From Trish Hitchins, Guild Central Council Representative
The annual Central Council meeting was held in Sheffield at the beginning of September. This was my first meeting as a Salisbury Guild representative and I was interested in gaining a greater understanding about the work of the Council and how that might support us as a Guild. Overall, I was struck by the enormous amount of work being done on a number of different projects by many people, all on an entirely voluntary basis – a huge commitment and many hours of work.
Prior to the meeting delegates received a large pack of papers with detailed information about the business to be discussed, forward plans for the Council and updates from the seven Workgroups and in other specific areas of responsibility.
What is the CCCBR?
The Central Council is best described as an international umbrella body for Bell Ringing. Guilds and Associations like the SDGR are members of the Council and have representatives who have voting rights. The SDGR can have five representatives and three of us, Anthony Lovell-Wood, Julian Newman and myself attended the meeting.
Just to take a step back I will explain a little about the structure of the Council. The Executive consists of the President (currently Tina Stocklin from the Scottish Association), Vice President, Secretary and Treasurer plus 4-6 Trustees. Then there are seven Workgroups, all with a Leader and Executive sponsor. Each Workgroup has responsibility for a specific area such as Recruitment, Technology, Young Ringers and Ringing History. Additionally, there are Stewards to the Council who are responsible for specific things like the Library, Rolls of Honour and the Dove database. Also, there are Support Services for specific areas such as Safeguarding and Public Relations.
Ringing 2030
At present, the overall strategy of the council is focused around maintaining a sustainable future for ringing and is called Ringing 2030. The main objectives are:
- Raising public awareness of bellringing and promoting it as a social and voluntary activity
- Recruitment and Development of new and lapsed ringers
- Creating a quality ringing environment with quality teaching, well maintained facilities and a culture of inclusiveness.
Further details about the Council’s Business Plan for Ringing 2030 can be seen at cccbr.org.uk/ringing-2030-business-plan
The Meeting
There were two motions to be voted on, one relating to fairly minor amendments to the rules of the Council and the other proposing a new Associate Membership category. Both were passed with a strong majority.
Up until now there have been two categories of membership, Affiliated Societies like the SDGR and Small Societies like university or occupational groups. From 2026 the membership fee for Affiliated Members will increase from 40p to £1 per head. This normally is paid out of annual Guild subscriptions but there are some larger societies who do not collect a regular membership fee. For some of these societies, the increased council membership fee of £1 per person is problematic, so they will fall into the new membership category of Associate Member with a 40p per member fee. However, Associate Members will only be entitled to one voting representative. Small Societies, which previously did not have a vote, will also now have one vote.
There is no change to the SDGR payment structure for Council for Affiliation and the increased fee will continue to come out of our annual subscription.
Main Achievements this Year
- Moving the CC Library to a new home with the Loughborough Bell Foundry Trust
- Recruitment of more volunteers to the Workgroups including workgroup leaders. You do not have to be a Central Council representative to be a member of a working group. Anyone who is interested in getting involved should contact the Workgroup lead.
- New South West Ringing course established and fully booked for October 2025
- School lesson plans linked to the National Curriculum for Primary and Secondary schools are well underway and some ready for trialling this autumn.
- Bellringing Branding developed and trialled at the Essex Jamboree
- Honorariums awarded to three students (£6000 in total) to work on specific youth recruitment and website development projects speeding up progress in these areas.
Major objectives for 2026
- Continue to raise awareness of ringing with targeted marketing and support for Associations with local recruitment initiatives
- Potential recruitment of paid administration support for recruitment, marketing and youth development activities.
- These are expected to be part time positions and the job specifications is still being worked on.
- Creating a national Recruitment Network
- Creating a national Young Ringers Hub
- Start planning another new Regional Ringing Course
- Further liaison with the C of E regarding Church Closures and the consequent future of bells and support for Associations dealing with Church Closures
- Safeguarding support for members
The point about Church closures is one of the immediate things for us to get involved with. It can happen very quickly so it’s important to find out about any churches at risk of closure and plan what we would want to happen to the bells as far in advance as possible.
The Ringing World AGM
- I also attended the Ringing World AGM where the main areas of interest were: –
The future of the paper which is under constant review particularly due to slowly decreasing numbers of subscribers. - We saw an interesting graph showing the balance between paper and digital subscribers over the last few years. At present, paper exceeds digital but slowly the lines are drawing closer together.
- While The Ringing World made a surplus in 2024, this could not be achieved without the donations of ringers for the printing of peals and quarter peals.
- The huge amount of work, mainly by volunteers, which goes into the security and maintenance of BellBoard.
- The National Youth Contest will be in Nottingham in 2026. Organising it is a huge logistical challenge and its success depends on the work of a number of dedicated volunteers.
Trish Hitchins
