[Bell Historians] Comical Reporting

[Alan Birney]

--- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, Robert Lewis <editor at ...> 
wrote:
>
> At 18:23 15/02/2007, Alan Birney wrote:
> >            And I can think of several cases in addition to the 
one
> >you've mentioned we have been to where "The Son of a Preacher man"
> >is proud of the (bad) work and had even mentioned
> >these "restorations" (and I use the word loosly) in the Comic!
> 
> I suppose it is inevitable that when stories about 'restorations' 
are 
> written-up for public consumption they tend to be "all sweetness 
and light".
> 
> That may be because the people writing them have no interest in 
drawing 
> attention to failures in projects that they may have had a big 
hand in 
> managing on behalf of a parish (and its dedicated fund raisers).
> 
> We rarely hear (in print) about the projects that have been 
plagued with 
> problems or, indeed, the projects where a really unsatisfactory 
job by one 
> bell contractor has had to be "put right" a short time later by 
another.
> 
> That is a shame for all sorts of reasons - not least because it 
makes it 
> difficult to form a reasonably balanced and objective view of the 
general 
> (and relative) quality of work being carried out by various 
sectors of the 
> trade. It probably means that valuable information about commonly 
occurring 
> problems is not shared to everyone's benefit.
> 
> No doubt if problems were more freely reported and discussed then 
that 
> would help to keep a lot of people in the trade 'on their toes'. 
Maybe we 
> would all be a little bit wiser into the bargain!
> 
> RAL
>


        This person is not in the trade, they act by "cold calling", 
which is the problem. There is no garauntee that they have adequate 
insurance (if any) and they are not covered (as far as I can make 
out) under YACR insurance as the jobs are done for financial gain. 
Some of the work is not covered by YACR insurance anyway, even if it 
had been done for free.

        Having said that, if any Diocese Advisor turns a blind eye 
to stuff like this and allows it to carry on and some damage occours 
or someone is hurt, on thier own head be it- where the advisor would 
stand legally, I don't know.

        The sad thing is that it is the Church who loses out- for a 
bit more money, they can have the job done by persons who are 
insured and if anything should go wrong, at least they have a leg to 
stand on. It is unbeleivable that some incumbents think that by 
having a job done with a faculty (where required), the faculty makes 
a job expensive- Perhaps a little more PR and education is required 
on this.


Alan