It
seems to be “AGM season”. The bell
ringers held their AGM last week and we attempted to make the evening more
enjoyable by having wine and nibbles to help us progress through the necessary
business. Personally I find AGM’s rather
boring, but necessary, affairs. TheTower officers remain the same for the next year. I cannot believe that this is the start of
my 4th year as your Tower Captain.
Where has the time gone? It also
means “View from the Tower” celebrates its 3rd birthday next
month. When I found myself looking into
the effects of weather on ropes the other day I was getting concerned that I
might be running out of things to say. We’ll
see!
One
item that gets discussed every year (and frequently in between) is the problem
of recruitment. We’ve been relatively
lucky this year in that we have had a new ringer join us who is retiring to the
area and we have acquired one new learner.
But what to do? How do we attract
people to come and learn to ring? The aim is to achieve a balance and diversity
of skills and age range etc in the band.
Age isn’t important, though it makes a difference to teaching methods
used. The biggest disadvantage of
teaching the young is that other things start to compete for their time and then
the girls find boys and vice versa!
The ancient art of bell ringing will only continue if we pass it on to others and to another generation.
We
are always happy for people to come up to the tower on our Wednesday practice nights to see us and to watch what we actually do, and you never know, if you
do you might just be tempted to have a go and maybe learn to ring!
