Recruitment and retention resources

4.1. Intensive training

Not only do new recruits expect intensive training, but research clearly demonstrates that intensive training leads to faster learning. The more regularly a ringer attends practices, the quicker they learn to handle a bell competently, not just in terms of numbers of weeks elapsed but also in the number of hours they spend on the end of a bell rope. The more frequently an activity is practised the less is lost in between practices.

Intensive training is both frequent and concentrated so that more of what has been learned is retained between sessions.

Different versions of intensive training

It is likely that 10 to 15 hours will be needed to get your ringer to the stage where they can ring a bell independently, raise and lower a bell, set at hand or back at will and be ready to start ringing with others. Several handling lessons on successive days is ideal and twice a week should be considered the minimum.

Find out more about how long it takes to learn to ring.

Various ways of providing this intensive training have been successful:

• Two full days on consecutive Saturdays.
• Learn to ring in a weekend.
• Evenings (1½ hours) for a week or two.
• Afternoons (1½ hours) for a week or two.
• Group sessions over a concentrated period of time.
• A week’s course.

At the beginning of the intensive training set a date for ringing with others on untied bells – it is really motivating to have this to aim for. Enjoy the look on the new ringer’s face when they hear their bell for the first time!

When moving on to ringing with others, the extra concentration required is likely to result in less focus being placed on handling style. It is highly likely that further handling lessons will be needed when the ringer starts ringing with others to ensure development of good ringing style.

To charge or not to charge

This is a question that divides the bellringing community, but there is little doubt that most new recruits expect to be charged a significant amount for their training. 

What can be achieved in a week?

They started on Monday and this is what they were like on the Friday, after 10 hours of tuition... a little bit of finessing to do but next step will be ringing with others.

Right at the beginning – the practical side

If teaching children or you should obtain a permission to ring form and be DBS checked. Ensure you always have another adult present. You should use sound control or silence the bell (using a rope, inner tube or motorcycle tyre) to ensure the handling training is not audible outside. Make sure your new ringer is aware of all safety issues and what to do if control is lost.

And afterwards?

High quality, intensive bell handling training, typically has a retention rate of about 80%

Many more ringers are lost in the period after this early bell handling stage, on their way to being able to ring their first couple of methods inside. Providing the right opportunities and support to your new ringers during this stage is vitally important. Ideally there needs to be an equivalent to intensive bell handling training right through to ringing methods, however this level of teaching intensity is difficult to maintain. There are different ways of keeping your new ringers interested through these foundation stages which other teachers have found work. You can find these in chapter 3.4 of this book. See if you can apply them in your tower or local area.

Intensive training the Maids Moreton way

I call it a recruitment exercise that went wrong. A tower open day generated 13 people who wanted to learn to ring. Whilst obviously a fantastic response, it also resulted in much scratching of heads in the planning meeting in the pub – how on earth were we going to capitalise on this bounty? The traditional way of teaching wasn’t going to work so we decided to do something completely different; we’d take intensive teaching to the extreme and commit to getting everyone up to ringing rounds on four within a month. This being a leap year February gave us 29 days! Lesley Belcher

St Martin’s Guild Summer Camp

We can confidently say all students delivered and were very close to completing Level One of the “Learning the Ropes” scheme. All could handle a bell and were beginning to ring in rounds by the Saturday outing. Some were even ringing call changes at Worcester Ringing Centre, something I would not have believed had you told me at the start of the week. Arthur Reeves

From nothing to open rounds in 3 weeks

When I decided to learn to ring nearly two years ago I did not know what to expect and how long it would take. Initially I went along early to a practice night at St Peter’s church in Kineton where I was given a tour of the bells and allowed to ring a couple of backstrokes on the silenced bells. After that I could only watch the more experienced ringers as they went about ringing all manner of complicated changes. I was sure it would take months of coming along and getting a few short goes on the end of the rope before I would be allowed to join in on an open bell “performance”.

However, this was not the case as the Ringing Centre in Kineton has a simulator which allows ringers to have a go on bells that are muffled with the sound being generated by a computer. I was therefore invited to take part in some intensive lessons where I received one on one instruction from the tower captain, Graham Nabb in bell handling. These sessions were all conducted on silenced bells so I could safely learn the necessary bell handling skills without annoying other ringers or more importantly the people living near to the church – I am sure that listening to an inexperienced ringer try to set the bell 10 times in a row hand AND back over and over again would soon alienate any locals! Moreover, knowing that no one could hear my 100^th failed attempt at least lessened the frustration (a little).

After learning the basics of ringing a bell and coordinating both hand and backstrokes I was also able to practise ringing with other bells (where at least four bells were computer generated). Having access to practise for long sessions meant that I was able to solidify techniques quickly. This gave me the confidence required when it was finally time to ring with five other ringers on open bells at my first practice night just three weeks after my first tentative pull on a bell rope. I am sure that it would have taken months to get to this stage without the ability to have extended time on the end of the rope with only snatched goes in between more experienced ringers on a practice night.

The set up at the Edgehill Ringing Centre does not only benefit the rapid learning of the basic skills. It also enables ringers to have extended practice session when trying to learn new methods. The “moving ringers” were particularly useful in the development of that elusive “ropesight” when learning to ring the tenor behind for my first quarter peal. Cathryn Stokes