BRC Report to 2002 Council
The Committee met three times during the year (2001): in February in Surrey, during the Central Council Meeting weekend in May in Liverpool and in London in September.
Much of the work during the year has focused on the steps we need to take to follow up the fundamental review of services summarised in last year's report, and also picking up the challenge from Council to find new sources of funding for bell restoration.
Providing a Better Service to Ringers
In last year's report we identified four areas where we believed the Central Council should be providing a service. This year we have tuned the work of the Committee to ensure that we are concentrating on those areas, and moved some way to developing links with other Committees and organisations who also have a key role. This includes inviting representatives of the Keltek Trust and the Rescue Fund to our meetings to encourage sharing of ideas and knowledge.
At the end of the year we took the opportunity to revise our Terms of Reference to reflect our new priorities more closely. These changes, and a change of name to Bell Restoration Committee, will be the subject of a motion to Council. We also looked at the additional skills the Committee required to take our work forward and identified a need to develop expertise in fundraising on a national basis and tax and investment advice for charities. It is hoped to encourage Council members with appropriate interests to put themselves forward for election to the Committee for the new triennium.
Finding New Sources of Funding
The general feeling that emerged at the Council meeting at Liverpool was that members wished us to investigate new sources of funds. We also know from communications with societies that the tapping of such sources should not interfere with what already goes on, often very successfully, at a local level. In formulating our thoughts we are grateful for the assistance of Richard Offen and Stella Bianco who, with their considerable expertise, helped us greatly to clarify the issues. Our conclusions are that there is no hope of substantially increasing the amount of money available to bell restoration unless we either had exceptional luck or we systematically and professionally set out to raise the profile of bell ringing and bell restoration both to ringers in general and to non-ringers. In this respect this was a long haul project.
We therefore believe that a wide ranging debate is needed on a number of issues including the need for research; the need to make this a project about ringers as well as bells i.e. bells must be both ringable and rung; the need to involve not just other Council committees e.g. PRAG and the Education Committee, but also the need for the Council to raise its profile; the need for professional advice; the need for the Council to have a well-known figure-head or patron.
We intend to begin this debate at the Council meeting in June (2002) and hope for an enthusiastic contribution to our planning process.
In addition to the work outlined above the Committee continued to provide its core services to bell restoration:
Provision of Information and Advice
For the second year running the number of new parishes contacting the Committee for advice has fallen (1999 - 60, 2000 - 50, 2001 - 44). It is not clear whether this is a true reflection of a downturn in activity although there are some other signs that this may be the case. On the other hand our information pack for parishes is now available in downloadable form from the CC web site, and it may be that people are finding answers to their questions without making direct contact.
John Barnes attended two dedication services and made one parish visit, where he and a local society representative helped to move a project forward.
Committee members turned out in force to man the stand at the Roadshow at Keele and did brisk business - including selling a number of jigsaws in aid of the CCBRF.
The revised and updated booklet Organising a Bell Restoration Project was passed to the Publications Committee at the end of the year.
We drew a line under the last Triennial Survey of Bell Restoration Funds when 38 out of 47 societies had replied, and a series of short articles illustrating useful points from the survey is being prepared for publication in The Ringing World.
Administration of Funds
Manifold Trust
The Manifold Trust offered 13 grants totalling £48,000 during the year (2000 - 10 grants totalling £32,500). This reflects the Trust's decision, taken last year, to increase its level of giving, particularly to small parishes. The Committee assists the Trust by the provision of administrative support.
Central Council Bell Fund
Applications were invited for grants from the Central Council BRF. Twenty three applications were received and the following grants approved:
Staverton - £900, Newton-le-Willows - £1,100, Staines (St Mary) - £800, Doulting - £800, Rousham - £600, Motcombe - £1,000, Hillandale - £400, Donyatt - £900, Great Shelford - £800, St Mellons - £600, Milton - £1,500, Cheltenham (St Christopher) - £400, Shenington - £700.
Towards the end of the year we were delighted to receive an anonymous bequest of £10,000; this was followed by a transfer of £5,000 being the surplus on the General Fund and a further £10,000 from the Publications Committee. Applications for these amounts together with monies donated and raised by others, not least by the sale of Stella Bianco's jigsaws, will be invited in the early part of 2002.
As agreed at the Central Council meetings in 1997 and 1998 the criteria for allocating grants and loans (were) attached to this report. There are no recommendations for changes.
The Fred Dukes International Bell Fund
The Fund Trustees offered grants, decided in accordance with the terms of the Fund, to:
Australia: Castlereagh (Methodist Chapel) - £500, Randwick (St Jude) - £1,500, Singleton (All Saints) - £200, Sidney (St James) - £1,500, Hobart (St David's Cathedral) - £750; and to South Africa: Hillandale - £425.
Future work
While we have spent much of our time looking forward it was fitting that a review of the Committee's work over 25 years was published in The Ringing World. We believe that we have set the groundwork to have as great an influence for the next 25 years as we had over the last.
We hope that anyone who is in sympathy with our objectives and believes that they can contribute to the debate and to the future tasks will contact any committee member to discuss the issues and to consider becoming a member of the Committee.
Kate Flavell (Chairman)
John Barnes
Nigel Booth
Kate Cameron
Ken Davenport
Carol Hardwick
Ian Oram
Jackie Roberts (Secretary)
Beverley Winter
