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<DIV>John Harrison wrote:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>”When were the Objects last reviewed against the needs of the ringing
community that the Council should be serving, or even against what it has been
doing? For example, the headline Object is stated as: 'To promote and foster the
ringing of bells for Christian prayer, worship and celebration ...' Is that the
overriding service that the Council should be providing? “</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think that John raises a significant point here. Apologies if this is
straying off topic a bit, but I think it is relevant in that the narrative which
the CCCBR, and most of the territorial associations (most of which are based on
dioceses) puts forward about bell ringing primarily being part of worship isn’t
really borne out by the history or the current reality. These organisations were
a Victorian attempt (often they were set up by clergy) to get control over the
bellringers, and although it may have succeeded for a time it really isn’t the
case now and hasn’t been for decades.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is certainly space for debate over what bell ringing is – is it part
of worship, is it a branch music, is it a sport (there was some discussion about
this on Radio 3 recently), is it a folk art – or a combination of any of these
factors depending on the motivation of each individual?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As an atheist, the worship aspect was irrelevant to me but like most bell
ringers I paid lip service to it, and I turned out every week on Sunday mornings
to ring, even if I had a hangover and it was pissing down and I really didn’t
want to! it seemed a reasonable compromise to me that as they allowed access to
the bells at other times, I would ring for their services. I don’t know what
proportion of bell ringers are atheists or agnostics, but I am sure that it’s
far, far higher than an outsider encountering organisations such as the CCCBR
would assume – but most ringers pay lip service as it’s the done thing. Look at
how many ringers actually attend the services they ring for to see what I mean.
I see absolutely no reason why bell ringers should be expected to hold religious
beliefs, but the bell ringing organisations still seem mostly determined to push
it as a part of worship in a way that isn’t seen with, say, choral music, where
concerts often take place in churches for no stated reason other than the music
itself. You could say that in reality a lot of ringing is non-religious (back to
the secular towers discussion!), which is true, but that’s not how it’s
generally promoted or seen by the outside world.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There is no doubt that the Church of England is in decline (just look at
attendance figures for services). Recruiting bell ringers who are members of the
CofE, as often seems to be an unstated aim, is not realistic in many cases and
if bell ringing is to continue then I think that it needs to move away from the
“service to the church” idea and look at promoting itself for other reasons, be
that as a folk art, as a sport, or whatever. Ideally new recruits need to be
younger people, but among people of my age (I’m 36) and younger the attitude
towards religion in general and the CofE in particular is mostly somewhere on
the spectrum between complete disinterest and outright dislike. Something
promoted as being primarily 'To promote and foster the ringing of bells for
Christian prayer, worship and celebration ...' is not likely to appeal to
them.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I think there also needs to be more of an acceptance within the church that
bellringers are not all Christians. Bell ringing (and bell history) was my main
hobby for around twenty years, but I gave it up as a result of the way a
complaint was handled by the clergy – the reality of how they dealt with it was
hugely at variance with their rhetoric, and it got to the point where I couldn’t
face having anything to do with the CofE any more. The attitude of “trust us,
we’re clergy and we will pray for a solution” might be acceptable to their
fellow believers, but those who don’t share their beliefs will want to know what
concrete action they will take in cases of complaints, etc – this, in my
experience, was lacking in the case of most of them. Anyone effectively
volunteering for an organisation wants to know that they will be treated fairly
and this sort of attitude, along with the complete lack of any formal policies
on complaints, bullying, disability discrimination, etc, frankly aren’t going to
inspire confidence. I work for a charity on a much, much smaller scale than the
CofE, and where volunteers are concerned we have all this covered – because they
quite reasonably expect us to.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Apologies if this has strayed a bit off-topic, but I think it is relevant
to the whole question of secular towers and secular ringing – in that
historically and at present there really is no clear dividing line and if bell
ringing as a hobby is to have a future as well as a past there needs to be more
acceptance that people’s motivations vary widely. Trying to decide which towers
are “secular” and which aren’t doesn’t help this at all, and seems designed to
try to draw a dividing line where really there isn’t a need for one, and what
one person may put on one side of a hypothetical line would be put on the other
side by someone else.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>David Bryant</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV></DIV>
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Posted by: "David Bryant" <davidbryant@hotmail.co.uk> <hr style="height:2px ; border-width:0; color:#E3E3E3; background-color:#E3E3E3;">
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