SDGR Ringing Update - February 2024

Message from the Guild Master

Happy New year to you all and welcome to the first edition of our new style Guild Update.

Vicki Rowse - Guild Master We appreciate that there has been a gap in Guild News being shared with you since the end of Covid, and this has been for a number of reasons, BUT, we are now well on the way to having more streamlined and direct communications with those of you who enjoy being kept informed.

I hope that you have had a chance to look around the New Website into which Ian Mozley and Andy Waring have put a huge amount of time. Your news is front and central so please do keep sending it in. I particularly like the 'Explore' button as that opens up a large and easy to navigate menu to get you to whatever it is you are looking for, and there is a lot to see - do go and have a rummage!

The Guild Executive has been working hard on the Modernisation agenda and workstreams that are under way are:

Development of a New Members Pack giving anyone new to ringing or new to our Guild area an overview of what we as a Guild are doing and can offer;
In addition to the overall website improvements' the 'Find a Tower' section has been refreshed and a better system of connecting email addresses behind the scenes is being worked on; we are exploring the potential of this being the ‘handbook’ source of Tower information in the future.
We have a new Safeguarding Policy and training /DBS agreement with the Diocesan Safeguarding Team, which will be shared with all of you and your clergy once ratified at the Guild Executive meeting in February.
We are piloting a new membership and communications system, MemberMojo, which will improve our Data Privacy compliance, enable the Annual Report to be more accurate, as well as making subs collection so much easier for members and Branch Treasurers (no more form D&C). Full adoption of this system will be voted on at the AGM, and I urge you to find out about it and support it.
And finally we have a Guild Training day in the pipeline. Watch this space for further information but hold the date of 29th June if you are interested in coming as a Student, Tutor or Helper. There will be courses in both the north and south of the Guild and we will be covering Plain Hunt, Plain Hunt to method, Plain Bob Doubles and Rounds and Call Changes.

One of the most satisfying things for me is seeing members of the Guild who are not on Branch Committees or the Guild Executive getting involved in some of these pieces of work. Lots of these workgroups are time limited, and the output is so much better when we hear from those of you at the grass roots. So please do let me know if you would like to get involved in something short term. The next big thing on the to do list is recruitment and retention so hearing from new ringers is vital - if we don't know what works, or worked, for you we can’t provide it or incorporate it into our thinking!

It has been a pleasure to meet so many of you at your AGMs, sadly there are several on the same day so I can’t get to them all, but I will endeavour to get around the Guild over the next 12 months. But if there’s anything you want to let me know about, my email is guild.master@sdgr.org.uk

Meanwhile, Happy Ringing!

Vicki

Vicki Rowse
Master
Salisbury Diocesan Guild of Ringers

guild.master@sdgr.org.uk

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Branch News

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