Central Council of Church Bell Ringers

Annual Report for 2004

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 The Cottage, School Hill, Warnham, Horsham, West Sussex, RH12 3QN. The constitution and conduct of the Council is governed by its Rules.

The Council’s Trustees during 2004 were as follows:

The Council’s bankers are Lloyds TSB, Westminster House Branch, Dean Stanley Street, London, SW1P 3HU. Its Independent Examiners are Mr J D Cheesman and Mr R J Wallis.

At the close of the Annual General Meeting on 31st May 2004 the Council’s membership comprised 9 Life Members, 17 Honorary Members and 205 Representative Members representing 66 affiliated societies. The Transvaal Society currently has insufficient members to be entitled to representation. A report on membership for the new triennium is set out in the appendix to this report.

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

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

• 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;

• To encourage development of the art of ringing through innovation;

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

• To encourage high standards of performance in ringing;

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

• To assist in the provision, restoration, maintenance and transfer of church bells.

The work of the Council in pursuing this object is for the most part carried out by its fifteen committees and by working groups appointed by them. Summaries of their activities during 2004 are given in the committee reports, which appear elsewhere on the Council’s agenda and are being published in the April 2005 issues of The Ringing World.

The Accounts for 2004 show Total Funds at the year end of £356,131, of which £185,194 is in Restricted Funds. The income for the year totalled £31,486, compared with £62,958 in 2003. 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.

It is confirmed that the Council’s Assets, together with the expected income for 2005, are available and are likely to be adequate to fulfil the object of the Council in that year.

Reserves are held in the General Fund and are available for use:

• to be invested so that income earned can be used for Committee expenses;

• to ease cash flow;

• to develop new projects.

The Capital Reserve was set up by the Council to provide financial assistance in launching a ringing newspaper should The Ringing World cease to be published. The reserve is increased annually by transfers, in line with inflation, from the General Fund.

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.

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

Grants from the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund are made in accordance with the terms of Mr Dukes’ legacy. Grants from the Council’s Bell Restoration Fund are made in proportion to the types of applications received and in accordance with priorities agreed by the Council and reviewed annually.

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

I. H. ORAM
Honorary Secretary

April 2005

Appendix

Membership of the Council 2005-2007

Arising from the triennial elections of Representative Members by the affiliated societies, one society has increased its representation by one, namely the North American Guild, while three, the London County Association, the Peterborough Diocesan Guild and the Truro Diocesan Guild, each has one less member. Subject to any further changes, at the start of the 2005 Council meeting there will be 7 Life Members, 21 Honorary Members and 201 Representative Members representing 65 affiliated societies. There are two vacancies.

Of the 201 Representative Members, 169 (84%) were members of the previous Council (of whom one is representing a different society) and 32 are new members (of whom three have been members at some time in the past).

Two Life Members and one Representative Member have died since the last meeting and 35 other members of the previous Council are not returning. Special mention should be made of those who had been members for more than 15 years: Mr J A Anderson (St Martin’s Guild) elected 1986; Mr E A Barnett (Kent County Association, Honorary Member, Life Member, Council Secretary 1952-1964, Vice-President 1969-1975 and President 1975-1981) elected 1945; Mr A G Craddock (Durham & Newcastle Diocesan Association, Winchester & Portsmouth Diocesan Guild) elected 1978, served until 1981 and was re-elected 1993; Mr G R Drew (Honorary Member, Norwich Diocesan Association) elected 1970, served until 1982 and was re-elected 1999; Mr A J Frost (University of London Society, Honorary Member, Ancient Society of College Youths) elected 1966, served until 1980 and was re-elected 1983; Mr G W Massey (Bath & Wells Diocesan Association) elected 1972; Revd P Newing (Durham University Society) elected 1984; Mr R F B Speed (Middlesex County Association, Honorary Member, Peterborough Diocesan Guild, Worcestershire & Districts Association) elected 1954, served until 1956, re-elected 1958, served until 1980, re-elected 1982, served until 1987 and re-elected 1990; Mr S C Walters (Cambridge University Guild) elected 1975; Mrs B A Winter (Coventry Diocesan Guild) elected 1984 and Mr C A Wratten (Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association, Life Member, Council Secretary 1971-1993) elected 1960. Thanks are due to these, and all others not returning, for their services to the Council.

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS

Registered Charity Number 270036

Statement of Financial Activities for the year ended 31st December 2004

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS

Registered Charity Number 270036

Balance Sheet as at 31st December 2004

Eric Godfrey
Hon Treasurer March 2005

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS

Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31st December 2004

1 Accounting Policies

The accounts have been drawn up in accordance with the “Accounting and Reporting by Charities: Statement of Recommended Practice” known as the Charities SORP 2000, issued by the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales.

2 Fundamental Accounting Concepts

The accounts have been drawn up in accordance with the going concern, accruals, consistency and prudence concepts as stated in Appendix 2 of the SORP.

3 Funds

The General Fund is unrestricted. The Education Courses Fund, Publications Fund and Capital Fund are designated funds.

The other funds have been set up and maintained for restricted purposes.

4 Transfers between Funds

1. £1832 has been transferred from the General Fund to the Capital Fund in line with inflation.

2. £2170 has been transferred from the General Fund to Friends of the Library Fund.

5 Tangible Assets and Intangible Assets

The major tangible assets of the Council are the Investments in National Savings Income Bonds, The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund, which is invested in a CAF Gold Account and the Library Collection. The Library Collection is valued at a replacement cost of £66,434. The revaluation was undertaken by J M Farringdon as at December 2003 when the value was £67,600.The policy is to revalue the Collection every five years. It is being depreciated for accounting purposes at 2% per annum. An asset register is maintained for other tangible assets. The policy is to treat assets of an individual cost of 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.

6 Interest Receivable

This arises from investments in National Savings Income Bonds,Central Board of Finance of the Church of England Deposit Fund and CAF Charity Services Gold Account.

7 Committee Expenses - General Fund

These were as follows

8 Grants

Grants were made by the Worshipful Company of Founders through CCCBR of a total of £3,932 to five Ringing Centres for equipment.

The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund awarded two grants totalling £2,300 of which one grant of £1,900 was paid during the year.

The Bell Restoration Fund awarded 26 grants totalling £20,000 in 2004. Four grants awarded in 2002 totalling £6,700 and eight grants totalling £4,200 awarded in 2004 were paid in 2004.

9 Charitable Commitments

There were unfulfilled charitable commitments at 31st December 2004 in respect of 21 grants awarded but not yet paid by the Bell Restoration Fund of £19,000 and one grant awarded but not yet paid by the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund of £400.

10 Publications Fund

Storage and distribution cost of £1,650 was paid to Council members.

11 Payments to Trustees

There were no payments to Trustees.

12 Emoluments of Employees

The Council had no employees during the year.

13 Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (Millennium Grants) Limited

The company was formed in January 1997 to receive and distribute grants to bell projects from the Millennium Commission. Copies of the Annual Report are available from the Secretary.

The Ringing World, May 6, 2005, pages 424 to 425

Education Committee

The committee met three times, at Barford, Wellesbourne and Braunston. Betty Baines stood down from the committee and no additional members were elected at the CC meeting, leaving ten members for twelve places.

Courses

The committee delivered four courses for local societies and ringing centres (three listening and one conducting). The conducting course is a new venture being led by Barrie Dove.

Publications

The committee published two books during 2004. We sponsored Gordon Lucas’ Kaleidoscope Ringing and we produced the second compendium of articles from The Learning Curve series. Work on other publications has been slower than planned, but with useful progress. A re-formed team (Stuart Flockton, John Harrison, Catherine Lewis, Frank Lewis) is working on the new handbook for beginners. This is a major project that we hope to complete by the end of 2005. Our new booklet edited by Heather Peachey Getting it right - Guidance for Officers of Ringing Societies should be available during the first half of 2005. We agreed to sponsor a booklet on rope splicing by Frank Beech, which should be complete in 2005.

Simulators

Loan of the simulator continues, but at a low level. The simulator may be borrowed for evaluation or training courses by contacting Heather Peachey.

Network for Ringing Training (NRT)

The network that we set up to focus on the needs of trainers continues to flourish. Membership is well over 400 and the discussion list is active, and used by about 60% of members. Regular summaries are sent to other members by e-mail (or post for the 50 or so members without e-mail). The second NRT conference was held at Warwick in May, allowing face to face exchange of ideas and experience.

Action on Ringing Trends Report

In January we published a paper in The Ringing World discussing ideas on more effective ways to attract, train and develop young people, and the associated problems.

Code of Practice

We are exploring the use of a “Code of Practice” as a flexible framework to encourage good practice, and that can be used where there is a need to demonstrate that good practice is being employed, but without the potential adverse side effects of more prescriptive approaches. Heather Peachey gave a presentation on this topic to the Ringing Centres workshop in October.

Future plans

In addition to our on-going programme of work, in 2005, we intend:

• To begin development of a resource to support tower captains who want to run more varied, stimulating and effective practices

• To involve the training community in this project

• To explore the scope for shared projects with the Ringing Centres Committee

• To develop closer links with Public Relations Committee

• To try to stimulate more trainer focused activity at local level

• To explore the need for direct access services to support learners, and if appropriate to work towards a pilot scheme

The Committee’s vision is to take forward the state of the art in ringing education and to help spread best practice to member societies and individuals by whatever means is most effective.

Our thanks go to people outside the Committee, notably Allison and Richard Barnett, Peter Wenham, Greg Russell and Margaret Perrot, for support in running NRT, and to Barry Peachey for augmenting our team of course tutors.

Library Committee

This is the last report for the triennium and, taken in conjunction with our other two reports, takes us part way in achieving the objectives we initially set out. The work this year has been considerably hindered through long-term illness and changes in personal circumstances which left us short of two members. The moving of the library itself to a new location delayed much work and another member suffered from an increased workload in his paid employment. We held one meeting in the Library’s new home in Hereford, where those present were able to inspect the excellent new fittings and bookcases.

Despite the lack of a project leader, the transferring of The Bell News to electronic format has continued, although very slowly. Due to our lack of members we appealed for help in checking the quality of the scanned work. We received a number of offers of help, all of which were utilised. Unfortunately, some have found the work more time-consuming than they thought and have yet to return the checked CDs. The next committee will have to appoint a new project leader to conclude the task. Due to these non-returns we are unable to indicate when the CDs will be available and, as more than a year has passed since the original quotation, we do not know if the estimated price of £25 per double set of CDs will hold good.

Preliminary plans are being set into motion over the 2005 Roadshow, although it will fall to the next committee to fulfil them. Our website now has part of the library catalogue added to it, together with some of the Friends essays. The site may be reached via a link in the Council website or found at http://www.llangorse.clara.net/cclib/index.htm.

Correspondence with The Ringing World indicates that, on the successful conclusion of The Bell News CDs, the Library Committee will be given permission to produce similar CDs of the first forty years of The Ringing World. Other projects, either on hold at present or still under discussion, include CDs on illuminated peal books and the first issues of Church Bells. There is a need for a combined periodical index, a catalogue of historical prints with a ringing theme and extracts from 18th century newspapers.

Garry Barr and Bill Butler have indicated that they will not be standing for re-election to the committee. Those interested in this work should indicate their willingness to serve to the current Chairman (willbutler@aol.com) or any other members of the committee.

Publications Committee

Four new publications were produced during the year. They were The Learning Curve 2, Kaleidoscope Ringing, Grandsire Compositions and Rung Surprise Supplement (to end 2003).

Fifteen titles were reprinted: The Beginners Handbook, Beginners Grandsire, Beginners Plain Bob, Ringing Circles, The Learning Curve 1, The Learning Curve 2, Listen to Ringing CD 1, Listen to Ringing CD 2, Method Splicing, Call a Touch Please Bob, Tower Captains Handbook, Spliced Minor Collection, Church Towers and Bells, Kaleidoscope Ringing and the Video.

Bulk discounts were offered in March as usual, but it was decided not to make any special offers at Christmas. Advertisements were placed in a number of Society reports. We estimated that the business received directly from these advertisements did not cover the costs of placing them. However, we decided to continue with them for another year because of the publicity generated. A full page advertisement, including an order form, was placed in The Ringing World. This resulted in a noticeable surge of orders and was judged to be a financial success. Our pricing policy is under review and any changes deemed necessary will be implemented in early 2005.

Income from sales, at £13,250, was down by £1,500. Sales of “Dove 9” and of the Change Ringing Histories were again such as to require a stock write-back, this time of £2,500. The value of stock rose to £5,600 due to the increased numbers of new titles and reprints. The fund remains in a very healthy state, with an excess of income over expenditure of £2,700, an increase of £1,000, and with £26,000 cash in hand.

Jean Sanderson, the longest serving member of the Committee, suffered serious health problems in the early part of the year and is now resident in the Cambridge Nursing Centre. She is unable to attend Committee meetings but maintains a close interest in our work and continues to make valuable contributions. We wish her well and value her involvement.

Stocklist at December 31st 2004

The Ringing World, April 1, 2005, pages 299 and 301

Public Relations Committee

The year has been an interesting one, starting with the run up to the seventieth anniversary of the publication of Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Nine Tailors - quite often the outside world’s sole source of knowledge about bells and ringing. The book was reissued in the spring; and much ringing took place, including peals at two of the churches upon which the fictional Fenchurch St. Paul is said to have been based. Most imaginatively, a peal was rung by nine Taylors upon the nine bells at Basingstoke, attracting attention from both ringers and the wider world.

Throughout the year plans for the Ringing Roadshow 2005 - RR2005 - at Newbury Racecourse have taken shape under the guiding hand of Peter Davies and his team, Stuart Gibson and Cyril Lewington. Newbury has excellent facilities, and with this exceptional organising team we feel certain that RR2005 will prove a resounding success. The date - should anyone still be unaware of it - is September 10th, 2005; and up to date news can be found on the RR2005 web site, at www.ringingroadshow2005.org.uk.

The BBC Blue Peter programme’s venture into learning to ring, screened just before Christmas, proved a great success, helped enormously by the enthusiasm of Simon Thomas, the presenter, the young ringers and all concerned; and we congratulate Linda Garton, John Loveless, and Robert Lewis, the - senior - ringers most involved. Ringing came across in a very positive light as something fun, exciting, and done by young people; and with viewing figures into the millions the impact is likely to be felt for a long time to come. Though the e mail reply facility was unfortunately cancelled by the BBC on the day of the programme, the network of local contacts set up to deal with enquiries has been continued. This, with the “learntoring” e mail address which leads to it, is a new first point of contact for enquirers; and we are extremely grateful to those involved, and to The Ringing World for maintaining the link.

It was decided to extend the scope of the planned forums for association Public Relations Officers when it became clear that the focus was too narrow: a more broadly based workshop is under starter’s orders for mid April, tackling topical subjects for both PROs and anyone interested or concerned with the public face of ringing.

As well as events, the usual contacts lists and services, mentioned in our last report and including, thanks to the good offices of John Camp, the Mini Ringerz chat list for younger ringers, have been maintained. Lincoln Cathedral sought support for a weekend on bells and, thanks largely to Sarah Andrews, a stall was provided. The Committee has responded as usual to enquiries about ringing from the wider world. Broadly these tend to divide into help or information on a news story, or help and information for a feature programme or article. Support is sometimes sought for particular ringing, including, in 2005, the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, and the 250th. of the Battle of Trafalgar.

A new information leaflet on ringing is in process. Its design will also provide material which can be used for presentations or as backdrops for displays. It will be particularly useful with the resource pack material, which grows steadily. Copies of the leaflet for incumbents and churchwardens, Bells In Your Care, which was distributed to all the dioceses last year, are still available. The last few of the original information leaflets from 2000 remain: we thank Wendy Daw who has most kindly dealt with distributing them since their beginning.

During the past twelve months, sixteen cases have been referred to Alan Chantler who is in charge of the Complaints Network. The case at Duffield, mentioned last year, is now resolved. In effect the complainant has apologised, albeit reluctantly, and is bound over to behave himself for the next year. Advice has been requested regarding church clocks chiming all night in Ebbw Vale, Dursley and Wantage. There have been complaints about ringing in Battersea, Berkhamsted, Bonsall, Bury, Chalfont St. Peter, Chiswick, Leeds, Leicester Cathedral, Saltaire, Warwick and Willesden; and advice has been sought concerning the proposed removal of a screen of trees at Bishops Tachbrook.

In most cases the contact has been from ringers but two contacts have been from EHOs and one directly from a complainant. In all cases satisfactory information and advice has been provided. It is perhaps worth noting that it is well worth ringers taking the trouble to liaise sensibly with local residents and estate agents, providing information about ringing patterns, timings etc. This has proved to be much better than dealing with the complaints afterwards. There are sometimes very positive contacts, such as this one: “A couple of weeks ago our vicar received an anonymous envelope containing 200 pounds cash and a note saying that it was in appreciation of all of the pleasure given by the ringers on a Thursday evening. Our church has housing nearby, and indeed some new homes built quite close.”

Work on the revision of the Complaints guidelines proceeds slowly. There is some good advice available on the web site, both under Complaints and under Towers and Belfries Committee.

Judith Rogers rejoined the Council at Colchester as an Honorary Member; and we were all pleased to be able to co opt her back onto the Committee later in the summer. Richard Offen accepted our invitation to be a consultant to the Committee. Once again our gratitude goes to Harold Rogers, who, though no longer actually a Committee member, has continued to house and issue the display boards. Janet Edwards, John Loveless, and Susan Smith have not this time sought re-election to the Council: we are all grateful to them for much hard work during their time on the Committee.

The Ringing World, April 8, 2005, page 325

Ringing Centres Committee

Work this year has included the now routine business of administering the competition for the £500 Founders Prize and maintaining the list of CC Recognised ringing centres. A second competition has been developed for the encouragement of young people in ringing. This also has a £500 prize provided by the Worshipful Company of Founders. A crucial focus for the year has been the future of ringing centres and the Committee’s role with them.

Founders Prize

The annual competition for the Founders Prize for achievement by a ringing centre was won by the Gwennap Ringing Centre. The judges were Christine Baldock and Phil Gay (both from former winning ringing centres), Gail Cater and Derek Sibson. There were five entries: Barrow-upon-Humber, Eckington, Gwennap, Shiplake and Troyte. All were of a good standard and some were from newly established ringing centres which showed promise. Gwennap won because they demonstrated how an excellent management team had produced courses week in week out and had thus made a difference to ringing in the area. The presentation of their cheque and commemorative bronze plaque was made in November and was reported in The Ringing World and local press. Richard Martin, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Founders and Andrew Gillett, the Clerk, travelled to Cornwall for the occasion which was held at Gwennap. It was a memorable weekend and as well as arranging quarter peals, a dinner, lunch and the presentation, the team had also managed to fit in their regular weekly training session.

CC Recognised Centres

The list of these centres is being updated every two years. Centres are asked to provide a report of their activities through which their status is reviewed. Recognised centres now receive a certificate of recognition. An e-mail “chatline” is maintained and although it is not extensively used, it is supportive to new ringing centres and those in the process of being set up.

Founders Prize for the Encouragement of Young People

The Worshipful Company of Founders has generously promised an additional annual prize of £500 for the group of people who have carried out a project to encourage young people in ringing. Entries for this competition were invited in November.

The Future of Ringing Centres

The main issues this year have been firstly, how the network of ringing centres can be widened now that Founders’ grants are not available to provide incentive. The second issue was how the quality of what ringing centres do can be assured. To try to move forward on these points, representatives from ringing centres were invited to attend the November meeting of the Committee at the Moulton Ringing Centre. At the meeting, Roger Booth and Heather Peachey gave wide ranging presentations on “Increasing the Network” and “Accreditation of Tutors”.

On the subject of increasing the network, the Committee will make use of the coming Roadshow, and ringing centre articles in The Ringing World. A leaflet has been devised providing basic information about ringing centres. The Committee thanks Richard Parsons for his help with this.

As in the past, there was no widespread agreement on accreditation of ringing tutors, but it was agreed that some way of spreading best practice was urgently needed. It was agreed that a Teaching Best Practice scheme would be devised, led by Roger with the support of Heather. Ringing Centres and other interested parties would have input.

The scheme will have a Charter to which tutors can subscribe. Information will be available on the www. about how tutors can achieve Best Practice Charter Objectives at a local level. The project will be centred around a package of teaching material which will be downloadable free. This will be supplemented by a series of five-minute videos available in DVD or CD-ROM. The scheme will be launched at the 2005 Roadshow.

Next year’s report should show substantial progress on these two topics.

Biographies Committee

The following eleven members and former members died in the year 2004:

The deaths of the following eight former members have already been reported to the Council:

• BEARD, David Walter, Yorkshire Association 1981-1986 and Honorary Member 1987-2001, died 11th January 2004, attended 20 meetings.

• ROGERS, Olive Louise, London County Association 1945-1986, died 16th January 2004, attended 39 meetings.

• McDONALD, John, St Martin’s Guild 1987-1991, died 20th January 2004, attended 4 meetings.

• PERCY, Robert Walter Reginald, Sussex County Association 1960-1971 and 1975-1977, died 23rd January 2004, attended 12 meetings.

• CHAPMAN, Patrick Ivan, Peterborough Diocesan Guild 1954-1968, died 11th February 2004, attended 11 meetings.

• POWELL, Michael Vincent, Hereford Diocesan Guild 1981-1992, died 6th March 2004, attended 11 meetings.

• KIMBER, Stewart Frank Winthorpe, Surrey Asssociation 1968-1980, died 11th March 2004, attended 12 meetings.

• PONTING, Stanley George, Guildford Diocesan Guild 1963-1968, died 29th March 2004, attended 5 meetings.

The following two members and one former member have died since the last meeting:

• BARNETT, Edwin Arthur, Kent County Association 1945-1947, Honorary Member 1948-1951 and Life Member 1952-2004, Council Secretary 1952-1964, Vice-President 1969-1975 and President 1975-1981, died 2nd August 2004, attended 50 meetings.

• BENFIELD, Gordon, Yorkshire Association 1957-1965, died 12th August 2004, attended 7 meetings.

• WRATTEN, Cyril Alfred, Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association 1960-1986 and Life Member 1987-2004, Council Secretary 1971-1993, died 26th October 2004, attended 38 meetings.

During the year, the Committee have not met as such, but the convenor has had a “serial” meeting with all the members in turn. Members have continued with their several tasks.

Pat Halls has started the task of writing to all living past members who have not submitted forms, trying to achieve at least some data from them; the job of getting more photographs is also on-going.

Derek Sibson has promised to photo-copy the existing records, and still has this in hand.

Peal Compositions Committee

The committee currently holds no face to face meetings, and communicates primarily by e-mail.

We are pleased that we are past the difficulties we have had and are now back to regularly publishing a page of peal compositions every month in The Ringing World. The backlog of pending compositions has been reduced substantially. While the need to accumulate coherent selections of material to publish together still introduces delays of varying length, we are making good progress at reducing the time between when we receive a submission and when it is published.

Several new print collections have been published over the past twelve months, and are available for purchase from the Publications Committee. They are A Collection of Grandsire Compositions, Collection of 10 Bell Compositions and A Collection of 12+ Bell Compositions.

The committee also continues work on two further new print collections. In an effort to ensure that no errors are introduced special software is being written for formatting the new Stedman Caters and Cinques collection, resulting in this proceeding more slowly than had been hoped. Work is also in progress on a collection of handbell compositions, for which much material has been collected.

The on-line collection currently contains nearly 4,000 peal compositions, and continues to be frequently consulted by a wide variety of users. It can be visited through the committee’s web page at

https://cccbr.org.uk/pcc
or directly by pointing a browser at
http://www.ringing.org/peals.

The committee’s web page has been moved from a private server to the Council’s web space. Work is currently under way to re-implement the on-line collection so it, too, can be moved off the private server. This will ensure that its maintenance can be assumed by others if necessary, in line with the Information and Communication Technology Committee’s efforts to ensure the preservation of on-line ringing information.

The Ringing World, April 8, 2005, page 326

Bell Restoration Committee

The Committee met in London in February, in Colchester in May and in London in October. Michael Henshaw sat in on the early part of the May meeting held in the Headquarters Hotel during the Council meeting weekend.

Robin Shipp was elected to the Committee at the Council meeting, which brought the Committee back to full strength.

Finding New Sources of Funding

Various websites, some of them Government sponsored, were evaluated for identifying possible sources of funding for bell restoration. The conclusion reached by the Committee’s researchers was that if bell restoration Appeal Committees were to be successful in this area they would need to become adept at “repackaging” their applications in terms of heritage, benefit to the community, youth work etc, to meet the differing criteria of the different sources of funding.

A restoration project in Derbyshire has been adopted as a “trial” application for European Funding. The local MEP’s research team has undertaken the task of seeking possible sources of funding.

The expertise of some experienced “semi-professional” fund raisers was acknowledged and the Committee is planning to make arrangements to seek their advice and assistance on fund raising in general and on the thorny topic of engaging professional fundraisers in particular.

Two members of the Committee attended CharityFair 2004 held in Islington in April. A report appeared in The Ringing World of 27th August 2004.

Provision of Information and Advice

The number of parishes contacting the Committee, for the first time, for advice and assistance in 2004 was 38, which, coincidentally, was the same number as in 2003.

Articles were published in The Ringing World on Gift Aiding Income Tax refunds, the position regarding Gift Aided Open Day donations, and advice on making applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

There continues to be a steady stream of enquiries - mostly by e-mail - about the assistance the Committee is able to offer, using the Funderfinder software, to projects seeking grant aid from Charitable Trusts. Fifteen searches were carried out during the year and many more enquiries, which will result in searches being carried out as projects reach an appropriate stage, were received.

Whilst the Committee is not able to provide detailed financial advice to Bell Restoration Fund organisers, a ringer has offered to provide unregulated advice (i.e. not needing the authorisation required for the provision of investment and other advice) as and when needed. All enquiries will be channelled through the Committee. So far no such requests have been received. We are concerned to be reliant on one person for this advice and would appreciate other offers of help.

Administration of Funds

Manifold Trust

The Committee continued to provide administrative support to the Manifold Trust. The Trust offered 8 grants totalling £27,250 during the year.

Central Council Bell Fund

It was evident at the start of the year that funds held in the CC Bell Fund were sufficient to invite grant applications. Forty one initial enquiries were received within the advertised timescale. Of these 33 submitted completed applications, 5 did not return their forms, 2 withdrew and 1 was ineligible. Applications were considered at the February 2004 meeting, at which time a total of £20,000 was available for distribution.

Grants were awarded as follows:

Balmain - £600, Brasted - £700, Brentwood - £1,500, Chearsley - £500, Crediton - £600, Crowan - £1,300, Earl Stonham - £700, East Teignmouth - £300, Ellesborough - £300, Finchampstead - £500, Fulbrook - £200, Greatworth - £800, Heighington - £800, Highgate - £800, Hilmarton - £1,400, Huntsham - £1,000, Ingestre - £1,200, Loddon - £1,400, Madresfield - £600, Madron - £700, Mapledurham - £800, Moseley - £600, North Bradley - £600, Shabbington - £1,200, South Perrott - £200, St Osyth - £700.

There is insufficient money available in the fund to invite applications for grants in 2005.

There are no recommendations for changes to the Criteria for allocating grants and loans, originally agreed in 1997 and 1998. These are attached at the end of this report.

The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund

The Fund Trustees offered grants, decided in accordance with the terms of the Fund, to Orange, Holy Trinity, Australia - £400 and Sewanee, Breslin Tower, University of the South, USA - £1,900.

Future Work

The CC publication “Organising a Bell Restoration Project” was last revised in 2001. A free copy of this booklet is now being sent to all parishes contacting the Committee for the first time. The appendices are in the process of being updated with current information and the whole booklet will be reviewed prior to their incorporation.

The Committee will continue to follow-up and give encouragement to Millennium Fund projects currently in abeyance or abandoned, in the hope that they might be restarted.

The idea of a meeting between CC Committees and the “trade” is still under consideration though it was appreciated that, for it to be fruitful, a set of agreed objectives will be required. The Committee will consider whether it

might be possible to produce an advice sheet on making a grant application to organisations not normally known to support bell restoration by focussing on their particular aims and objectives.

Criteria for allocating CCBRF grants and loans

1.0 Applications will be considered for the following:

1.1 Restoration or augmentation work to existing bell installations, or the provision of new bell installations, in any country in the World where the bells are, or are to be, hung for full circle ringing.

1.2 Costs of structural and other ancillary work integral to the bell installation will be considered when these are in addition to work on the bell installation.

1.3 Loans or guarantees (when funds allow) to the bell restoration funds (BRFs) of societies affiliated to the Central Council, where the trustees may wish to make offers or promises of future grants in excess of the money currently available in their funds.

2.0 Offers of grants, loans or guarantees will normally be made from the Fund only if:

2.1 Support and approval for the project are to be given by the local ringing society, and

2.2 Support and approval for the project are given by the PCC or other appropriate authority, and

2.3 There is in place an existing band of ringers or the project plans include a firm commitment to recruit and train a band, and

2.4 Consideration has been given to the need to include any form of sound control within the project specification.

Priorities

3.0 Priority will normally be given to applications as follows:

3.1 Highest priority applications will be for churches ineligible for grants from the Manifold Trust.

3.2 High priority will be given where there is an existing band of ringers and the bells are in imminent danger of becoming unringable.

3.3 For augmentations priority will be given to projects to restore or provide a ring of 5 or 6 bells.

3.4 Projects with a total cost of less than £5,000 will have low priority.

Administration and Operation

4.0 The Bell Restoration Committee (BRC) will be responsible for administering the Fund. It will normally operate as follows:

4.1 Grants, loans and guarantees will be allocated after advertising in The Ringing World, and elsewhere if appropriate, for applications to be made. Offers will be made and will remain open for two years and then lapse. No payment of a grant will be made until the work has been carried out satisfactorily and the bill presented. The intention is for money in the fund to be used rather than accumulated, but no offers of grants, loans or guarantees will be made if no suitable applications are received.

4.2 As far as possible a balance will be struck so that grants, loans and guarantees are spread geographically and socially, and in proportion to the types of applications received, spread of centres of ringing and any other relevant factors. Also a balance will be struck among grants, loans and guarantees in approximate proportion to the requests received, but with each batch of applications assessed on their own merits.

4.3 Loans or guarantees will be subject to written agreements, with repayments unlikely to be over a greater period than two years, although shorter periods will be encouraged. The BRF’s ability to repay will be assessed before any loans or guarantees are offered. It is not intended that interest will be charged.

4.4 The BRC may consult as necessary before offering any grant, loan or guarantee, including inviting comment from other parties, such as the local society affiliated to the Central Council.

4.5 Appeals against decisions of the Bell Restoration Committee will be determined by the Trustees of the Central Council. Such appeals must be made in writing to the Secretary of the Central Council within 3 months of the initial decision being made and the Trustees will then consider the application afresh.

Towers and Belfries Committee

The Committee has met three times during the past year, twice near Oxford and once at Evesham. Members have performed inspections and provided reports when formally requested to do so by PCCs. Interesting and unusual technical problems have been discussed at the Committee’s meetings.

Three rather unusual inspections occurred in 2004. The first was at Manchester Town Hall to provide, for the City Council, a Statement of Significance for the ringing and chiming bells and Great Abel. The Statement is to assist with assessing a future maintenance budget for the Town Hall and its contents. The second was to advise on sound control for the Basildon bell tower. This required not only skill in assessing the type and degree of the control, but - unusually, of course - the need to ensure any internal structure is architecturally suitable for this “see everything” tower. The project is in the very capable hands of Alan Frost and is ongoing. The third was the inspection of the 77cwt chiming bell at Heavitree RC church in Exeter, long un-swung, with a view to its future swing-chiming. Exeter will doubtless enjoy the sound of this 1932 Taylor bell in full cry.

Technical development work continues on equipment to monitor and measure tower movement. Harry Windsor and assistant William Jones have almost completed a four-channel system that can display simultaneous readings of the movement of a bell and the subsequent movement induced in all four tower walls. The equipment shows 2D movement directly and will indicate torsional movement through further analysis, an important advance. A firm of consulting engineers has agreed in principle to sponsor the future development of a commercial product through field use of the equipment; it is expected to be on view at the Central Council meeting. An extension to the interaction booklet is being prepared for publication.

A representative of this Committee is one of the Council’s team meeting English Heritage for twice-yearly liaison meetings. The Committee contributes similarly to the twice-yearly liaison meetings with the Council for the Care of Churches.

The situation with regard to mobile telephone telecommunications equipment in church towers continues to be monitored during attendance at the liaison meetings with QS4, the “approved installer” to the Church of England. Third-generation transmitting equipment is reported to require a large number of extra sites. PCCs and their ringers are recommended to make themselves aware of the implications of installation of such equipment in church towers having rings of bells. The Committee has provided, on the Council’s website, information for PCCs and their ringers concerning Aerials and Telecommunications Equipment in Church Towers.

Health & Safety issues are becoming more prominent. A paper on the future implications of H&S legislation for the Council was given to the Council’s Administrative Committee in October by the Committee’s chairman. It was suggested that the insurance companies would take the lead themselves if the Council were not ready with the required H&S procedural advisory documentation. Agreement in principle was given to a recommendation for accelerating production of this H&S documentation. The point was made that H&S encompasses all aspects of ringing, not only the activities of the Towers & Belfries Committee. In recognition of this it was agreed that a new committee covering general tower management should include “cross-party” H&S in its remit.

The topic of tower acoustics, both internal and external, continues to be important. An updated paper on “Sound Management” highlighting the likely acoustic changes that can occur due to internal re-arrangements (e.g. augmentations of rings, and the installation of telecommunications equipment) has been made available to PCCs and their ringers on the Council’s website. “Tower Changes”, a free-issue booklet on how proposed changes to towers and bells should be conducted with the relevant authorities prior to a PCC’s petition for a faculty, has been updated and reprinted. Copies are available from the Committee or the Publications Committee. In addition, the Committee has prepared an update of the “Towers & Bells Handbook” which is nearly out of stock. A reprint is being considered.

The Committee’s contribution to the Ringing Trends initiative is a table showing year-by-year the proportion of ringable and unringable towers by country and county. This table, which compares figures for the last three years and has been placed on the Council web-site, was prepared using the “On-line Dove” data provided by Dr. John Baldwin. Unringable towers are increasing in the lower numbers. This trend is not confined to the remote rural areas. A further table, of the trends in average tenor weights by number of bells, is being prepared from “On-line Dove” data provided by Dr. John Baldwin. Average tenor weights are continuing to reduce for the rings with higher numbers of bells. This further table is about to be placed on the Council web-site.

Due mainly to the efforts of Committee member Jim Taylor, assisted by Council webmaster Peter Trotman, the Committee’s web-pages contain a gradually increasing range of procedural and technical guidance information for PCC officers and their ringers.

The Ringing World, April 15, 2005, pages 347 and 349

Report of the Steward of the Rolls of Honour

A second Addendum has been written in the Great War volume. No new names have been brought to my attention other than the twenty provided by the Kent County Association, but there is room for more to be included if they come to light.

This volume will be available for inspection at Harrogate, after which it will be returned to its cabinet adjacent to the College Youths Library in St Paul’s Cathedral, where the pages of both volumes will continue to be turned regularly.

ANDREW STUBBS

Report of the Stewards of the John Carter Ringing Machine Collection

In April an inventory of John Carter’s machine was undertaken and drawings of the component parts were prepared.

In May a public demonstration, arranged by the Curator at the Bellfoundry Museum, attracted 25 visitors.

Three sessions of training and maintenance have been arranged during the last year in order to familiarise the proposed new Stewards, Barry Ward and Alan Berry, with the features of the machine and the records.

The machine is to be displayed at the Ringing Roadshow at Newbury on 10th September.

Methods Committee

The Methods Committee held three meetings during the year, in Winchester on 10 January and 17 October, and in Whitchurch on 6 March.

The January meeting was an extra meeting as part of our work revising the Decisions on Methods and Method Extension. An article summarising our work so far was published in The Ringing World of 27 February 2004 (p.195) and both this and the draft proposals were available on our website. We are grateful for the feedback we received from Martin Bright, Philip Earis, Graham John, Edward Martin and Don Morrison.

This was a major work item and it is gratifying that it was passed by Council with little dissension. It was perhaps too much to hope that we had got every detail right and two items have been identified which need clarification. Accordingly we will be proposing motions at the Harrogate meeting to amend Decisions (E) D.2 (e) and (G) B.7.

The Committee’s website moved to a more salubrious address, www.methods.org.uk, and the definitive method collections continued to be updated on a weekly basis. We created a comprehensive archive of the Committee’s reports to Council, articles and meeting reports published in The Ringing World, reports of the Joint Committee, and minutes of the Council meetings since the Second World War.

A Supplement to Rung Surprise, Delight, Treble Bob and Alliance methods with those methods rung to the end of 2003 was available at the Council meeting and we will be preparing a new edition of Rung Surprise, Delight, Treble Bob and Alliance methods containing methods rung to the end of 2004.

Significant progress was made with the XML specification for exchanging method information between computer applications and we are grateful to Martin Bright and Richard Smith for reviewing a draft. There will be a further opportunity to comment before the details are finalised and anyone interested is invited to contact the Chairman.

Progress was also made with the new edition of the Collection of Doubles Methods. We would like to include diagrams with coloured lines for the different works and will be discussing the practicalities with the Publications Committee. We are grateful to Peter G C Ellis for providing his spliced compositions and now have a good selection that should provide interest for adventurous bands.

As usual, we have answered many enquiries about methods, method names and method extension.

Committee for Redundant Bells

Towards the end of 2004 there was a flurry of interest in redundant churches. This was triggered by publications from various bodies, including the Churches Conservation Trust, which highlighted the “heritage” importance of the Church of England’s churches, especially the 12,000 listed ones, their need for costly maintenance, and their often small congregations. Concern was compounded by a slightly sensationalist claim by the Ecclesiological Society that more than one church a week could soon be closing. This caused several headlines, and attracted some attention. There appears to be no evidence for the claim: indeed, the Church Commissioners reaction is one of exasperation. They have seen no evidence whatever for such a volume of redundancies, or for any increase in the present rate: 34 churches became redundant in 2003, 31 in 2004; and there appear to be 22 in the offing for the immediate future. A total of 1656 churches became redundant under the Pastoral Measure between 1969 and the end of 2003; in that time 539 new churches were opened.

A little scaremongering, though, can be a cheering thing; and the attention attracted has produced more concern to find funding for maintenance and more imaginative uses for redundant churches. Both must be good; especially at a time when the future of church buildings is under discussion: the Church Heritage Forum’s Building faith in our future is a particular case in point.

Comments have been sent to the Council for the Care of Churches in response to their proposals on listing bells and bell frames. Early in the year the Chairman was asked to prepare the Council’s response to an enquiry from the National Monuments Record of English Heritage about what to do with their records. We hope for replies to complete our survey of how redundancy works for churches with bells outside the British Isles.

The process of updating details of redundant churches to the associations continues.

We remain very concerned that there has apparently so far been no resolution of the Council for the Care of Churches revised advice on the use of bell substitutes: as it stands it appears to us a retrograde step which contradicts the agreed Code of Practice. Anything which has the potential to create “redundant” bells and to reduce the use or reuse of real bells is to be deplored.

Work - low key and at no cost to the Council, but strongly encouraged by the CCC - has continued towards a national register of bells based upon the Dove database.

As usual queries and correspondence have been duly dispatched. We continue to be grateful to David Kelly, consultant to the Committee, and the Keltek Trust for their work in rehousing bells, and to the Council for the Care of Churches, the Church Commissioners, and the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches for their help and interest.

George Massey has decided this year to stand down from the Central Council. We thank him for much hard work and wise counsel, not least during his time as Chairman of the Committee.

The Ringing World, April 15, 2005, page 350

Records Committee

Amendment

It has been decided to include a new category for Record peals of Minor namely Spliced Treble Dodging, and therefore the peal of 23040 Spliced T.D.Minor rung at Wistow on October 4th 2003 for the St. James’ G will be included as a record peal.

Administrative Committee

Since the 2004 Council meeting the Committee has met twice in London, in October and March. The arrangements for the 2005 Council meeting were discussed and agreed; the Committee has continued its practice of reviewing the work of Council Committees and received presentations from the Methods and Publications Committees; among other matters considered were the following:

Telecommunications Equipment in Churches - the letter to Diocesan Chancellors, outlining ringers’ experiences and setting out good practice for such installations, was sent on 12th October and similar letters were sent to Diocesan Registrars and DAC Bell Advisers. These had been well received and the CCC had noted that Minutes of DAC meetings were referring to them. QS4 (the Church of England’s approved installer) had also written to Chancellors, giving their perspective. A review meeting with QS4 took place on 14th January: the Parish Project Handbook has been updated and a copy was to be provided. QS4 have incorporated CCCBR guidelines within their standard information pack to parishes. The radius provided by antennae was less than originally predicted for G3 technology and therefore operators needed a significant increase in the number of sites: this would result in many more churches being considered as potential sites. There was still concern about contractors outside the National Agreement, illustrated by an incident where ladders had been fixed in the pits of two bells preventing them being swung. The permanent CCCBR group to monitor developments was planned, but had not yet been set up.

Risk prevention - Health and Safety - a paper on Health and Safety was presented: several members commented that the average ringer needed to be encouraged to understand all the implications. It was clear that PCCs were becoming more aware: one bellhanger had experienced a considerable increase in maintenance contracts; and churchwardens were preparing risk assessments for towers. The Towers and Belfries Committee had planned a seminar on the subject in April but unfortunately this had to be cancelled.

A second paper showed the need for guidance for the tower captain: on Health & Safety and on insurance; also, child protection issues would continue to need attention. A proposal to create a new Committee to provide such guidance was agreed in principle; because of the need for a Rule Change to form a new Committee and to avoid an 18-month delay, a group should be selected from other Committees now to start preparatory work, looking for people with the right expertise in each of the different subjects, setting terms of reference, etc.

Council finances - there had been considerable discussion on the state of the General Fund, which had shown an average annual loss of £5,000 over the last 3 years: a working group was set up to examine the position. The Treasurer would speak about this when the Annual Accounts were presented; but it was agreed that there was further work to do, particularly in the creation of new income streams, but this should await the election of a new treasurer.

Ringing Trends - reports from Committees - as most actions have now been completed and committees report the activities in their own reports, it was agreed to discontinue these reports.

Ringing Trends - Child Protection - a small group had been continuing work, subsequent to the distribution of the guidelines at the Council meeting. Mary Snape, a social worker with expertise in the matter, had been very helpful. The group had identified several areas for attention. The response of dioceses to the House of Bishops’ policy was very confused: some had accepted these procedures while others preferred the Council’s guidelines. Some Societies wanted to know what action others were taking: accordingly a questionnaire was sent to all Society secretaries. The results of the questionnaire were summarised into a survey report, which had been sent to all Societies, either to the Secretary or to the individual who had responded. Although there were instances of local difficulties with respect to Child Protection issues, few Societies required further help at present.

The Council’s guidelines were appropriate for tower activities but there was a need for guidelines suitable for Society activities and these were being drafted.

Mary Snape was seeking advice on what action, if any, could be taken to reduce the risk that might be posed by known abusers who moved around the country.

Consideration needed to be given to how to manage this matter in the long-term: should it be by a group or should a Child Protection Officer be appointed? The issues would change over time and an appropriate structure was needed.

It was anticipated that further work on Child Protection would be undertaken by the proposed Tower Management Committee.

Alliance with Geldrop and others - several members of the Council had expressed concern at the Committee’s decision not to recommend affiliation. The spread of change-ringing should be encouraged and stimulated; perhaps associate or some other category was possible; other groups might be considered, such as handbell ringers and carilloneurs. A small working group considered how to take these suggestions forward: while initially the work of the group had been prompted by the application from Geldrop, a more general issue had been addressed: there were organisations connected with bells where the ringing was not in the English ringing style. A proposal appears on the agenda for a new Decision (H).

English Heritage - at the meeting on 14th October it was noted that very few cases of difficulty now arose, as more parishes were consulting EH earlier. The Council had stressed the need for EH to specify clearly what was required for surveys of existing frames, to avoid abortive work and unnecessary expense. EH had given details of a proposed reorganisation which could result in less Case Work. Mention was made of the consultation on the Ecclesiastical Exemption: this might disappear and management of historic artefacts in places of worship be moderated by a Government body such as EH: the Church of England had raised strong objections to proposals made within the consultation. Diocesan Chancellors were reviewing the De Minimis Rules to establish uniformity. The meeting due to be held with EH on 17th March had been postponed at the request of EH and had been rearranged on 19th May.

Council for the Care of Churches - the meeting on 18th June was mainly about the criteria for listing bells and frames. It had been a useful meeting and it was understood that a subsequent meeting between the CCC and the trade had also gone well. It was felt that the CCC now accepted that the Code of Practice would be affected by changes to the listing of bells and that the task of listing was much larger than first thought.

At the meeting held on 14th January the CCC had agreed that further work was needed on the proposed criteria and would be including a CCCBR representative on its working group. At the invitation of the CCC John Baldwin had given a presentation of his work on a national bell register: the CCC was keen to see this work extended and the involvement of the Pitt Rivers Museum was an important factor in achieving that. Other matters covered were substitute bells, Diocesan Bell Advisers (and the standards expected of them), bells in redundant churches and the future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption.

Concern has been expressed that the CCC was now routinely advising against tuning, although it was understood that some Chancellors were over-riding such advice.

Felstead index cards - it was reported that the Library Committee had proposed passing these, together with Cyril Wratten’s method cards, to the Sharpe Collection, due to the lack of suitable storage space in the Library. It was acknowledged that the Librarian might not be able to provide storage for these items, but these papers were important to the Council and the Council Library was the proper place for them. The information held on these cards might still be required for reasons of completeness. It was pointed out that, quite apart from these items, the Library was very nearly at capacity and as time passed, there would be further pressure on space and that the Committee ought to be seeking additional storage space. It was agreed that the Library Committee should investigate the cost of additional storage and report to the next meeting.

Application to affiliate: Birmingham University Society - the Society had provided the necessary certificate required by Rule 4 (ii) together with background notes of its activities. Members supported the application and it was proposed to recommend to Council that the application be accepted.

Publishing Reports and Minutes in The Ringing World - following a request from The Ringing World Board to change the basis under which the Council contributed to the cost of publishing reports and minutes, a paper was presented, setting out various options for the apportionment of this cost. The historical record that publication provided was valued: an alternative would be to publish on the web with just a synopsis in the paper; Council Minutes and Committee reports could be shortened, but there was still a need to impart information; The Ringing World was the journal of record of the exercise and presented the public face of the Council.

The Officers had discussed the matter with the Board on 11th December but no conclusion was reached; the Board was to produce costings for further consideration. In the meantime the format of the reports was being looked at, with the aim of reducing the setting-up time for the compositor. It was confirmed that the charge in the 2004 accounts was pro-rata to that charged in recent years.

The wider issue of the relationship between the Council and The Ringing World would embrace this matter and the publication of peals; it was agreed to discuss with the Chairman of the Board how best to handle this, possibly by setting up a small group. Some terms of reference as a basis for discussion had been prepared; however the Board was not happy with these and had prepared counterproposals, to be considered separately by the two groups, in the hope that a common understanding would be reached.

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

The Revd. Dr. J. C. Baldwin
A. R. Aspland
R. J. Cooles
A. J. Frost
J. Hughes
G. W. Massey
The Revd. Preb J. G. M. Scott
P. A. G. Watts
Mrs. P. M. Wilkinson

The Chairman of the Fund is: The Revd. Preb J. G. M. Scott

The Honorary Secretary is: R. J. Cooles

The Honorary Treasurer is: The Revd. Dr. J. C. Baldwin.

The Custodian Trustees of the Fund are the President, the Honorary Secretary and Honorary Treasurer of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and the Chairman of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers Bell Restoration Committee namely:

Dr. M. J. deC. Henshaw
I. H. Oram
E. G. H. Godfrey
Mrs K. Flavell

The Managing Trustees’ report of the Fund’s activities for the year ended 31st December 2004 is as follows:-

There were no calls on the Fund this year.

It is very gratifying to report that the Ringers at Escrick have completed the payments promised to refund the cost of storage and insurance charges incurred by the Fund in respect of the St. Martins Birmingham Bells which were moved to Escrick. This was a voluntary commitment on the part of the ringers and the Managing Trustees are extremely grateful to them for this generosity.

The Managing Trustees have kept in touch with the Keltek Trust to look for ways of the two Rescue Funds complimenting each other in helping to ensure the appropriate use of redundant bells in bell restoration and installation schemes. As it happens no offer of funding that has been made has actually been taken up - either because circumstances have prevented the scheme from going ahead as planned or more happily because fund raising has been more successful than anticipated and funding from this Fund has not been necessary. The Managing Trustees anticipate making the facility that the Fund can offer more widely known in the hope that the funds available can be used for the acquisition of redundant bells for re-use.

As ever new promises of loans to be taken up if required are always welcome.

The accounts for 2004 are set out separately.

R. J. COOLES
Hon. Secretary

Rescue Fund for Redundant Bells

Registered Charity No 278816

Note:
The Council’s main fund is holding the sum of £5000 from the J. Kershaw bequest on behalf of the Fund.

J. C. BALDWIN
7 January 2005

Information and Communications Technology Committee

Following the untimely deaths this year of David Beard and William Hall, the BYROC peal composition program and the www.peals.co.uk website were at risk of being lost to the Exercise. Derek Sibson has now obtained access to the code for BYROC and is arranging for some essential maintenance and continued availability. Strenuous efforts by The Ringing World were necessary to prevent its total loss when William Hall’s website subscription expired. We understand that it will soon be brought up to date and kept current.

The ICT Committee is exploring ways to respond more quickly to such events in the future and with less intrusion on the heirs of the developers of these electronic resources of the Exercise. Typically they are the sole creation of one individual and they reside on a computer or website to which only the owner has access authority. Our first step has been to accelerate the transfer of Council committee webpages to the Council website, to which several people have full access. Second, we are arranging for additional website and database facilities which could be partly used to accommodate other electronic resources in the future. Third comes the more complicated and sensitive task: to approach the owners of significant electronic resources for their agreement and to arrange for access to their material when it becomes necessary - as it will, one day. This we have begun to do on an informal basis. Fourth, we will need to find people with the necessary skills who are willing to continue the work of maintaining and developing the resources so acquired, with appropriate partnership or succession arrangements for them in turn.

Some websites can very easily be copied, as they consist solely of a collection of HTML files, together with image and perhaps sound files, all of which are downloadable by any viewer’s web browser program. It would be a simple matter to save them and then restore them to another web server. Others are much more complex, as the pages are individually generated in real time by extracting from a relational database and displaying the particular information requested by the viewer, which involves complex database program code not accessible via the browser program. Examples of this type include William Hall’s website and the Felstead database. Ringing programs, such as BYROC, also vary in complexity and the skills and facilities needed to maintain and develop them.

Peter Trotman has continued to maintain and develop the Council’s website with new and updated information. Richard Allton and Don Morrison were assisted to transfer the web pages of the Records Committee and the Peal Compositions Committee from their private web servers, and a webpage was created in cooperation with Beryl Norris for the Ringing Trends Committee. The former Home and Site Index pages have been replaced by a simpler Home page, a Topical Index and a Table of Contents. Most pages have been converted to the new style and navigation system first adopted last year for the pages of the Education and Public Relations Committees. Much work is also being done behind the scenes to improve the infrastructure of the website to simplify maintenance, and a start has been made on improving access for the disabled.

Andrew Craddock and Mike Till update the Felstead database each week with the peal reports published in The Ringing World. Corrections are applied when they are received from the Peals Analysis Committee. The Felstead data can be accessed from the Council’s website at www.cccbr.org.uk via a link on the Topical Index page.

Every week, Andrew runs computer checks on peal reports prior to publication in The Ringing World in an attempt to reduce the number of errors that get printed in the peal columns. Two of the spin offs of this work are the Prolific Peal Ringers list and the feed into Felstead database.

In July Andrew Craddock was elected Master of the Winchester & Portsmouth D.G. and did not seek re-election as a Central Council Representative. He has been an extremely valuable member of this Committee for many years, being its Chairman from 1993 to 1997. The importance of his efforts, both on behalf of this Committee and elsewhere, cannot be overestimated. We shall miss his wise contributions to our discussions and wish him well in his new role. We also hope that a successor to Andrew as a member of this Committee will stand for election at the AGM.

The Ringing World, April 22, 2005, pages 371 and 373 to 375, correction July 22, 2005, page 692

Peals Analysis Committee

We have recorded a total of 5060 peals rung in 2004, of which 4318 were on tower bells and 742 on handbells. The revised total for 2003 was 5094 - a net reduction of 34. While this represents a reduction of 142 in the tower bell peals, this is offset by an increase of 108 in the number of handbell peals. Full details are included in the methods table that accompanies this report. The Oxford Diocesan Guild remains the leading society with 384 peals, followed by the Yorkshire Association with 375. Please see the separate table for details.

The Committee met once, in February at Abingdon, to finalise records for 2004 and to agree the format of the report. We are grateful for the continuing work done by Andrew Craddock collating, editing and correcting the current peal data extracted from the Ringing World input system, with which we cross check our data. We thank also those Society Peal secretaries who have helped by comparing their figures with our own.

Peals not complying with the Decisions on Peal Ringing

In accordance with the amendment to the Council’s Decisions made in 2002 we have identified those performances published as peals that do not comply with Decision D (Parts A-D) relating to peal ringing. There were three such peals in 2004: -

5040 Minimus in 8 methods (RW 2004 p1217, Seckington) contains methods (Countryside A, New A, and Kent TB) not conforming to the Decisions on Methods

5040 Shipping Forecast Singles (RW 2004 p1217, Middleton) does not conform to the Decisions on Methods

5040 Minor (RW 2004 p201, Harston) contains Dixon’s Bob Minor

We thank the Chairman of the Methods Committee for assisting us in identifying these peals. We have included the peal at Harston in our analyses, but not those at Seckington or Middleton.

A letter from the Chairman of the Methods Committee appears elsewhere commenting on corrections necessary for peals of Doubles to conform to reporting rules. All have been included in the Analysis.

Methods and change on year

The accompanying table incorporates a summary of the more popular methods with an analysis of the year on year change in the numbers of peals rung on each number of bells. “Single Surprise” means the total rung in single Surprise methods other than those listed specifically; there are no methods in this category rung 15 or more times. Of note is that Belfast does not appear for the first time in many years. An “Other” category is included for completeness.

Towers

The following 64 towers had 10 or more peals in 2004: (76 in 2003)

Peals were rung in a total of 1691 towers in 2004, compared with 1699 in 2003.

First pealers and firsts as conductor

There were 275 first pealers in 2004 (241 in 2003) and 37 firsts as conductor (26 in 2003). We congratulate all those involved in these performances, particularly where several firsts were included in one peal.

The leading societies

The following societies rang 150 or more peals:

In 2003, by contrast, there were eight societies who rang more than 150 peals. The Bath & Wells D A, the Hertford C A and the Peterborough D G leave the list, and the Gloucester & Bristol D A joins it. The Chester D G remains the leading society for handbell peals with 119 in 2004 (116 in 2003). Overall, the largest net increase in the numbers of peals was for the Essex Association whose total of 138 was an increase of 81 on 2003, while the largest net reduction was the Peterborough D G whose total of 107 was 61 less than in 2003.

A total of 17 societies rang more than 100 peals in 2004 compared with 18 in 2003.

Corrections to the 2003 Analysis

There are several alterations to the 2003 Analysis as detailed below, primarily caused by late submission. To meet our deadlines, we have to report on the data as received by The Ringing World at the end of February. Any changes notified later are included in the following year.

Corrections relate to tower bells except where specified.

The amended methods analysis for 2003 is shown in the 2004 methods table, which forms part of this report.

Revised totals for 2003 are: tower bells 4460, handbells 634, total 5094.

Details of the adjustments are available from the Chairman.

The Felstead Project (joint with ICT Committee)

Corrections to the Felstead data continue to be received and are acted upon as quickly as possible. Once again the committee is grateful to Mike Till for providing an immediate response to people who submit changes via email. A recent development has been to include in the database a status flag that can be used to mark a peal as false, hoax, duplicate etc. However, it will take a long time before all such peals are flagged in the database. Some further work needs to be done before these flags can be used to filter the lists of peals on the web site.

There has been, as yet, no progress on the next stage of the Felstead project, namely the completion of full peal data including details of the ringers. The Committee wish to recommend that a working party of Council be set up in order to examine how this project should now be progressed, including the software and Data Protection issues. Council might also wish such a group to examine more generally the responsibility for peals records, analysis and maintenance of other collections of data relating to peals.

The Ringing World, April 29, 2005, pages 399 to 401