Report to 2008 Council
In 2007 the committee met three times at Wellesbourne, Warwickshire. There are currently ten members for twelve places.
Courses — The committee ran a national 'Teaching the Teachers' weekend course in September, and also delivered day courses for local societies on listening and on teaching bell control. We have also recently developed an email based mentoring scheme for people wishing to develop their conducting skills. The pilot phase of this has gone well and we feel it complements our training course provision which principally aims to support teachers and leaders of ringing.
Publications and resources — Ten pilot copies of The New Ringer's Book were distributed to selected 'learners' for evaluation during the summer. This generated a strong positive response, as well as much practical feedback on points of detail. At the year end, the book was in major final revision, with a photo shoot to produce higher quality pictures in January 2008. We have worked closely with the Publications Committee on practical details and pricing for this strategically important publication which we plan to hand over by the summer. Pip Penney's new book, Teaching Unravelled, has been through several revisions, and should also be completed during 2008. Progress with the 'Tower Captain's Resource' has been slower than hoped but a growing selection of resources are now available via the committee website and we aim to promote this tool kit at the 2008 Roadshow. The year ended with delivery of the 4th (and last) volume of The Learning Curve to the Publications Committee.
Simulator — Loan of the Bagley simulator continues, but at a low level. It may be borrowed for evaluation, or for training courses, by contacting Heather Peachey ().
Network for Ringing Training (NRT) — Membership remains static at around 500, with the discussion list used by about 60% of members. The backlog of indexed summaries for members has been made up thanks to Martin Mansley. Progress of discussions with ICT committee about hosting mailing services on the CC server has been slow.
Framework for Training Ringers — The Framework was revised in response to feedback from pilot users, and presented at the Open Meeting in Leicester in May. Almost all feedback has been positive, and some societies are promoting it. The information is available for download from this website.
Ringing Foundation — The outgoing chairman led the group that developed the proposal, adopted by Council in May, to form a Ringing Foundation. The committee has considered ideas for productive use of future funds managed by the Foundation.
Future plans — The committee's vision is to take forward the state of the art in ringing education and to help spread best practice to member societies, towers and individuals by whatever means is most effective.
Membership — Many of the current committee, including the outgoing chairman, will not be standing for re-election for the new triennium, so we look forward to welcoming new members with new ideas to help us develop the committee's future work.