[Bell Historians] Re: Stanton St John

[Carl S Zimmerman]

At 14:30 +0000 07/03/13, David Bryant wrote:
>I find it particularly disappointing to see comments in DAC bells 
>adviser reports to the effect that work should only be carried out 
>by professionals.
_____

Without taking sides on the question of professionals versus 
volunteers, I think the real question which needs addressing is this: 
How can the ringing community help PCCs decide what to do about their 
bells and how to get it done?  Or more specifically, what can the 
ringing community do to help PCCs evaluate the competency of 
professional and/or volunteer proposals to fix their bells?

The type of DAC bells adviser which David describes has apparently 
made the easy and simplistic judgment that "professionals know what 
they are doing; volunteers don't."   It's true that one can find many 
examples of successful fully-professional projects in the pages of 
the RW.  But there are equally well-documented examples of 
part-volunteer or all-volunteer projects that were quite successful. 
So while that simplistic judgement is superficially sensible, it's 
also wrong.

Let's try giving that DAC bells adviser the benefit of the doubt, and 
consider that perhaps the judgment really was that "most 
professionals have a track record of proving that they know what they 
are doing; volunteers don't, and there's no way of knowing whether 
they are competent or not, so it's best to avoid them."  That's 
tougher to argue with; as some previous messages have indicated, 
project failures tend to be under-reported.

Some of the under-reporting is due to fears of reprisal: "If I say 
that Joe Schmoe is an incompetent nincompoop, I'll get sued for 
libel."  Perhaps so.  But it would be not only safer but also more 
useful to say, "Here's why I think that Joe Schmoe's work in the 
belfry of St.Wozzitsname was substandard..."  Then you're 
substantiating a judgment with facts about which other people can 
make their own judgments.

Even better, though, would be to have a standard - a code of practice 
- against which work could be judged.  I don't mean the kind of code 
that tells a workman how to do his job; I mean the kind of code that 
measures the results and states whether they are acceptable or not.

For example, there exist techniques to measure odd-struckness.  A 
bell-hanging code of practice written from a ringer's viewpoint might 
state the maximum odd-struckness that's acceptable in a totally new 
installation.  It might allow slightly more in a re-hang; it might 
state how much an average ringer could be expected to manage in a 
somewhat-worn set of fittings, or how much an expert ringer could 
handle in a badly-worn set of fittings, and finally how bad it could 
get to make a bell virtually unringable by anyone and certainly in 
need of major work.  That's a performance standard; it doesn't tell 
the bell-hanger how to go about his work, but it does provide one way 
to measure whether that work is successful.

If a set of such performance standards existed, perhaps approved by 
the CCCBR and endorsed by the two major bellfoundries, then DACs 
could advise PCCs to include compliance with such standards in 
contracts with professionals.  A group of volunteers could be asked 
to provide an assessment of the present state of a belfry with 
respect to the standards, together with an action plan which details 
how they expect to improve that state.

Obviously, a lot of work would be needed to fill in the outline that 
I have sketched.  I believe that the expertise to do that exists 
among the society of ringers that I have observed over the past 30 
years.  Whether the will to make that effort exists is a different 
question.  And of course there may be debate about whether this is 
even the right approach to take.

-- 
Carl Scott Zimmerman, Campanologist
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