Dear Friends,
It has been a pleasure to meet so many of you during the last year in your towers, at District practices and meetings, during Education Days, and at District Officers’ Forums, striking competitions, the Guild Dinner, and the more formal Guild Executive and General Meetings. There are so many opportunities for members to participate: the Guild web site now has a rolling diary on the home page, and the diary page has a useful facility for highlighting what is happening in individual Districts. I commend the site to you, both for the diary and for all the other useful information posted: www.wp-ringers.org.uk Please may I also encourage you to subscribe to the Guild email list, which is an automatic system for distributing ringing information throughout the Guild. The link to this is titled Mail list on the web site.
One of the positive outcomes of the most recent round of District AGMs has been the number of new ringers of all ages elected to Guild membership. At a time when the number of ringers worldwide is showing a slight decline, we can take heart that total Guild membership has been showing a steady increase since 2004, although it has not yet surpassed the zenith of the ‘Millennium bulge’. Of concern is the apparently inexorable move towards a point when there will be as many Senior members in the Guild as there are other Full members: our situation reflects the observation that nationally there is a ‘generation gap’ caused by a scarcity of ringers in their 30s and 40s. Some are suggesting the balance can only be redressed by recruiting predominantly young people, others suggest we should recruit across the age ranges. However, whoever we recruit, we must give them the best chances of getting on in the world of ringing by offering them as high a standard of training as we can. And we may have to be flexible in our approach - not all young people or young professional parents will be prepared to sit through a ninety minute practice just to get ten minutes on the end of a rope. These, and many other crucial issues in ringing, were identified in November at the international conference Change Ringing for the Future, at which the Guild had four delegates. Their report, which has been circulated to the Districts and is available on the Guild web site, is both stimulating and challenging.
There are great opportunities for promoting ringing this year with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, and the lead-up to and opening of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. If our ringing for these events can be associated with what is happening in the wider community we shall be furthering the links between ringers and their communities: there is a long tradition of the use of church bells for enhancing both religious and secular celebration. We need to be sure that those who hear the bells know why they are ringing.
There is a Chinese curse which says, “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we are living in interesting times, and bell ringing is going through a sea change. My hope is that we can embrace the change, and regard it as an opportunity rather than a curse! But, above all, I hope that we might enjoy our ringing, and feel part of a tradition that is evolving and moving forward.
David Strong