[r-t] Grandsire/New Grandsire, etc

[Don Morrison]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 2:05 AM, Robin Woolley <robin at robinw.org.uk> wrote:
> Maybe it's me, but I can never get my head around those who *need* their
> outre performances to be 'accepted' by someone else. Who do you ring a peal
> for?

I suspect many of them, if asked, would give similar answers to those
many other ringers, possibly including you, might give if asked things
like "Why do you bother to send your peals up to the RW?" and "Why
when you submit for publication a composition you've constructed do
you expect it to be published associated with your name?"

I can think of several reasons people might want their performances
"accepted", though I'm sure there are many more that haven't occurred
to me:

- If they think it's a good idea, they might like the opportunity to
  ring something like it again, but it can be harder to convince
  others to ring things that they view the Council as deprecating.

- If it's something new, they might like to receive credit for having
  invented it. Current practice seems to indicate that only the bands
  that ring it after the Decisions have been changed will appear in
  the record books.

- They may care for the ringing community having accurate records.

- They may wish to ring it for a Guild that has in its rules a
  requirement that a peal be acceptable to the Council to be recorded
  for that Guild.

- Many bands like the privilege of naming a method they ring for the
  first time. Only peals of conformant methods end up in the CC method
  collections, which, either directly or indirectly through some
  derived collection, is what nearly all ringers consult for such
  matters.

- Ringers are people, and are by nature social animals. Whatever many
  philosophers may tell us about basing our judgments of the worth of
  our actions on the workings of our own consciences, evolution has
  programed most of us to care at least to some degree about what
  others think of us. Without it civilization as we know might well
  be impossible.




-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"Excess on occasion is exhilarating.  It prevents moderation from
acquiring the deadening effect of a habit."
                                        -- W. Somerset Maugham