Central Council of Church Bell Ringers

Annual Report for 2013

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 2013 were as follows:

   President	Mrs K Flavell
   Vice-President	Mr C Mew
   Hon Secretary	Mrs M Bone
   Hon Assistant Secretary	Mr R Walker
   Hon Treasurer	Mr D Harbottle

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 27 May 2013 the Council’s membership comprised 4 Life Members, 10 Additional Members, 7 Ex-officio Members and 198 Representative Members representing 66 affiliated societies. At that meeting three Additional Members retired, were re-elected at that meeting and took office. The Rules were amended to change the Terms of Reference of three committees and an increase in the affiliation fee was approved. 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 2014 Council meeting there will be 4 Life Members, 10 Additional Members, 8 Ex-officio Members and 194 196 Representative Members. There are 8 five 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 2013 are given in the committee reports, which appear elsewhere on the Council’s agenda and are being published in the 25th April 2014 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 preparation and publication of educational and training materials.

8. The Accounts for 2013 show Total Funds at the year-end of £380,493 of which £215,807 is in Restricted Funds. The income for the year totalled £35,951, compared with £55,823 in 2012. The 2013 figures returned to a more normal level whereas the 2012 figures had included further donations for the Christchurch Cathedral New Zealand bells restoration and, in the Publications Fund, additional sales in respect of the new edition 10 of Dove’s Guide. 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 2014, are available and are likely to be adequate to fulfil the object 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) F 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, fixed term deposits 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 2014

Appendix

Membership of the Council 2014 - 2017

Arising from the triennial elections of Representative Members by the affiliated societies, the Dorset County Association and the Truro Diocesan Guild have each increased their representation by one, while the Irish Association has and the Oxford Society have each one member fewer. Of the 194 196 Representative Members, 149 (76.8%) 145 (74%) were members of the previous Council (of whom one is representing a different society) and 45 51 are new members (of whom seven nine have been members at some time in the past).

48 49 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: Alan Baldock (Sussex County Association) elected 1978; Phillip Barnes (St Martin’s Guild, Kent County Association) elected 1992, served until 1996 and re-elected 1999; Peter Bennett (Llandaff & Monmouth Diocesan Association) elected 1981; Michael Dew (Coventry Diocesan Guild) elected 1996; Matthew Higby (Bath & Wells Diocesan Association) elected 1999; Stewart Holbeche (Worcestershire & Districts Association) elected 1999; Michael Hopkins Till (Oxford Diocesan Guild, Winchester & Portsmouth Diocesan Guild) elected 1999, served until 2010 and re-elected 2011; John Mulvey (Stafford Archdeaconry Society, Lichfield & Walsall Archdeaconries Society) elected 1981, served until 1998 and re-elected 2002; Andrew Nicholson (Salisbury Diocesan Guild) elected 1993; Laith Reynolds (Australian & New Zealand Association) elected 1999; Judith Rogers (Peterborough Diocesan Guild, Lincoln Diocesan Guild, Honorary Member) elected 1990, served until 1993, re-elected 1996, served until 2002, re-elected 2004; David Salter (Suffolk Guild) elected 1994; Clive Smith (Stafford Archdeaconry Society, Lichfield & Walsall Archdeaconries Society) elected 1966, served until 1993 and re-elected 2007; Ian Smith (Sussex County Association, Guild of Devonshire Ringers) elected 1979, served until 1984, re-elected 1993, served until 2004, re-elected 2011; Mary Stephens (Society of Sherwood Youths, Southwell & Nottingham Diocesan Guild) elected 1999; John Thompson (Leicester Diocesan Guild) elected 1996; Michael Winterbourne (Winchester & Portsmouth Diocesan Guild) elected 1999.

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 2013

CENTRAL COUNCIL OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS

Registered Charity Number 270036

Balance Sheet as at 31st December 2013

Derek Harbottle
Hon Treasurer April 2014

Central Council of Church Bell Ringers

Notes to the Accounts for the year ended 31st December 2013

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

An amount of £5,000 was transferred from the Publications Fund to the General Fund.

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 £105,200. The revaluation was undertaken by J M Farringdon at March 2009. 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 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

8 Donations and Grants received

Further donations were received in respect of Christchurch Cathedral New Zealand bells restoration following the damage caused by the earthquake to the City of Christchurch. This is included in the Bell Restoration Fund as a restricted item and, together with the related gift aid, amounts to £312. The total amount of the donations received to date are £10,424, and a grant payment has been made, see note 10.

9 Committee Expenses

These were as follows

10 Grants paid

The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund awarded one grant of £1,300. One grant was paid during the year and one grant, awarded in 2008, was withdrawn as the recipient PCC had decided not to proceed with the project.

The Bell Restoration Fund did not award any grants in 2013. Two grants, awarded in 2010, were paid in the year.

Christchurch Cathedral New Zealand bells restoration -

During the year, in accordance with a request from the Cathedral bell ringers and the Cathedral authorities, a payment of £10,000 was made towards the restoration of the Christchurch Cathedral bells currently being undertaken by a UK bell founder.

11 Charitable Commitments

There were unfulfilled charitable commitments at 31st December 2013 in respect of three grants totalling £3,500 awarded but not yet paid by the Fred Dukes International Bell Fund, and one grant of £1,300 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 £424.

12 Publications Fund

Storage and distribution cost of £2,400 was paid to Council members.

13 Payments to Trustees

There were no payments to Trustees.

14 Emoluments of Employees

The Council had no employees during the year.

The Ringing World, April 25, 2014, pages 437 to 440

Administrative Committee

Since the 2013 Council meeting the Committee has met twice in London, in October and March. The Committee has continued its practice of reviewing the work of Council Committees and received a presentation from the Ringing Centres Committee in March. Jackie Roberts, Ringing Roadshow organiser and consultant to the Public Relations Committee, attended both meetings to update members on plans for the September 2014 Ringing Roadshow. In March Committee chairmen advised which members would be retiring under the provisions of rule 15 (i) and the committee sizes needed for next year. The arrangements for the 2014 Council meeting were discussed and agreed. Papers for the meeting will again be circulated electronically to those Council members with email.

Change Ringing for the Future: Regional seminars have been held at Nantwich, Nottingham, York and Winchester. Further seminars will be held at Bristol in May and Exeter in July. The seminars provided an opportunity to show the work of the Council, Ringing Foundation and Association of Ringing Teachers with a good exchange of ideas and useful feedback. The Committee supported the principle of arranging a special whole day meeting to discuss the policy issues raised at these seminars and to agree key objectives for change. A fuller report has been circulated with the papers for this meeting.

Public Relations Officer: The Vice-President had prepared a proposal that the Council should appoint a Public Relations Officer, who would be an ex-officio member of the Public Relations Committee and an Officer of the Council. This proposal was considered carefully in both October and March. A motion for the necessary rule changes appears on the agenda and a background paper on the proposal has been circulated with the papers for this meeting. Other matters considered by the Committee included:

Council Finances: The General Fund for the current year (2013) and next year (2014) was reviewed at both meetings, considering income levels and planned expenditure. The Committee was concerned that the steep increase in affiliation fee bears more heavily on some societies than others and decided to re-visit the possibility of linking it directly to society membership. A comprehensive analysis was undertaken and a consultation document was sent to affiliated societies ahead of deciding a course of action. 20% of societies responded in the very short time available. The consultation showed strong support for a change to affiliation fees, but it also revealed many concerns and criticisms of what the Council does and how it operates. On that basis the Committee recommends a review of Council function and organisation, as well as further work to develop a widely supported basis for future affiliation fees. In the meantime, it was agreed that the affiliation fee would remain at £30 per representative member for 2015. The Committee also received a request for additional funding from the Ringing Foundation and awaits more detailed information on the Foundation’s plans.

Application for affiliation: an application from the Guild of St Agatha has been received and recommended by the Committee.

Appointment of Independent Examiner: responding to suggestions made at last year’s annual meeting, the Committee reviewed the procedure for appointing an independent examiner before a triennial election. A motion to amend Rule 14 appears on the agenda.

Data Protection: the Hon Secretary, in consultation with committee members and chairmen, prepared draft guidance for Council officers and committees on data protection. This was approved at the March meeting and appears as an appendix to this report.

Church Buildings Council (formerly Council for the Care of Churches) & English Heritage: a meeting was held on 17 June 2013, attended also by the chairman of the Committee for Redundant Bells. The main topics for discussion continued to be metal thefts and the problems of bells in closed or closing churches. There was a useful exchange of views on applications to the Heritage Lottery Fund, consultation with English Heritage as part of bell restoration projects, and on initial proposals for marking the centenary of the First World War and the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. The next meeting will be held on 17 June. The 2014 DAC bell advisers’ conference will be held in St Albans in July.

Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG): The next meeting with EIG to discuss matters of mutual interest will be held in May 2014. The minutes will be published in The Ringing World.

Appendix
Guidance on Data Protection for Central Council Officers and Committees

Scope

This Guidance covers the use of personal data by, and on behalf of, the Central Council.

Personal data is held by the Council for several different purposes, and this Guidance distinguishes among:

• Membership data: information about the Council’s members held for the purpose of administering membership;

• External contact data: information about named contacts in other bodies, held for the purpose of contacting them;

• Biographical data: information about individuals held for the purpose of compiling biographies;

• Occasional contact data: information about individuals in occasional contact with the Council (such as enquiries from non-ringers).

Personal data may be held by the principal Officers, or by the Council’s Committees.

This Guidance specifically excludes mailing-lists sponsored by Council Committees but to which non-members are invited to subscribe, provided that the subscribers are permitted to “manage” their own inclusion (so can unsubscribe at will).

1. General principles

   As far as is reasonably practicable, Central Council Officers and Committee members will comply with the 8 Data Protection Principles contained within the Act to ensure that all personal data processed by them is:-

   1) Processed fairly and lawfully;

   2) Obtained for specified purposes and only processed in accordance with those purposes;

   3) Adequate, relevant and not excessive;

   4) Accurate and up-to-date;

   5) Not kept for longer than necessary;

   6) Processed in accordance with the data subject’s rights;

   7) Kept secure;

   8) Transferred outside the European Economic Area only when the country in question ensures an adequate level of protection.

   Data held by or for a Committee shall be controlled by a member of that Committee (co-opted for the purpose if necessary); when the individual is replaced on the Committee, the data shall be transferred to a successor without delay. Committee chairmen are responsible for ensuring that personal data held by their Committee is held in accordance with the data protection principles and with the exemption from notification to the Information Commissioner’s Office for not-for-profit organisations.

   Where data is stored on computer systems, it shall be the responsibility of the individual holding it to ensure that adequate backups are kept, that the data is held securely and that it is in a suitable format for transfer to a successor.

2. Membership data

   Membership data shall be held by the Assistant Secretary on behalf of the principal Officers, and shared with them as necessary. Such data shall not be further disclosed without the express agreement of the principal Officers and the data subject.

   As Council members are also eligible to be members of The Ringing Foundation Ltd and The Ringing World Ltd, members’ contact information will also be shared with these bodies as appropriate.

   Council members shall be invited to update their personal data once a triennium, and encouraged to update it as necessary in the interim. This satisfies the requirement for accuracy.

   Membership data concerning individuals who cease to be members shall be deleted promptly, with the exception of historical data (name, dates of membership, positions held, etc).

   Some data is published, principally on the Council website, to give the public a means of contacting members. In each case this is done with the member’s permission, which can be changed on request.

   At one extreme, full contact details may be published; at the other, a member may have no information at all displayed. However, this will necessarily be overridden in the case of a member holding an office which constitutes a contact point for the Council.

3. External contact data

   Personal data concerning external contacts is normally obtained from the relevant external source and as such can only be as accurate as that source. Efforts shall be made to keep it up to date but responsibility does not fall on the Council in the case of non-response to update requests.

   It should be noted that, in most cases, data concerning external contacts refers to the post rather than the post-holder and as such is not “personal data”.

4. Biographical data

   Biographical data is principally controlled by the Biographies Committee.

   The Biographies Committee holds some information on live ringers, in order to facilitate production of biographic records after death. Historically this was limited to Council members, but now may include any notable ringer. Information held may include: a summary form filled in by the subject, a photo (from the subject or taken for the purpose), an autobiographical account provided by the subject, or other information obtained from sources in the public domain (e.g. The Ringing World).

   In future the Committee plans to make available a public database, a kind of ‘Who’s Who’ for ringers, to which people would be able to contribute information about either themselves or other ringers. This is intended for information already in the public domain. It will include protection to prevent misuse. Information submitted would only be visible to the contributor until it had been checked by the Committee. Anything believed to be inaccurate, not in the public domain or unsuitable would be removed and not made public, as would anything requested by the subject.

   Ringers will still be invited to submit autobiographical information to be held privately for use after death.

   Most current information is in paper form, but most new information will probably be held digitally.

5. Occasional contact data

   Occasional contact information is initiated and supplied by the subject making an enquiry and is only retained by the Council Officers or Committees for the purpose of responding to the enquiry, or in subsequent correspondence with the same subject.

April 2014

Appendix
Guidance for Central Council members in managing actual, potential or perceptions of conflicts of interest

Conflicts of interest can arise, or be perceived to exist, where members have a financial or other business interest in an organisation that operates within the arena of bellringing, hanging, manufacturing, restoration or maintenance of towers and bells, as well as other areas such as publishing or IT, referred to here as bell-related trades.

A business interest of this sort does not preclude Societies or the Council from electing such members to represent them or to hold office within the Council. However, for the avoidance of any possible misunderstanding, members are asked to follow this guidance.

1. The Council shall maintain a Register of Members Interests. All Council members shall advise the Hon Secretary of any financial or other business interest they have in any bell-related trades. In the event of uncertainty as to whether disclosure is needed, disclosure shall be made.

2. The Hon Secretary shall circulate the Register of Members Interests to the Council Officers and Committee Chairmen.

3. During the conduct of Council business, such as (but not limited to) the Council’s annual meeting or committee meetings, members with such interests shall always declare any relevant interest in any proceedings.

4. Any concern arising from an interest not being declared shall be referred to either the President or the Vice-President who shall resolve the matter taking such advice as they consider necessary.

Library Committee

The “Outreach Day” attracted 48 participants on 23 February at Wellesbourne where Peter & Veronica Quinn made us so welcome. Our excellent speakers (Chris Pickford, John Eisel, and Chris Ridley) gave us food for thought on the future of ringing libraries; anecdotes on the history of ringing from old newspaper research; and entertainment from collecting ringing ephemera. Greg Morris’ article prompted The Editor of The Ringing World to publish it on the front page on 12 April 2013 and two inside pages, including photographs of the speakers and the Guildford Guild stand.

Order and Disorder in the early Nineteenth Century. 1800-1829. Compiled by John Eisel, this is the second volume in the series and our latest publication. Thanks go to Richard Smith for writing a review for The Ringing World. The Exercise owes a huge debt of gratitude for John’s work and he is now working on the third volume. We have also reprinted Order and Disorder in the Eighteenth Century so, with the Supplement, we can offer all three publications.

Order and Disorder in the early Nineteenth Century. 1800-1829. Compiled by John Eisel

Ringing World DVD Volume II 1941-1970: Thanks go to Paul Johnson for undertaking far more work than envisaged to get this DVD ready in time for Christmas. We can report that sales have gone very well and we have plenty more in stock. Website www.cccbr.org.uk/library/pubs/

The cover of The Ringing World 1941-1970 DVD

The label of The Ringing World 1941-1970 DVD

Our duplicate set of The Ringing World needs to be stored at a separate location and, if possible, made accessible to researchers, as the reason for the deposit being made. So, this set has been loaned to the Bodleian Library and we are grateful to Michael Williams for his assistance. Succession planning featured on our October committee agenda and, should the Central Council find itself without a volunteer to house its library, we have had some informal discussions about the possibility of housing the Library collection at the Bodleian in the long term.

Two committee meetings were held in February and October. We were sorry to lose Greg Morris at the Guildford Central Council Meeting and welcomed Linda Foddering (Middlesex County Association and London Diocesan Guild) to the committee. Linda is helping with administrative matters, such as the Friends Newsletter, and Jenny is running the packing and despatch department for Order & Disorder publications, plus any other tasks we think of …

We would like to thank several people who offered to assist with converting our stock of old recordings held on records, cassettes and videos to DVD. We have now obtained several DVDs made by others that reflect the old material.

We thank the Friends of the Library for their subscriptions, which endorse the work the Library committee undertakes. Also, those who have taken up the offer of Life Membership - this is most encouraging. Ian Self is the Friends co-ordinator.

The accounts are submitted to the Council Hon Treasurer and, following checking by the independent examiners, appear in summary in the Council’s accounts. They are also published in the annual Newsletter for the Friends of the Library, whose subscriptions fund projects such as printed publications and DVDs. Copies of the accounts are available on request from Ian Self.

John Eisel has kindly written another interesting Essay (No 21 in the series) entitled: “Canon Woolmore Wigram MA, Belfry Reform, and Change-Ringing Disentangled” to accompany the newsletter sent to the Friends. Past essays are available on our website.

During 2013 usage of the Library was very similar to that in 2012. Sixteen items were borrowed and 106 queries were dealt with by sending scans or written replies. Personal visits were made by five ringers, mostly in connection with the sale of surplus items. This sale of books, booklets, periodicals and records which were not required by the Library took place early in the year. Twenty-five bidders were successful in purchasing about one hundred and fifty items. After distribution costs, some £2,900 was added to the funds available for increasing the library stock and making the contents of the Library more easily available. Thanks go to Alan Glover for masterminding this exercise.

Some of the money will be used for a project to dis-bind a set of c35 volumes of Church Bells magazines 1871-1906 to be borrowed from Taylor’s, so that the bell ringing pages can be scanned. Some of the leftover auction books will be on our stand at the Ringing Roadshow.

We are grateful to David Leach, Fraser Clift, Peter Dale, Paul Flavell, Kingsley Mason, The Ringing World and The Trustees of the Sharpe Trust, among others, for donations of several items. Three items accessioned this year are DVDs with images of three MS items which we were previously unable to allow out of the library. These DVDs are now available for loan and further items will be scanned in time and subject to their condition.

We have made good progress in filling some of the gaps in our archive of annual reports. Michael White, Dave Kelly, Bruce Butler, Lucy Smith, Chris Mew and the Taylor Foundry archive are among those who have provided very useful reports. Many guilds and associations send a copy of their annual reports to the Library as a matter of course, and to these we are grateful. Other secretaries or report editors are not so helpful and an increasing amount of time is spent pursuing and purchasing these important links in our contemporary archive.

The Librarian has made a plea each year for help in locating some of the key missing reports, and each year some have been secured, so here is this year’s wish list:

• Bath and Wells D A 1927 and 1928
  Bedfordshire A 1928 and 1930
  Derby D A 1946 -1949 and 1951
  Devonshire G 1937-1942, 1944, 1953
  Durham and Newcastle D A 1957/58, 1962/62, 1969/70
  EDWN A 2010, 2012
  Ely D G 1908-1911
  Essex A 1917, 1930
  Hertford County A 1921/22
  Irish A 1952
  Midland Counties A 1929
  Midland Counties G 1966, 1981
  North Wales A 1993-1995, 2000, 2001
  Peterborough D G 1925
  Shropshire A Any pre-1938
  Truro D G 1960, 1962-1964
  Winchester and Portsmouth D G 1941-1944
  Winchester D G 1924, 1925

Methods Committee

Much of the Methods Committee’s time this year has been spent discussing the Central Council Decisions concerning Peal Ringing and Methods and Calls. This is as a result of a peal rung in Cambridge and a request made at the 2013 Council meeting. Our objective has been to allow peals such as this one to be described in a way that seems natural to the composer and the ringers. At the same time we note that the concept of a method has served ringing well and is widely recognised by ringers so it is something that we wish to keep. We have therefore prepared amendments to the Decisions that aim to strike an appropriate balance between these two objectives.

The Committee has again worked with the Compositions Committee to make some changes to The Ringing World Diary. There has been a generally favourable reaction to our introduction of some new Surprise Major methods. We also added a page of date touches and a page of compositions by the late Roger Bailey which we felt was an appropriate way to mark the work that Roger had put into the Diary over many years.

Once again, we would like to record our thanks to Tony Smith for maintaining the method collections at www.methods.org.uk. These allow ringers to look up the details of any method that has been named, and are also available as text or XML files. They are an important ringing resource, and we are very grateful to Tony for updating them each week.

The committee is also making progress on two long-standing pieces of work: a revised description of method extensions and a new book of Doubles Methods that includes details on how to splice them. Throughout the year we have continued to answer a regular stream of enquiries about method names, extensions, Council Decisions and other matters received on the committee’s email address: methods@cccbr.org.uk

Peals Records Committee

The Peals Analysis

We have recorded a total of 4994 peals rung in 2013 and published in The Ringing World up to February 28th, of which 4206 were on tower bells and 788 handbells. The revised total for 2012 is 5141, an increase of 41. Full details are included in the methods table that accompanies this report. While the handbell total shows an increase of 52 (7.1%) on the revised 2012 total, the tower bell total is 199 (4.5%) lower than that in 2012. The Yorkshire Association is again the leading society with 324, 51 more than the Oxford Diocesan Guild with 273, both of these being increases of about 30 on last year. The Chester Guild is once again the leading society for handbell peals with 103, one more than their total in 2012, closely followed by the Oxford D.G. with 100. Seventeen affiliated societies rang 100 or more peals in 2013, the same number as last year. 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. 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 were five record peals rung in 2013, all on tower bells, together with one other peal over 10,000 changes. The record peals are detailed in the Records table below.

Peals not complying with the Decisions on Peal Ringing

All the peals rung in 2013 which were published in The Ringing World up to 28th February, 2014 complied with the Central Council Decisions on Peal Ringing.

Leading Towers

The following 75 towers had 10 or more peals in 2013: (77 in 2012):-

There were also 24 handbell venues where 10 or more peals were rung in 2013.

First pealers and firsts as conductor

We have noted 156 people who rang their first peal in 2013 (191 in 2012) and 22 firsts as conductor (35 in 2012). We congratulate all those involved in these performances particularly where several firsts were included in one peal.

These numbers are significantly lower than those for the 2012 and more in line with those for the previous couple of years, presumably because there were fewer major national events in 2013.

This data is taken from Pealbase and the committee would like to thank Andrew Craddock for his excellent resource.

Corrections to the 2012 Analysis

There are a number of alterations to the 2012 Analysis owing to late publication which are detailed below.

Corrections relate to tower bells except where specified.

The amended methods analysis for 2012 is shown in the 2013 methods table, which forms part of this report. Revised totals for 2012 are: tower bells 4405, handbells 735, total 5140.

The Felstead Project

During the year the work of maintaining the accuracy of the Felstead database has continued. Some 68 previously unrecorded peals have been added and corrections made to 33 others due to John Eisel continuing to search a number of eighteenth and nineteenth century newspapers on line. There are almost certainly others still to be discovered by searching through local newspapers not available on line. Details supplied by other ringers - a good number by Alison Brittliff from the Lancashire Association records - have resulted in a further ten peals being added and corrections being made to some 33 others. 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.

Public Relations Committee

The Committee met three times (with two members linked via Skype at one), twice in Wellesbourne and once in Birmingham. In May Rupert Littlewood and Bill Dowse stood down and Ernie de Legh-Runciman and Matthew Sorell joined the Committee. Jackie Roberts was appointed a consultant in order to lead the Ringing Roadshow team.

Bells on Sunday - Mike Orme continued to schedule the weekly broadcasts on a monthly basis throughout the year. Nelson Mandela’s death bought brought a very quick response - Mathon, Herefordshire produced an mp3 file of a half muffled quarter peal rung within a few days, the programme team wrote the broadcast notes and it was aired within three weeks. Bathwick won the Children in Need auction to have their bells recorded, possibly to be broadcast on Easter Day. Several significant landmarks are booked for broadcasts in 2014. The BBC is considering ringers’ concerns about recordings only being available for seven days. Online streaming is being considered, subject to any rights issues, so broadcasts may become available in perpetuity.

Communication - Lynne Hughes set up a mailing list so we can more easily distribute information to affiliated societies. This includes articles, etc that can be distributed locally to ringers who don’t see The Ringing World, as well as other routine communications. The list has been used about twice a month by various committees and officers. We are developing similar lists to enable us to communicate directly with society newsletter editors and PR officers.

Social media - We have a presence on Facebook and Twitter and periodically post information about Council or ringing activities. Members of the Committee are actively engaged in Facebook and Twitter and participate in a range of ringing-related social media forums, identifying themselves as Committee members when relevant. We are exploring techniques to encourage more interaction with our social media page, and one of our members has signed up for additional training in social media.

Ringing Roadshow - Jackie Roberts has been planning the 2014 Roadshow since late 2012 and the grandstand at Newbury Racecourse was booked early in 2013. The event will be modelled on previous successful Roadshows. In addition to exhibitors, there will be handbell demonstrations and concerts, mini-rings, towers open in the area and seminars, as well as some new ideas. We believe there will be something for every ringer. Previous and new potential exhibitors were approached and provisional stand bookings taken. Discussions have been on-going with the Handbell Ringers of Great Britain, trade exhibitors and potential sponsors. A draft seminar programme has been prepared and a new Roadshow logo was launched as the result of a competition.

Publicity material - Our recruiting leaflet continues to be in demand. John Harrison supplied over 8,000 to nearly 80 towers or societies as well as 125 of the posters printed some years ago. We changed our supply policy - leaflets are still free but we now invite donations to cover production costs as well as postage. (In 2013 donations were 150% of postage but only 80% of total cost.) We anticipate making some changes to the leaflet before the next print run in 2014.

Public ringing - We continue to encourage ringing, and associated publicity, for public events. John Harrison maintains the list of historic anniversaries, etc on the website (www.cccbr.org.uk/things-to-ring-for). National days of all ringing nations have been added. We encouraged widespread ringing for the tercentenary of Fabian Stedman’s death and promoted the story to the media. We also consulted ringers before formulating a policy on ringing for the centenary of events associated with the First World War. Both of these resulted in articles in The Ringing World, which were also sent to ringing societies. We are in contact with the team planning to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.

Advice - We receive requests for information or help on many aspects of ringing from broadcasters, journalists, public bodies and individuals in the UK and abroad. John Harrison or Helen Udal responded to all requests with information and/or further contacts.

Other activity - James Forster manages requests from potential recruits via our ‘learn to ring’ address, routing them to appropriate local contacts. Bruce Butler manages international liaison. Beverly Faber manages Council website liaison. Mike Orme is updating the press list. Nick Jones is preparing contact lists to distribute information to clergy via diocesan offices. John Harrison represented the Committee on the Recruitment & Training Forum. We discussed and support the proposal for the Council to create a new post of Public Relations Officer.

International reports
A N Z A B
Australia

The ANZAB Festival was held this year in Canberra, Yass and Goulburn over the ANZAC Day weekend, and culminated in a Sunday night special “The Bells of St Leonard’s” on ABC television, telling the story of the new ring of 6 at this tower in the Sydney suburb of Naremburn. At least 3 new towers are planned for towns in the vicinity of Sydney in 2014.

Meanwhile, Adelaide has doubled its number of ringers in 2013 thanks to the Adelaide Ringing Centre. While not all new ringers are yet up to service-ringing standard, this is a big shot in the arm for ringing. Teachers at the centre undertook the Integrated Teacher Training Scheme with Graham Nabb via Skype video call over 4 weeks in November.

In October, the estate of Jenny Murphy, a long-term Melbourne ringer, was finalised. The ANZAB Public Donations Fund received a bequest of A$673,000 (around GBP400,000). A proposal to replace the existing ring of 6 bells cast by Danks and hung for change ringing at St Bartholomew’s, Burnley, Victoria, was accepted by the Parish. Whitechapel will provide an all-new ring of bells in 2014. The remaining substantial sum from the bequest will be managed by the ANZAB Fund Committee to enable new projects, including but not limited to new towers, for years to come.

New Zealand

In addition to the popular Wellington Ringing Festival, Christchurch ringers visited Dunedin on the South Island for a weekend of ringing. The big news is that the Christchurch bells are being refitted by Taylor’s, and the number 5 bell, damaged beyond repair in the earthquake of 2011, has now been re-cast. Plans are currently in development for some of the bells to be hung for ringing in a temporary (10-20 year) structure at the site of the so-called Cardboard Cathedral.

MATTHEW SORELL

Christchurch #5 being recast, alongside bells for Katoomba, NSW with Kate Flavell, President of CCCBR

Central European Association

Perhaps the most interesting feature in 2013 was the progress made by Harm Jan de Kok. Harm Jan has now rung peals of Cambridge Royal in the tower and Yorkshire Major in hand. Harm Jan is Dutch and has never lived in the UK.

Society peals in the tower included Cambridge Royal at Abingdon and St. Thomas’s Oxford, as well as 10-spliced Surprise Major at Dordrecht. Hand bell peals include Bristol Major, 5- and 6-spliced Surprise Major and London Surprise Major. The latter is believed to be the first peal in Europe ever of London Major in hand. Catherine Ockwell rang her first peal - Yorkshire Surprise Major - at Dordrecht on 30 November 2013 (see photo). The Winterthur ringers in Switzerland are making progress with Double Norwich.

New resident members include Rebecca Melen, Dickon Love and Przemek Benonski-Love. We wish Alban Forster every success on his return to England.

If you are moving to our area (or simply visiting) please send me an e-mail at rodney.yeates@t-online.de

RODNEY YEATES

Left to right, with countries: Michael Trimm (DE), Harm Jan de Kok (NL), Catherine Ockwell (UK formerly NL), Clive Smith (BE), Margaret Gamble (NO formerly NL), Ian Wells (NL), Paul de Kok (NL) and David Ockwell (NL)

North American Guild of Change Ringers

2013 has been another year of growth for North American ringing. Events that raise awareness of the art and traditions of change ringing have taken place from one end of the continent to the other, good ringing has advanced and good news continues to trickle in. Just to name a few:

Boston’s Christ Church, (better known as The Old North Church), its belfry and bells were featured in February on C-Span’s television program “American Artifacts: The Old North Church - Part 1”. Thanks to Laura Dickerson, you can view that at: www.c-span.org/Events/American-Artifacts-Old-North-Church/10737437852/.

In April, Washington National Cathedral was part of the 2013 “Partners in Preservation” program, administered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and in May after a several year hiatus ringers were asked once again to ring on Immanuel Episcopal Church’s ring of 6 for the annual “A Day in Old New Castle” to the delight of ringers and passers by alike.

Toronto and Birmingham were in the news in July. The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper, proclaimed “Generations of ringers have been calling Torontonians to worship since the bells came from England in 1865. Their peals have figured throughout the city’s history, a part of the lives and holidays of nearby residents who welcomed and cherished their sounds.” In Birmingham, Alabama, local news website AL.com posted a story titled “At St. Paul’s Birmingham, ‘change ringers’ carry on centuries old tradition”. The story, complete with a series of pictures of Ted Clark and a group of St. Paul’s ringers at practice at this link: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2013/07/at_st_pauls_in_birmingham_chan.html

July was a newsworthy month for ringers on both sides of the Atlantic. America’s NBC Today program had a news crew in Bucklebury, England, waiting for news of the royal birth. You can view a segment of the July 23rd Today program in Bucklebury at a bell practice of local ringers planning to ring a new method for the royal birth at: www.today.com/video/today/52552880#52552880

The most exciting news in 2013 was the promise of new towers in the works. On the heels of Yale University’s plan for a twelve bell tower in the new residential colleges project, we learned of three more. Tom Farthing reported in June that Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary has accepted Roland Pershon’s Wisconsin bells and has started fundraising for a tower. In early September we learned that Virginia Theological Seminary had just placed an order with Whitechapel for an 8 bell, 11cwt ring. The bells will be in a new “Chapel of the Ages” they broke ground this fall to construct. This is good news indeed for seminarians and the communities of faith they will serve, as well as the many ringers who will come to ring them. Then at the AGM in Hendersonville, we had more good news. After many years of hoping and dreaming, Chris Haller announced plans for a ring of ten tower bells, with a tenor of 11 or 12cwt, for an existing tower at Church of the Ascension in Rochester, NY. Alan Hughes of Whitechapel came to Rochester, went over the tower from bottom to top, and made a presentation to the Vestry the next evening. They were enthusiastically in favor! The future landscape of North American ringing is promising indeed.

CANDACE HIGGINBOTHAM
NAGCR Public Relations Officer

NAGCR AGM attendees in Hendersonville, September 2013

South African Guild

Following adoption of a new constitution by the SA Guild in 2012, the Transvaal Society, based in Johannesburg, voted at its AGM in May 2013 to become a branch of the SA Guild. All ringers in South Africa are now represented by a single, unified body, probably for the first time in over a century since the time when there was but one tower (Grahamstown) in the country. The SA Guild AGM was hosted by the Transvaal Society Branch in September 2013, when all three towers in Johannesburg were open for general ringing. Richard Roberts was re-elected as Master, and Nola Mitchell continues as Secretary.

The death of former president Nelson Mandela on December 5th was marked by tolling and/or half-muffled ringing in all ringing centres around the country, both when the news was announced and during the 10-day period of national mourning. Grahamstown Cathedral rang on December 6th and also tolled their tenor, and rang again for an interfaith service the following week. A single bell was tolled at each of the two Durban towers on December 6th, the ringing from St. Mary’s being broadcast live on East Coast Radio, and the bells were then muffled. We should note that Simon Milliken from Durban was shown live on television as part of the orchestra that played during the interment at Qunu on December 15th. Cape Town bells were rung half-muffled, as were those at Parktown in Johannesburg, where two quarters were also rung.

RICHARD ROBERTS

St Peter’s School, Johannesburg

Zimbabwe Guild

Ringing in Harare restarted in December 2012 with the rededication of the Harare Cathedral (as reported in The Ringing World). There was a lot of interest from people keen to learn to ring and something like 12 started learning. Of those, 4 have kept at it: 3 are now ringing rounds and call changes whilst the other is still mastering handling. We had about 9 ringers still in Harare with varying abilities but, due to other commitments, we can only ring 6 occasionally. Rounds, call changes and occasionally plain hunt are the norm.

The five year gap in ringing meant that the ropes were in pretty bad shape and we had to replace three almost immediately. The lack of maintenance over that period also showed up in the No 2 slider cage breaking. This meant that the front 6 could not be rung for some time and usually there were insufficient experienced ringers to ring the middle 6. We have not had the 9 or 10 up since we restarted!

From what I can gather, the bells in Kwekwe are ringable but there are only a few beginners and only one person to teach them! I don’t know when they last rang for Sunday Services.

ROGER THOMSON

Publications Committee

One new publication, Judging Striking Competitions, was produced during the year.

Eight titles were reprinted: The New Ringer’s Book, Raising and Lowering, Ringing Jargon Made Easy, Beginners Grandsire, Beginners Plain Bob, Ringing Circles, Standard Eight Surprise Major, and Teaching Tips.

The New Ringer’s Book, Ringing Circles and Teaching Tips continued to sell well, although annual sales of all three are falling. Sales of Dove’s Guide 10th Edition fell very sharply to 186 from the 1270 sold in 2012, its first year of publication. Nevertheless, early in 2014 a notional surplus of £5,000, generated from sales of Dove’s Guide 10th Edition, was transferred from the Publications Fund to the General Fund in line with our instructions from the Central Council Trustees to use sales of the book to boost the General Fund.

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

The income from sales fell sharply to £12,150 from £28,700, due largely to the reduced sales of Dove’s Guide 10th Edition. Expenditure exceeded income by £3,800 following a write-off provision of £3,100 against a number of titles with negligible sales, many of which will continue to be available as free downloads from our online price list. The value of stock held was £9,000 and at year end, before the £5,000 transfer mentioned above, the total cash available fell slightly to £21,300 from £23,300. The fund remains in a healthy state. Payments by BACS represented about 36% of income from sales.

Derek Jones has again been closely involved with our work in a consultative capacity, and we thank him for his contributions.

Early in 2013 the Committee decided that some major changes are needed to its modus operandi if it is to continue to provide a service to the Exercise in the longer term, and that these would be best made at a time when things are running smoothly. The main changes thought necessary involve the storage and distribution burdens, but also include methods of accepting payments and making titles available online. A comprehensive consideration of potential approaches to storage and distribution concluded that the only currently viable way ahead would be to reduce the hard copy stocklist, to arrange for other titles to be made available online, and to continue with the present storage and distribution arrangements for the hard copy stocklist titles. During the year it was agreed that we presently offer three broad categories of books:

1. Those which sell well on a long term basis, comprising around 20% of the current list.

2. Those which sell well when first published but whose sales then tail off quite quickly.

3. Those which never sell well, which have been printed purely as a service.

It was then agreed that we should initially move towards a situation in which:

1. Books judged to be in category 1 would be produced and sold as at present.

2. Those judged to be in category 2 would initially be produced and sold as at present but, on a case by case basis, might be placed online at no charge rather than reprinted.

3. Those judged to be in category 3 would probably not be printed at all, but placed online free of charge immediately.

We recognised that potential problems concerning the content and quality control of online publications would need to be discussed with the Council Officers at some stage.

At the time of writing this report an initial list of over 30 titles to be made available online free of charge has been agreed and the first few of these, most professionally produced, are now available via our online price list. The others should follow during the next month or two. With the expert help of other Council members, notably Mike Chester, Fred Bone and Peter Trotman, we are also in the final stages of setting up a mechanism for payment via PayPal, in addition to BACS payments, cheques and cash. We are also turning attention to the possibilities and problems associated with selling downloads in addition to offering some titles online free of charge.

Stocklist at December 31st 2013

Committee for Redundant Bells

The year has felt both positive and frustrating at the same time. Positive because we continue to work closely with the Keltek Trust who have developed very efficient and smooth running procedures for achieving the re-use of redundant bells both as complete rings and as individual bells. The Keltek Trust publishes a full report of their concluded cases in a January edition of The Ringing World each year.

Frustration came with trying to ensure a sensible arrangement for relocating the bells that are in churches which are to be declared redundant to another church where they can continue to be rung for worship. There are a number of organisations involved with redundancy process and which have a say as to whether the bells are moved: the parish itself, the diocese (in the guise of two or three committees) as well as the Bishop, the Church Commissioners and planning authorities; in addition there are other specific local and national pressure groups. The result can be a rather toxic mix. The Committee promoted the conference for all the national interested parties that was held at Church House in January 2013: this showed promise of finding a way through the procedural thickets to allow removal schemes to be authorised and worked up ahead of the formal declaration of redundancy - thus enabling bells to be transferred to another place of worship while the church was still consecrated or at least having the relocation worked in as part of the redundancy scheme.

Alas, after a year’s work and much effort on the part of the Church Commissioners we find ourselves exactly back where we started. More meetings are to take place to try and find some magic way through and the topic is to be debated at the DAC Bell Adviser’s Conference in July. A way through may yet be found to have bells moved and allow the receiving church proper time to raise the money, organise a scheme and to have certainty in being able to achieve what may be proposed.

The Committee has had under consideration some 40 cases during the year - more than one might expect. Very cheering was the success of the Kent County Association in removing the eight from the Victoria tower at Chatham to Gorran in Cornwall: not least in obtaining the co-operation both of the Medway District Council planning authority and the Diocese - a rare achievement.

In several other cases the local authority have insisted on bells being regarded as part of the fabric of the church and therefore imposed a planning requirement that bells remain in the closed church. At Bacup in the Diocese of Manchester two rings of eight are currently housed in closed churches and, despite the efforts of the Church Commissioners, the Diocesan Bell Adviser, the Keltek Trust and the Committee, little has yet been achieved in arranging for alternative housing for the bells.

Wales has always been a challenge in connection with redundant churches and bells and it was therefore of great satisfaction to the Committee to receive a letter from Bangor Cathedral in connection with the fate of the bells from the newly redundant St. David’s Church in Bangor: they are investigating the feasibility of transferring the bells from St. David’s Church to the Cathedral. The Committee very much hopes that this can come to pass and will do its best to assist.

The Committee met formally three times during the year as well as informal and ‘virtual’ meetings.

Ringing Centres Committee

The Committee proposed a change in its terms of reference and this was brought before the Central Council meeting at Guildford in 2013. The amendment, in the opinion of the Committee, was designed to reflect the changes that had taken place with regard to the development of ringing centres and to enable the Committee to be of assistance to all centres where teaching takes place and enables teaching to be encouraged and supported even if no formal or recognised Centre is intended. The proposal was accepted and we are now working towards fulfilling our obligations under the amended terms. We welcomed Richard Newman and Robert Brown to our numbers following the elections at that meeting. We are now developing our support to ringing centres in the following ways.

Advice with regard to the establishment of new centres: We wish to encourage the establishment of many more centres but accept that many of these may not be permanent nor looking for formal recognition from the Committee. We recognise however that much work is done in many parts of the country with neighbouring towers or those within a small area (e.g. a deanery) working together for the purpose of teaching others and the interchange of ideas within these small units should enable teaching methods to be evaluated by those who teach, resulting in the best teaching methods being adopted. However we are willing to give help and support either direct to the organisation or to any supporting guild/association.

Maintaining a system of ‘recognising’ centres: The Committee has a basic set of requirements before a centre is ‘recognised’ and these now include confirmation of policies for health and safety, child protection and management. We also ask for confirmation of insurance cover. The majority of this information is gathered in an annual survey but we will update our database if information is sent on to us at any time during the year. We remind all centres to provide us with details of any amendments to their facilities or contacts, web pages etc whenever they may occur. Our proposals for assessments of centres to produce a form of star rating is still available to those centres who may find it of use to themselves but we are not relying on it for recognition purposes. However we are looking for a simple straightforward way of assessing the quality of teaching at the different centres without the need for inspections or additional paperwork as we are aware that some centres are thought to teach better than others and we wish to encourage the weaker centres to improve and congratulate those where the standard is high.

Maintaining a flow of information between the Centres: We publish a short news sheet about three times a year and this is circulated electronically to the centres with a hard copy being made available to Council members if an edition is published at the time of the Council meeting. We invite centres to contribute to this and to share with others their approach to teaching, their successes and failures and to highlight particular progress made either with teachers and teaching methods or with pupils. If the Committee becomes aware of individual problems with any centre it will respond and be as constructive and helpful as it can be, by way of suggestions and advice, and would encourage other centres to respond or to advise on the basis of their own experiences.

Continual development of centres: We wish to encourage activities and practices which result in attracting new ringers and which will also encourage the development of leadership qualities of its students, especially in young ringers, with them being able to take responsibility with regard to future recruitment and teaching of ringing to others and to enable them to take responsibility for the growth of centres and the furtherance of ringing within their own local ringing community. A pack we refer to as a ‘Good Practice Guide’ designed to give suggestions for a centre’s further development and the importance of including new ringers in a centre’s development is being prepared to assist with this.

The maintenance of web pages: We wish to see that our own web pages are fully up to date and that the many papers published via web pages are amended and brought up to date as may be appropriate so that incorrect or old information is not available from ourselves. This is on-going.

We do ask that we are informed if any centre is proposed to be established anywhere even if such centre is intended for only a short period, such as during school summer holidays. We will be asking guilds/associations to give us information as to numbers and an (off the record) assessment of success or otherwise where any centre is not recognised and we do not hold any amount of information on such centres ourselves, as this detail will be useful in assessing the efforts being made to increase the total number of ringers in the country so that the resources we have available may be used effectively.

The year to come will require us to tidy up what we have available to centres and ensure that it is fully up to date and maintained in that manner and to develop our resources especially to meet the needs of less permanent centres and the particular problems that they may experience, whilst putting more effort into those centres which have been proved to work well and efficiently and, although accepting that the same model does not always work in two different places, to share their experiences with those who need support and encouragement.

Ringing Trends Committee

• Trends Committee Chairman presented at the “Future of Ringing” seminars run all over the country through 2013/14. Presented were an overview of areas of potential future growth and analysis of recruitment and retention of ringers, particularly emphasising the changing profile of the ringing population in respect of age, advancement and motivation, number of peal and quarter-peal ringers and the age and energy of ringing leaders.

• Research on pastimes with a similar profile to ringing is being undertaken with the intention of answering two questions: “How are you successfully attracting new learners these days?” and “How are you successfully motivating participants as they are learning?”. Findings and common themes to be published in The Ringing World.

• A significant, carefully designed survey that can be used to robustly measure the health of the Exercise is being designed and planned for launch at the September 2014 Ringing Roadshow. We aim to answer questions such as how many active ringers there are, the vitality of bands (how often bells are rung and to what standard), and what are the demographics and skill levels of ringers. This can serve as a new benchmark for closer monitoring of trends.

• This survey of towers will be supplemented by a broader survey of individual ringers. This can form the foundation of a register of ringers (and in time a method for identifying and understanding lapsed ringers), and can be a useful mechanism to gather ringers’ views and opinions now and in the future. Ringers are invited to suggest questions to be included in these surveys via the link:

  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1gUEt0I7c64IQdvLHwSC24dDCu9LnY0GBLC_unrcXpGo/viewform

Towers and Belfries Committee

Three meetings were held during 2013: in London, Evesham and Oxford. Our thanks go to those members and organisations who/which have provided facilities for us. At the 2013 Central Council meeting Roland Backhurst, James Clarke, Alan Frost and Andrew Preston retired. Roland, James and Alan were re-elected and Bernard Stone elected in place of Andrew. We are sorry to lose Andrew from the Committee and thank him for his valuable contribution during his membership.

During the year, the Committee offered a basic maintenance day to all guilds and associations and several have taken this up. We provided two during the year and have two more set up to take place during early 2014. Our thanks go to the locals who set these up, and to Alan, Roland, Mike and George, who gave instruction. We had hoped to launch our new Maintenance Handbook at these events, but we are working on the content in order to ensure that the advice given is both current and appropriate.

We gave advice to some ten towers during the year; some by correspondence and some following a site visit. Four were in respect of sound control and one unfortunate case in which a new metal frame had been very poorly built-in to the tower walls. The whole frame was shunting due to the use of inappropriate materials and poor workmanship, we suspect because of a lack of understanding of the forces involved. Members have noticed an increase in the number of cases referred to us by parishes whose bells require a proper rehang, asking for advice to improve the “go” of their ring, but employing only minimal expenditure. Perhaps this is a sign of the times and illustrates how some parishes are having difficulty with fund raising.

We regret to report that we are now unable to carry out tower movement studies, due to having no members with sufficient knowledge to operate the equipment and do the mathematics to produce a meaningful report. We were unable to carry out the comparative studies intended and to which we referred in our last report. During the year we undertook one survey but have not yet been able to produce a report. We have had to disappoint several other enquiring towers, by saying that we are unable to oblige. Our advice in these circumstances is to consult the major bell founders, or a “bellwise” structural engineer, or the Building Research Establishment. Unfortunately in the case of the last two options, this is likely to incur a substantial fee; having said that, the amount would be small in comparison with a large rehanging project. Our feeling is that, at the moment, we think it unlikely that we shall be able to offer this service again due to the difficulties we have in finding volunteers to provide this type of service.

Several members are working on information sheets for the following subjects, which we hope ringers will find useful. These are bird exclusion, staircase handrails, ringing room lighting, power and heating, bell and clock chamber lighting and power, and contract management. We hope to produce these during 2014.

Readers of The Ringing World will no doubt have read our occasional maintenance hints entitled “When did you last do it?”. These were produced by our member Adrian Semken and we are grateful to him for this work and intend to make them more widely available by adding them to our website.

At the 2014 Council meeting, two of our members are not seeking re-election and we are particularly keen to replace these with suitably qualified new members. By this we mean those with any engineering or architectural qualifications and experience, but additionally those who have personal experience of bellhanging and maintenance.

Finally, we wish to draw Council members’ attention to the Committee’s wish to recruit members from the north of England. We have none from anywhere north of Nottingham.

The T&B Committee - Roland Backhurst, James Clarke, Chris Povey, George Dawson, Timothy Collins, Alan Frost, David Kirkcaldy, Taylor’s employee, Mike Banks, Bernard Stone and David Roskelly - with the largest (35cwt) of a set of three new bells supplied in March to Ta Giezu Convent Church, Rabat, Malta

Tower Stewardship Committee

Introduction

Throughout the past year, the Tower Stewardship Committee has continued to offer lay guidance in the general areas of tower management within the wider community. This report gives brief details of activities undertaken over the past twelve months. The Committee meets at least once per year, and conducts the majority of its business by electronic communications.

Child Protection

A high-profile area of guidance in recent years has been on the topic of child protection. We strive to keep this advice as up-to-date as possible for the ringing community, given that legislation and procedures are still evolving.

Chris Mew continues to be on the front foot in this area, seeking clarifications from central government and the House of Bishops, which he then articulates clearly to ringers through The Ringing World. Chris also assists associations and towers in querying local imposition of requirements that go beyond the requirements of law or policy. An up-to-date version of Guidance Note 3 (version 7) is now on the CCCBR website. This includes a new statement regarding the rehabilitation of ex-offenders.

Insurance and Ringing

The Committee has responded to a variety of queries related to insurance and ringing over the past twelve months. A number of these relate to specific interpretations of guild / association public liability cover, on which we can comment generally but cannot give legal advice. We have also given general advice to tower captains and PCCs regarding relevant considerations relating to insurance cover for bellringers. The Committee encourages guilds and associations to consider the inclusion of “member-to-member” liability insurance as part of any policy, and not just cover for third-party injury or damage. Guidance Note 1 is currently being revised, in the light of issues raised and our ongoing dialogue with the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group.

HMRC and ringers

Recent changes in HMRC procedures, namely the introduction of “auto-enrolment” and “real-time information”, produced a significant number of enquiries. Some parishes had concluded that these changes meant volunteer bellringers must now automatically be treated as employees with respect to their wedding fees. The Tower Stewardship Committee is very grateful to Steve Coleman for his expertise and assistance in helping to correct some misconceptions. The Committee can facilitate similar assistance should this issue arise in other parishes. Those with other enquiries relating to tax and finance are encouraged to read Steve Coleman’s excellent series written for The Ringing World a few years ago.

Tower Safety and Risk Assessment

In the past few months, in response to some regulatory changes from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), we have been reviewing our Guidance Note 4.

The Committee maintains regular contact with the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group. This pro-active communication helps ensure a commonsense approach to tower safety. The very low incidence of claims involving bells and bellringers not only helps to keep insurance premiums down, but is also a testament to a very positive culture of safety awareness among the ringing community. Some welcome news from Ecclesiastical is a significant reduction in metal thefts from churches.

Noise, the Law and the Environmental Health Officer

Last year the CCCBR Noise Complaints service acted on 16 separate enquiries. Of these, four were actually complaints about clocks! All other queries have been successfully resolved, bar two from perennial complainers. Alan Chantler continues to provide a rapid and effective response service for towers receiving complaints.

Website

Peter Trotman assists in keeping an up-to-date and fresh look for the Committee’s work. All Guidance Notes can be found there, along with any supporting documents and guidelines; all reports to Council are there, and contact details of all Committee members. Cross-referenced links are good, enabling visitors to find our material through a variety of links.

Guidance Notes

A key outcome 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:

www.cccbr.org.uk/towerstewardship/

• 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

Conclusion

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.

The Ringing World, April 25, 2014, pages 441 to 454, corrections June 6, 2014, page 601

Bell Restoration Committee

The Committee met three times in 2013, in February, May and October.

Provision of Information and Advice

The Committee continues to provide information and advice on bell restoration in a variety of ways:

• By personal contact with parishes and individuals - 52 such contacts were made in 2013 (of which 29 were new contacts), mainly for fundraising advice but also to receive news of ongoing projects. In addition to contact by telephone, email and letter, face to face contact with project leaders is often useful and much appreciated, as is attendance at dedication services following completion of projects.

• By undertaking searches to identify possible sources of funds for projects - Although the Ffoenix database (the successor to FunderFinder) is now of limited value, we are able to use other sources of information on grant-making bodies. In 2013 we received 18 enquiries and completed 15 searches.

• By providing articles for publication in The Ringing World - The good news in 2013 was the announcement that from 1st October VAT paid on work to bells, including new ropes, can again be reclaimed under the Listed Places of Worship Grants Scheme (LPWGS) (RW Oct. 4 p.1004). The introduction of the Gift Aid Small Donations Scheme was also reported (RW May 3 p.476). With the kind co-operation of the Editor we shall continue to report any changes in legislation, etc., likely to affect bell restoration funding.

• By issuing Guidance Notes - Guidance Notes have been prepared on the LPWGS, Applying for Grants, a Glossary of Bellringing Terms, Gift Aid and Contact Details for Bell Founders and Bell Hangers. These will shortly appear on the Committee’s website along with updates to the Appendices of the publication Organising a Bell Restoration Project.

• By communicating with ringing societies and diocesan advisory committees - Letters have recently been sent to Central Council affiliated societies and to DAC secretaries and bell advisors drawing attention to the services offered by the Committee with a view to ensuring that parishes contemplating bell restoration are aware of the help available to them. We are also working with societies to encourage representatives of parishes with unringable bells to attend the Newbury Roadshow so that they may meet ringers, see ringing and be enthused to restore their bells.

Administration of Funds

• The Central Council Bell Restoration Fund - Two previously agreed grants totalling £2,400 were paid in 2013, but the Fund remains at too low a level to invite new applications. In addition, £10,000 from the money received in donations towards the restoration of the bells of Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, was paid towards the recasting of one bell and refurbishment of the others by John Taylor & Co. Income has been received from donations and the sale of jigsaws and Oranges and Lemons prints. These will again be available for sale at the Committee’s stall at the 2014 Council meeting and at the Ringing Roadshow. At 31st December the amount available for new grants was £5,887.

• The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund - A grant of £1,300 has been awarded to Katoomba, New South Wales, and a previously agreed grant of £1,000 to Naremburn, NSW, has been paid, but the project at Queanbeyan, NSW, which had been awarded a grant of £3,022, has been abandoned. Grant offers from previous years are outstanding to Bunbury, Western Australia, (£2,000), and Queenstown, S Africa, (£200). Further applications for grants to be awarded in 2014 were invited in November.

Future Work

In addition to the ongoing work referred to above, our plans include updating and improving the Committee’s website, the production of further guidance notes, preparation of a map showing the location of towers which have been in contact with us and those which have received grants from the CCBRF, and starting work on a new edition of Organising a Bell Restoration Project. We shall have stalls at both the 2014 Council meeting and the Ringing Roadshow, at which we shall welcome enquiries on all aspects of fundraising for bell restoration.

Membership

Frank Beech and Robin Shipp retire from the Committee this year as they will no longer be Council members. We thank them both for their contributions and Robin in particular for his service as Secretary and Chairman. Pat Albon and Peter Kirby also retire by rotation but are available for re-election. We shall be looking for at least one new member and would particularly welcome experience in dealing with Gift Aid, VAT and the Charity Commission.

The recast 5th for Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand at Taylors (Photo courtesy of Simon Adams, John Taylor & Co.)

The Christchurch Cathedral bells at Taylors (Photo courtesy of Simon Adams, John Taylor & Co.)

The Christchurch Cathedral tenor (Photo courtesy of Simon Adams, John Taylor & Co.)

One of the Christchurch headstocks being machined at Taylors (Photo courtesy of Simon Adams, John Taylor & Co.)

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

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

3.3 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.

Biographies Committee

The Committee met twice during the year at Radley in March and October. Hilary Aslett and Brian Hullah stood down in May and were replaced by Wendy Graham and Pat Halls (who was previously co-opted).

Published records - Work continued to put more records on line as part of the drive over the last few years to clear the historic backlog. During 2013, an additional 122 records were published and 6 rather sparse historic records were upgraded to fuller versions. 871 records were on the website at the year end. More will be added early in 2014. We are also grateful to Stuart Piper of the ICT Committee for handling the very large number of updates to the website that we generate. Our main focus is to make records available to the Exercise on the web. We also intend to print new records to complete the archival set of paper records but this is a lower priority.

Core work - Researching and writing records continues as a core task (Pat Halls, John Harrison, Pat Hickey, Bobbie May). Searching Births, Marriages & Deaths records (David Willis) provides an invaluable input, especially where identity or dates are uncertain. Records are produced in a standard format (John Harrison, Margaret Oram). We maintain a record of current and former Council members (Richard Andrew) with date of death or the status of information held (forms, pictures). We receive new information both digitally and on paper. Much of the information we already hold is on paper and we will continue using both media for the time being.

• Tony Smith has been working with the Committee to develop an analysis of which members served on which Council committees over the years. When complete we plan to link these lists to the biographic records to provide an additional structured way to access the growing collection of records.

• We are researching the history of the societies that Council members have represented, many of which no longer exist or have merged with other societies. We believe this will be a useful historical resource. We also intend to link it to the biographic records to provide an additional structured way to access the record collection.

• Many of the historic paper records have an attached envelope containing additional papers or pictures. The contents are not visible on the image on the website and we have begun going through them to find out what each contains, and whether it could provide useful additional material to be made available, probably in an augmented record.

• Work continues writing articles on the lives of Prolific Peal Ringers (Bill Butler). By the year end 13 had been published in The Ringing World. These will later appear on the website.

• Our plans for online submission and access to biographic information of ringers are on hold pending the upgrade of the Council website. We maintain contact with the ICT Committee and expect to work with them on this in due course.

Collaboration - We collaborated with the ICT Committee on the specification of facilities that will support our future plans for online biographic information, as well as others, notably the Rolls of Honour (John Harrison & Henry Coggill). We expect to provide further input to the ICT Committee as it moves towards implementing the CMS.

We are grateful to all the ringers and society secretaries and archivists who have helped us to compile records by providing information, in some cases involving local research, about people they knew or who were members of their society. We would welcome the opportunity to work with other people who are interested in ringing history, for example those researching the history of their societies or those with an interest in a particular deceased ringer.

Members and former members of the Council who died in 2013 are:

• Roger D Bailey, Middlesex County Association and London Diocesan Guild, 1989 - 2013, attended 24 meetings, died 22 January 2013.

• Arthur C (Bill) Berry, Worcestershire & Districts Association, 1972 - 1984, attended 12 meetings, died 30 January 2013.

• Howard William Egglestone, Suffolk Guild 1966 - 1978; Honorary member 1978 - 1984; Oxford Diocesan Guild 1984 - 1993; Life Member 1993 - 2013, attended 40 meetings, died 17 February 2013.

• John Barry Pickup, Norwich Diocesan Association, 1978 - 1984, attended 6 meetings, died 5 March 2013.

• Betty Robbins, née Spice, Oxford University Society, 1948 - 1950, attended 1 meeting, died 14 March 2013.

• Jean Mary Weddell (Dr), London County Association, 1974 - 1981, attended 6 meetings, died 10 March 2013.

• Ronald Reginald Warford, Durham & Newcastle Diocesan Association, 1993 - 2013, attended 18 meetings, died 29 April 2013.

• Roger Geoffrey Green, Leeds University Society, 1973 - 1974 and 2009 - 2011, attended 3 meetings, died 11 May 2013.

• Tudor Parry Edwards, University of Bristol Society, 1960 - 1975, attended 14 meetings, died 20 May 2013.

• Alan R Smith, Suffolk Guild, 1984 - 2008, attended 22 meetings, died 5 August 2013.

• Jack Roberts Worrall, Guildford Diocesan Guild, 1954 - 1957, attended 1 meeting, died 1 September 2013.

• Shelagh Rosemary Melville, née Collins, Peterborough Diocesan Guild, 1963 - 1966, attended 3 meetings, died 18 October 2013.

• David Alan Strong, Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association 1993 - 2002 and Winchester & Portsmouth Diocesan Guild 2008 - 2011, attended 12 meetings, died 15 November 2013.

• Margery Alice Wratten, née Birch, Honorary Member 1972 - 1993, attended 21 meetings, died 19 December 2013.

The following names of former members of the Council who died in previous years have come to light:

• Kenneth Newman, Society of Royal Cumberland Youths, 1966 - 1969, attended 3 meetings, died 11 June 2010.

• Charlie William Player, Romney Marsh Society, attended no meetings, died 22 April 1933.

• Dennis R Jones, Lancashire Association, 1974 - 1993, attended 19 meetings, died January/February 30 January 2010.

Compositions Committee

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

During the year, the following submissions were published in The Ringing World:

• 2013 date touches

• 1,300s and 5,300s for the Stedman Tercentenary celebration

• article on composer Arthur Craven.

The Ringing World Diary compositions were updated in conjunction with the Methods Committee and further enhancements will be made available for the 2015 Diary.

The main emphasis and work of the Committee is to maintain and update the web collection of peal (21,024 as at 15 Jan 2014) and quarter peal (1,366) compositions and to encourage new submissions, particularly from aspiring composers who we have tried to encourage as much as possible.

This means that over 1,100 peal compositions and 70 quarter peals were uploaded to the website in twelve months. Our particular thanks go to Don Morrison for undertaking this as compositions are submitted in a number of formats, and these have to be carefully entered and checked for accuracy and truth. The web collection is a live and growing valuable database of all types of compositions, and provision has been made to store a copy of the data on the CCCBR server and update this on a regular basis to ensure the collection is preserved for the future.

Current trends in composition include little bell runs, cyclic compositions, and compositions with link methods; however the real innovations in more complex compositions are limited to a small group of gifted ringers. These compositions appear on Campanophile and BellBoard and private web collections and are reviewed by experts and peers, reducing the necessity for Ringing World reviews.

The easy access of online compositions means that it is difficult to justify the work required to produce and publish new books of compositions. It may be possible to produce pdfs either of existing composition books or from the web collection and we will be looking into this.

Most composers appear to be self-taught, so the Committee are considering holding a workshop on composition for aspiring composers; this will take the form of sharing a stand with the Peal Records Committee at the Ringing Roadshow.

Prior to his illness, Roger Bailey was collating a collection of handbell compositions for the Committee. The last updates to this were in 2004, but Peter Blight has now taken on the responsibility to update and maintain this collection.

The Committee is planning to produce articles on technical aspects of composition, for example how to generate music in certain methods, and items of historical interest. Any suggestions for such articles or contributions from composers would be welcomed.

The Committee would like to thank Mike Hopkins Till and Philip Larter for their contributions to the Committee. It is time to re-evaluate the future role of the Compositions Committee and get some new blood on to the Committee and inject some new ideas and action for the future.

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

Education Committee

Since the Council meeting in 2013, the Committee has held two face-to-face meetings at Wellesbourne in Warwickshire, plus one phone conference. This year we welcomed one new member: David Roskelly (Veronese Association).

The Committee has continued with a range of initiatives, which includes some which are owned mainly within the Committee itself and an increasing number which involve liaising with other interested groups outside the Central Council, who are involved in ringing education and training. That is reflected in the proposed new Terms of Reference for the Committee going forward.

The committee continues to co-ordinate closely with the Association of Ringing Teachers (ART). Many members of the committee are involved as tutors or mentors for the increasing number of ITTS courses being delivered. In addition, some materials have been jointly developed between the two, including the Ringing Practice Toolkit, which is online now and also being considering for publication in book form.

We have continued to develop and give the Listening Course, with new materials and now incorporating both the Abel and Beltower software packages. Plans are being developed to offer a self-teach option for some parts of the course and to make it available in an easy to use form for societies to give locally.

The Conduct 5040 scheme (becoming support4u2conduct.org) continues with a modest number of new participants. Work has started to review training courses available for aspiring new conductors, with a view to pulling together best practices and making those more widely available.

The Network for Ringing Training (NRT) has now been formally transitioned to other ringing forums and distribution lists, as it has run its course and served its original purpose of raising the profile of ringing education. General discussions on education topics now take place via the Change Ringers web forum and communications out to societies via centrally maintained Central Council distribution lists.

The Judging Striking Competitions book came into full swing this year. It has been selling well, not only to prospective judges, but also to teams entering a competition to get excellent tips on what judges are looking for!

Other initiatives involving liaising with other groups include a North American initiative on a new generation of ringing videos, plus the production of ringing Domino games with the Whiting Society (for distribution at the upcoming Ringing Roadshow).

This year has been one of transition for the Committee, as we have seen a change of Chair, with Peter Dale retiring from this Committee and the Council. Thanks are recorded for all his work on this Committee and the wider Council.

Many people have assisted the Committee with its work and we extend our thanks to them all, particularly Frank Lewis for helping to maintain all the information on the Committee’s web pages.

Information and Communications Technology Committee

The major work of the Committee remains the maintenance and enhancement of the Council’s website, plus advice and support as required to other committees. Progress with migration of the website to the Joomla! content management system has been delayed by pressure of other activities; a new plan will be discussed at our first committee meeting of the new triennium.

Stuart Piper has replaced six and added 128 new biographical records to the Biographies Committee web pages. There are now 871 biographical records on their website. Andrew Craddock (consultant to the ICTC) has provided the Biographies Committee with peal data for deceased ringers.

Andrew Craddock has maintained the post-1989 peal records on the Felstead Database for the Peals Records Committee.

Peter Trotman has maintained the Council’s website with the exception of the pages for the Education Committee, Library Committee and Peal Records Committee.

Mike Chester has assisted the Publications Committee to set up a PayPal online payments system which should be operational in the near future. He has also helped the Publications Committee make numerous publications available for free download.

We remain grateful to Aidan Hopkins for his skills and time spent administering our server.

Report of the Stewards of the Carter Ringing Machine Collection

The past year has seen no significant developments with regard to either the Carter Ringing Machine or the Cummins simulators. There have been no requests for demonstrations and I (Bill Purvis) have made only one visit to Loughborough to test out a modification to make the machine more reliable. This was only partly successful, and further work is needed to complete this.

As Alan Berry is standing down at this year’s AGM, a candidate was found to take over and James Blackburn is expected to be appointed in his place. James visited Loughborough with me towards the end of the year and we spent some time familiarising him with the operation of the machine.

Looking forward to 2014, with the appointment of James, we have arranged for better insurance cover which will allow us to take the machine out of the museum, either for demonstrations such as the Newbury Roadshow, or for an extensive overhaul which will be undertaken by James and myself jointly. We hope that this will bring the machine into a more reliable state and enable demonstrations at other locations.

Report of the Steward of the Rolls of Honour

The two original Memorial Books are kept in their display case at St Paul’s Cathedral; they are in good condition and the pages are regularly turned. The original Great War Book records 1,207 names and the WWII Book 300 names.

The new Great War Roll of Honour now contains 118 Names, 21 of which have been added during March 2014. I am very pleased that Timothy Noad, who did the original illumination and calligraphy work, has agreed to write in new names as they are found.

The Rolls of Honour website pages are now completely up to date with new found casualties added and some of the earlier information corrected or updated. I am, as always, grateful to Peter Trotman for his work on updating the website. Those listed in the original Rolls of Honour who have not yet been identified now stand at 36 - work will continue in this area but these are proving particularly difficult to resolve. A new search feature has been introduced which will enable users to see the lists sorted by date of death.

An article about the upcoming Centenary of the Great War appeared in The Ringing World, issue 5350 on November 8th 2013. This focused on how ringers who fell during this conflict are remembered in towers across the British Isles and featured photographs taken at St Alphege, Solihull; Oxhey, Hertfordshire; West Clandon, Surrey; and Bangor, Northern Ireland.

I am very pleased that The Ringing World has decided to publish a “Roll of Honour” for ringers who fell in the Great War. It is anticipated that this will be a few weeks ahead of the centenary of their deaths in the hope that local ringers will commemorate their predecessors with some form of special ringing. As that time approaches I will encourage ringers to undertake this and I hope I will have the support of fellow Central Council members and the wider ringing community.

The authorities at St Paul’s Cathedral, where the Rolls of Honour are kept, have undertaken to digitise all Great War Rolls of Honour in their keeping and have offered, at no cost to the Central Council, to include our three Rolls in this project. This will enable the books to be made more widely available. This will be undertaken during 2014.

As always I am grateful to ringers and others for supplying information, particularly to Robert Wellen and Alan Seymour. Once again David Underdown, Surrey Association, has provided valuable research assistance.

As the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War approaches I hope that, as ringers, we can commemorate those who rang before us and who made the great sacrifice.

ALAN REGIN

Report of the Stewards of the Dove Database

The flow of updates to the information that we present on the Dove website continues at much the same rate as in previous years and our Dovemaster (John Baldwin) has maintained his impressive record of processing the vast majority of those changes on the day of receipt and of publishing updated web content on an almost daily basis, a feat that he has maintained for over 15 years. As in previous years, we wish to express our gratitude to Sid Baldwin, John’s son, for his technical contribution in the development and maintenance of the website capability and to Ron Johnston for his guidance and wise advice. We also wish to thank George Salter for continuing to post Dove updates on our behalf to Facebook and Rosalind Martin for Twittering about Dove. The latter feed is currently dormant and we would be pleased to hear from anyone who would like to assume this rôle.

We have a number of regular contributors who are particularly diligent in drawing our attention to changes that need to be made, and we sincerely thank them for continuing to do so. Without their vigilance, many of these updates, particularly those posted on social media sites and other websites such as Campanophile, would never find their way into the Dove database. This year we wish in particular to thank publicly Andrew Higson for supplying details of various Taylor bell installations, not only those carried out recently but from the foundry archives and which have considerably enabled such good progress to have been made with the prototype-National Bell Register (pNBR) coverage.

We reported last year that we were reviewing the previously unfettered availability to the general ringing public of the raw data extract from the Dove database that underpins the Dove website. We have now implemented a mechanism that requires all intending users of the extract to apply to us for a personal download code and to provide us with an assurance that their intended usage complies with the terms that we outline on the website. Since then, we have issued about 50 download codes and the data extract has been downloaded about 100 times.

This year, we have introduced two new pages within the website: one listing those projects - about which we have been informed - that are currently in progress and the other showing - for a period of not more than 6 months - those which we have been told have been completed.

In January 2013, a forum was arranged by the Committee for Redundant Bells to discuss the future of bells and bell frames in closed and closing churches. It was suggested then that it would be useful if the Dove website would show the listed building status of each building holding a ring of bells. Since that time we have worked with English Heritage, and other heritage organisations, to capture these data, and these are now available on the ‘Details’ page for each ring in the British Isles, together with a link to a page within the appropriate heritage website that provides a detailed description of the building.

We made the decision during the year to no longer include inscription bands in the pNBR listing of the bells at a tower. This decision was taken because it has quite rightly been pointed out to us that showing them has the potential to make them more vulnerable to theft in the light of the fact that they are relatively easily moveable and of not inconsiderable scrap value. We do, however, continue to hold these data within the pNBR itself.

With the continued improvement in the quality of Google satellite imagery across the globe we have this year finished a project started several years ago to provide the location (lat/long) of each ring of bells to pin-point accuracy (five decimal places). We wish to thank Anne Sladen for her continued input into this work and for continually monitoring those few remaining rings for which the images were previously inadequate. We have observed, however, that different versions of the satellite images seem to move slightly and so would warn that the least significant digit should be considered only an approximation.

Having completed the harvesting of lat/longs, and given that we already provide a grid reference for each ring in the British Isles, we published a news item announcing our intention to no longer show the nearest postcode to each ring. We were very quickly overwhelmed with requests to reconsider and, as a result of this lobbying, we have decided to retain postcodes within the Dove database. Not only that, but we have extended our coverage to provide the postcode for every ring within the British Isles bar the Republic of Ireland which currently does not use them.

All of the above, together with the multitude of unreported items that we deal with on an ongoing basis, occupies as much of our spare time as we feel able to contribute (we estimate a total of about 50 hours per week). What this does not address is the urgent need to provide a new solution to be used by our successors as Dove Stewards to replace the existing single user, DOS-based Dove database initially developed many years ago by John, continually adapted by him ever since, and which we do not consider to be viable for use by future stewards. We increasingly see this as a task that needs to be undertaken by a separate team not involved in the day-to-day running of the Dove website and working in parallel with the Dove Stewards. The risk of not starting this soon is that there will be nothing for us to hand over to our successors apart from the accumulated raw data.

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: 2013

The Committee has not ‘rescued’ any rings of bells during the past year but has used its own funds to assist the Keltek Trust Rescue Fund: this enables the joint funds to finance the acquisition of bells otherwise at risk; the loans will be repaid on the use of the bells elsewhere. This has ensured that the Rescue Fund has actually been used in the year for the rescue of various bells rather than sitting in a bank account. We have therefore helped both organisations in achieving their objectives.

The Trust still maintains a register of those ringers who are prepared to lend money to the Fund in case of need - where a ring of bells requires purchase urgently. Fortunately, this need has not arisen in recent years but it still remains the case that it could and so the Committee remains grateful to those who continue to leave their offer ‘on the table’ from year to year.

Rescue Fund for Redundant Bells

Registered Charity No 278816

HELEN WEBB
27 March 2014

The Ringing World, April 25, 2014, pages 455 to 459