[r-t] Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something

[Mark Davies]

Well I am absolutely on the side of GACJ and MJC here. Yes, you can ring
whatever you want, but if it's going to be a peal accepted by the ringing
community then it ought to come up to a certain standard:

1. Enough changes. We could debate what that is, but to me allowing less
than 5040 for Triples devalues quite a lot of change-ringing history.
Suddenly you can ring a peal of bobs-only Grandsire. No!

2. Good standard of ringing. You can't legislate for this. But you can allow
people to register objections about the quality of the ringing.

3. Comprised of changeringing methods. A peal of call changes is not a
changeringing peal. A peal where someone follows the same bell for the
duration is not a changeringing peal for that ringer.

4. True composition. We have a pretty high standard of truth at the moment,
and one which has the virtue of giving an unambiguous yes/no answer. If you
ring 5040 changes on seven bells, and the changes xxx4567 are repeated
twice, the composition is false; you can't claim it's two extents of Singles
and a true 5028 of Triples.

Now we want to relax a lot of pointless rules, to allow more innovation in
method ringing, and better classification of methods than the ballsed-up
system we have at the moment. However to me it is chiefly the rules around
*methods* that must be liberalised, and a descriptive approach taken with
them. High standards should remain for peals - those which are going to be
accepted as peals by the changeringing community.

So: you have a nice new Minor method, that's false in the plain course and
has three hunt bells. You should be able to ring that in a peal and name it.
Nothing wrong with that method. However, if you ring it to a peal with a
false composition (e.g. actually contains the plain course) then sorry, go
away and try again. If you ring it on the front six of a 12 whilst the back
six are covering, well the front seven ringers can maybe claim a peal, but
don't try and claim it for the other lot.

Innovation and a descriptive approach for methods. A high standard
maintained for peals.

We need a vote thingy - anyone got one handy?

MBD