King's Town Company of Ringers

Training

Recruitment of new ringers can take many forms, ringers moving into the area usually seek out their nearest tower to join, students often join student associations as well as any associations local to their University. These ready made ringers are always an asset to any band as they can often fit in very quickly with the local band. Teaching new recruits from the beginning is the most common route into ringing and something that King's Town are committing considerable time and resources to.

Teaching a new recruit from the beginning can take a considerable amount of time and effort. Some people grasp the physical and mental requirements required very quickly, some can take a little longer, there is no one path to good ringing. Being a member of a competent band helps as having strong ringers around from the beginning can help make progress quicker.

Most teaching is carried out at St. Mary's as the shorter draft makes them much easier to teach on than Holy Trinity.
We begin by showing learners the bells and familiarizing them with the parts, what they do and how bells work. Many ringers can go their entire ringing careers without actually seeing what goes on over their heads.
At this point we also explain some of the safety aspects of ringing and working with bells that need to be observed.
It must be pointed out that bells in the mouth upward position as seen here are very dangerous, we only allow recruits to view the bells in this position under supervision and in a position of safety.

We next demonstrate ringing to the learners, most learners will have had at least one visit to the tower whilst ringing was in progress. However on such a visit it might not be immediately apparent what is actually happening.
An experienced ringer will simply ring the bell while the instructor points out what is required to control the bell.
Particular attention will be drawn to how the rope is handled, the importance of good style, the different actions required and the techniques used.

Beginning to ring requires mastering the skill of handling the rope correctly, as the rope is the direct link between the ringer and bell.
We begin by teaching the backstroke which is the easiest of the strokes.
The learner simply has to hold the rope, the instructor will pull on the sally, (the woven, coloured part of the rope) which will cause the bell to begin turning.
As the bell turns the rope will be pulled upwards, the learner lets their hands follow the rope up then at their maximum stretch pull the rope cleanly back down and the instructor catches the sally.

>The next step is to learn the handstroke which is slightly more complicated.
We begin by letting the learner simply pull the bell off the balance and let go of the sally, the instructor then takes care of the rest. This builds up confidence to pull the rope and let go of the sally.
When this is mastered cleanly we then begin to catch the sally too, this stage of ringing can be the trickiest to grasp, especially timing when to let go and when to catch the sally.

Once both strokes have been mastered individually and the ringer can confidently handle the rope we begin to work towards putting the two strokes together.
For this part we will often begin with a dummy tail end so that the learner can ring without fear of dropping the rope. This is a common feeling whilst learning to ring and can lead to learners adopting bad habits as they attempt to hold the tail end and sally together.
Once they are confident that the tail end cannot drop out of their hands then we will begin to put handstroke and backstroke together.

Confidently ringing a bell on their own is just the first part of learning to ring, the next stage is to learn how to ring a bell in rounds with other ringers.
Often during tied bell sessions the learner will practice following another bell rung by an experienced ringer.
Then the learner is introduced into ringing 'rounds' with a band around them, learning the timing of pulling the rope to keep the bell in the right place can take some time to master.
At around this stage the learner can begin to join the rest of the band for Sunday service ringing.

Once rounds have been mastered the learner can begin a long process of learning new skills dependent on how much time they want to put into ringing and how much encouragement they get from other ringers around them.
Ringing however is not just about ringing in 'rounds' with one bell following the other but moving bells around according to simple rules.
Learners can then begin the long road of learning methods that really never stops.
Method ringing involves learning the simple rules that move bells according to a special pattern. Beginning with the simplest method, Plain hunting, the enthusiastic learner can carry on progressing through Plain, Treble bob and Surprise methods as they gain confidence.
In this we use as many teaching aids as we can including PC based ringing simulators, white boards to explain theory and Sherbourne teaching aids.