates to the information that we show against a “Dove entry”, and 1591 updates to the information held in the prototype-National Bell Register (pNBR), the latter representing an 80% increase on the number of changes made during 2015.

The number of Dove entries, and the changes that occurred during this period, are summarised in the accompanying table.

We have listed 5 rings for the first time but no longer list 4 others (namely Clifton, S Francis, Notts; Oddington, Oxon; Rodmarton, Glos; and Thurlby (3), Lincs). We have been notified of 18 augmentations, 2 reductions (namely Broughton, Northants; and Buckworth, Cambs), 15 rings that are no longer unringable, and 3 rings that are now unringable.

We thank all who have notified us of changes that they believe we should know about. We are especially grateful to our hardcore of supporters, numbering some 20 or so people, who between them supplied over 50% of the Dove updates and over 90% of the pNBR updates during 2016. One person alone, David Sloman, provided over 40% of the pNBR updates. We would like to thank publicly those of our other regular contributors not named in our previous reports: Chris Pickford, Colin Turner, David Kelly, David Potter, George Dawson, Graham Clifton, Ian Oram, John Greenhough, Matthew Higby, Mark Walker, Nigel Taylor, and Paul Mason.

We are delighted to report that a team led by Richard Smith is developing a replacement solution for the Dove database using up-to-date technology. We have not, so far, had any success in identifying any individuals who might be interested in becoming our successors in the rôle of Dove Steward.

JOHN BALDWIN
TIM JACKSON

Rescue Fund for Redundant Bells

The full name of the charity is:- CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS RESCUE FUND FOR REDUNDANT BELLS

The charity is not incorporated. The constitution derives from rules adopted on the 29th May 1979 (amended on the 26th May 2008) and registered with the Charity Commission on the 22nd October 1979. The Charity’s registration number is 278816.

The principal address of the Charity is that of the secretary namely:- 8 LEBANON GARDENS, LONDON SW18 1RG.

The principal object of the Fund is to advance the Christian religion by the rescue of redundant bells for the purpose of their being rehoused elsewhere for ringing in churches.

The Trustees of the Fund are the members of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers Committee for Redundant Bells namely:-

R.J.Cooles
T. Jackson
J. Newman
Miss Helen Webb
D. Westerman
R. Wood

The Honorary Secretary is: R. J. Cooles

The Honorary Treasurer is: Helen Webb

Annual Report: 2016

The Committee has not “rescued” any rings of bells during the past year but has continued to use its own funds to assist the Keltek Trust Rescue Fund to enable the joint funding to finance the acquisition of bells otherwise at risk and for those bells to be reused elsewhere. As last year this has enabled the Trust funds to actually be used during the year for the rescue of various bells rather than just idling in a bank account.

It has therefore helped both organisations achieve their objectives.

It is some years since the Trust has had to request those ringers who are prepared to lend money to the Fund in case of need to support the work of the Trust. The Trust’s own finances have been sufficient to meet cases of need but the Committee remains grateful to those who continue to leave their offer on the table from year to year.

The trustees decided in December that it would make for better organisation to close the fund as a separately registered charity; to transfer the charity’s cash to a dedicated account with the Central Council itself and to continue the work of the charity under the management of the Committee for Redundant Bells (as is the present case).

HELEN WEBB
16 FEBRUARY 2017

The Ringing World, April 28, 2017, pages 429 to 447