[Bell Historians] St Nicholas, Cork - Bells.

[David Cawley]

A lot of truth in this.

When I was on the CCC Bells Committee, I succeded Ranald Clouston in providing "slips" to the CCC giving details in churches which had been referred to it for a statutory  Pastoral Measure Report. This he started as a voluntary exercise when under the 1968 Measure Declarations of Redundancy were posted in The Times newspaper. By then a PM report had already been made and the Council wisely suggested to Ranald that the sooner it could have the information, the more accurate would be the PM Report. These Reports are made, incidentally, without prejudice to the eventual decision which is made. To the best of my knowledge, there were never any problems.

Ranald used to send copies of his slips to Jane Wilkinson for the CCCBR CfRB; and latterly to me (and now I have copies of every one which he did from 1968 to 1995, when he handed over the job to me). I know that Jane received them in the strictest confidence.

I was about the time I took over asked by David Kelly, an old friend, if I would provide slips for the emerging Keltek Trust. Rather foolishly I asked the Council's officers if I might do so, "in the same way as I propose sending them to Mrs Wilkinson." The upshot was that I was told that whereas Ranald had starrted to produce them as a voluntary exercise, and only later at the Council's request, the ones I produced were from then on confidential to the Council - and no, I might not. So Jane never got detailed slips from me, nor did David. 

In fairness both of them started receiving from the Council the complete PM Rerpots; though that doesn't always supply the full information which I try to provide.

Confidentiality is important; and if one is doing a job in confidence, one keeps the confidence or gives up doing the job. I still do the PM Report information slot for the Council, although I no longer serve on it. There have been times when I have really felt that the information I have given deserved passing on at the time to the CCC CfRB and to Keltek. 

As David says there are points on both sides, but I wonder if obessive concern with confidentiality places a strain on goodwill and - as see says - credibility.

DLC

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: davidhird_uk 
  To: bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, June 01, 2007 9:13 AM
  Subject: Re: [Bell Historians] St Nicholas, Cork - Bells.


  --- In bellhistorians at yahoogroups.com, David Bryant <davidbryant at ...> 
  wrote:
  >
  > Sam:
  > 
  > "Perhaps the Redundant Light Bulb Committee of theCentral Council 
  should show their worth and rescuethis important ring of bells."
  > 
  > Out of interest, what has the CC Redundant Bells Committee done in 
  the last decade?
  > 
  > David
  >

  I was on the CC for 15 years and during that time there were endless 
  arguments about what the committee did. This was mainly caused by 
  Jane's report each year which gave very little detail of action. When 
  asked she often stated that their work was of a confidential nature 
  and couldn't be discussed. Various members objected to that stating 
  that you couldn't have a committee that couldn't revela what it was 
  doing. Both points are valid but I am sure some mechanism could have 
  been thought out to get round the confidentiality thing. I think it 
  was something to do with the information the RBC received which was 
  sometimes in advance of the the church in case being informed. I think 
  until this is sorted out, the RBC will lack credibility and tends to 
  be thought of as a resting place for professional committee people 
  rightly or wrongly.

  David



              
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ringingworld.co.uk/pipermail/bell-historians/attachments/20070601/dfe3ba86/attachment.html>