The report and presentation given to the AGM by Hilary Child
Firstly, a big thank you to all the tower captains and tower correspondents who have arranged for us to visit their towers and to the experienced ringers who come along to support us and enable the young ringers to really benefit from the practices. Thank you to all the guild members who contributed to the young ringers’ funds at the same time as paying their subs – the total was £122. My thanks also to Ruth Beavin and Julia Russell for helping me with organisation on the ground but I would still appreciate having someone to discuss ideas with.
Since last year’s AGM (despite being thwarted by the weather in November and December) we have held nine general practices at towers in the Dorchester, East Dorset, Salisbury and West Dorset branches, plus two more specifically for the RWNYC. Scheduling practices remains a challenge since the young ringers are spread all across the guild and families seem to struggle with committing to dates several weeks in advance.
We have a core of regular attendees, and we ring lots of rounds, call changes and plain hunt, as well as a variety of doubles methods, with the occasional foray into minor and triples. It is great that we have some ringers in their twenties who are happy to come along and support the younger ones. We are rebuilding the group to some extent this year as five of the older ones are now busy with higher education or work.
In July last year two groups of young ringers (16 in total), plus parents and supporters, enjoyed a fantastic but hectic day in London at the RWNYC. We rang at five towers including the heavy 12 of St Mary le Bow. In the competition itself, one team rang call changes on 6 bells and the other rang on 8, finishing joint 7th out of 13 teams. The group from Wyke Regis was led by Michael Dillistone and the two groups went round the open ringing towers together. This year’s event will be in Birmingham on 5th July and, I believe, will include the chance to ring on the 16 at St Martin’s in the Bullring. After a slow start, we think that we have a 6-bell call changes band, plus 2 or 3 other young ringers who will join us to enjoy the day out. Thank you to all those who have supported our fundraising efforts, both last year and today. I know that the parents really appreciate the help with transport and accommodation costs.
The Central Council now has a workgroup dedicated to ringers up to the age of 30 and I have given some feedback on the consultation document. It is still early days, but they are planning to get young ringers’ groups together for events on a regional basis, as well as to try to ensure that we don’t lose ringers at transition points (such as moving to a new area for higher education or for work).
I thought it would be interesting to see how many young people are members of our guild and you can see the statistics for under 18s here. There are about a dozen on the list whom I haven’t met, possibly because they are happy just ringing in their local tower. The young ringers at Sherborne are at the boys’ public school and so aren’t able to attend practices elsewhere. In addition to these 44, I know of 8-10 who are ringing but who haven’t signed up for guild membership, plus there are certainly half a dozen who have only just reached the age for adult membership. On the face of it, this looks like quite a promising situation but to put it in perspective, the total number of ringers with guild membership last year was just under 1500, so anything that you can do to encourage young people to start ringing and also to continue ringing is really important. If they would like to get involved in the guild young ringers’ group, they will be guaranteed a warm welcome at practices, an experienced ringer to help them if required and plenty of chances to ring. All the information is on the guild website.
I would like to finish by sharing a recent achievement with you. In the Easter holidays a band comprising some of the younger members of the guild rang a quarter peal in memory of Alan Bentley, who died last summer. Alan was a committed supporter of the young ringers’ practices and we miss him greatly.
Hilary Child
Young Ringers’ Leader
