the central council of church bell ringers

Dissemination of ringing information - Education Committee - CCCBR

Report of a working group set up by the Central Council Education Committee, in conjunction with the Publications Committee, Computer Co-ordination Committee and Public Relations Advisory Group.

The group conducted its discussions by E-mail during April and May 2000. Its members were:

Education (John Harrison, Michael Henshaw, Frank Lewis, Fred Bone, Neil Donovan); Computer co-ordination (Peter Trotman, Don Morrison, Julian Parker); Publications: (Derek Jones); PRAG (David Thorne, Stella Bianco, Clare Rodliffe, Jane Wilkinson)

Scope

The reason for setting up the group was to explore broad issues, especially any that crossed boundaries between committee responsibilities. We therefore avoided terms like: education, publication, marketing, or training. Instead, the group sought ways to improve:

"Any process(s) or activity(s) that singly or collectively would help to transfer useful knowledge about ringing to those ringers who could potentially benefit from it."

This definition has ringers as the target, rather than non-ringers. Also, by stating 'knowledge' it was intended to focus on durable knowledge (eg what is in The Tower Handbook) rather than transient knowledge (eg what is in the news, events and reports pages of The Ringing World).

We were aware that other working groups had been set up to consider aspects of the Council's function, including how it communicates with its member associations, and with ringers at large, so there might be some read-across between the different lines of discussion.

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Background

The Council's objectives include: 'To make available advice, assistance and information to ringers and ringing societies on all matters concerned with bells and bellringing'. The Council undoubtedly does this, with books at very economical prices, courses, websites, Ringing World articles, and so on, readily available. But there is a widespread belief that this information fails to benefit many members of the exercise. Either they are not aware of what is available, or for some reason they choose not to avail themselves of it.

It is difficult to measure such things, but one indicator can be had from looking at sales of publications. For simplicity assume there are 5000 towers, 45,000 ringers, and 4000 recruits over the past couple of years (say 2000 per year compared with about 1000 who lasted longer than a year in the 1990 survey). Looking at 1998 and 1999 CC sales, and picking a few books that everyone ought potentially to read, we have per annum: 700+ Beginners Handbook, and around 100 Towards Better Striking, and 100 Ringing Skills. The last two represent a tiny penetration. Even if we assumed they would be bought as tower copies, it would take 50 years for all towers to have one.

The Tower Handbook was intended for a copy in every tower. In its first 2 years it sold just under 1000 (but only 200 in 1999). If these went straight to towers it would take over 10 years to reach them all, and in practice it would be much longer because many have been bought by individuals.

We therefore face the reality that much of the valuable information created is not in the hands (let alone the heads) of the vast majority of ringers. Interpreting the Council's objective as stated above in a more proactive way, means we should seek not only to make information available, but also to help it to reach more of its target audience. That is why we need to think about dissemination, ie getting the information to where it is needed (by whatever means).

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The discussion

We started with four questions, and 170 E-mails later, had mainly explored questions 2 and 3.

1. Are there gaps in the information we ought to be disseminating?
2. Are there dissemination mechanisms that we could exploit more than we do?
3. Can we use different mechanisms to support each other?
4. What level of penetration is it reasonable, and how will we know when we achieve it?

The target audience

This proved difficult to pin down. We recognised that different groups would have different needs, and we might need different techniques to reach them. We did not wish to exclude any, but since some will be easier to reach than others we eventually tried to focus on the hardest to reach, ie those people who are not particularly in touch with their local associations, and probably not enthusiastic about ringing. From this last point we realised that generating some enthusiasm in the recipients is a necessary part of the dissemination process.

Another important group, potentially easier to reach, are relatively inexperienced as ringers (though some are running towers because no one else is) but they are far from inexperienced in other avenues of life. They appear to be enthusiastic, and with considerable abilities outside ringing circles, but with many of their ringing needs unmet.

We also realised that we might need to target groups of intermediaries (eg association and branch officers) as a means to reaching other ringers 'on the ground'.

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What we are trying to disseminate

Even within our chosen scope, there is wide potential. We identified, and prioritised three categories:

1. Information to help people ring better: A primary aim, applicable to many ringers
2. Information about ringing complicated methods* etc: Enrichment for any who want it.
3. Information to help people be better leaders, teachers, etc: This is important, but not for the whole target audience.

* We noted that the widespread focus on method complexity in ringing circles can erect barriers between the 'experts' and 'ordinary ringers'.

Different forms of dissemination

To avoid getting too narrowly focussed on any one medium for delivering information, we identified several complementary ones:

1. Marketing and distribution of 'conventional' publications (books, booklets, tapes, ...)
2. Publishing articles in The Ringing World (regular series and one-offs)
3. Supplying material for use in association and/or branch newsletters
4. Publishing material on the Web
5. Providing resources available for people to use locally
6. 'People' (to deliver courses, lectures, etc, and informally passing on information)
7. 'Stewardship' (CC or committee members take an interest in a number of associations)

This led us to consider whether targeted use of one medium could be used to stimulate interest in another. The trivial case is advertising books and courses in The Ringing World, but we felt there should be scope for much more. We should aim to make it easy for ringers to 'bump into' information (either directly or indirectly, eg 'I've been reading this excellent book, you ought to get it because ... ', or 'I went on this course led by ... and she really helped me to look at my ringing in a new light', or 'What you need to think about is ..., or Have you heard about .... Fred said it was jolly good').

We glimpsed ideas about synergy between different communication channels (including human ones) but only cursorily explored them. We believe that CC members representing associations have an important role to play in helping to stimulate local methods of dissemination, particularly generating interest in, and use of, information at the local level.

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Use of the Web and electronic media

Predictably, a group meeting by E-mail spent time discussing these aspects. We recognised the need to exploit new communication media as well as traditional ones. We discussed options including advertising, selling and publishing on the web, and various links between them. We noted that web based advertising can be very flexible with links between bibliographies, reviews and selling sites. Selling over the web is becoming increasingly common, especially for things like books. Selling ringing books on the web would be a considerable boon to non-UK ringers.

Publishing material on the web raised practical issues. There is the practical need to convert it to be easier to use 'on screen', rather than 'off the page' (for which it was designed). We also need to clarify issues of copyright. We generally felt web publishing would stimulate rather than reduce sales of paper books, which for portability, readability and ease of use were likely to remain superior for quite some time.

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Reading versus doing

Given the essentially practical nature of ringing, we wondered whether some ringers expected to learn all they needed by practical example, rather than resorting to the written word. Certainly the written word is not currently being heavily used by our target audience (though we suspected they might not be getting a very rich diet of good practical demonstration and hands-on tuition either). Certainly hands-on experience is a powerful way to pass on some skills and ideas. So too are 'doing' aids like simulators and so on. Perhaps we should seek to expand the range of what is available, both in the use of practical aids, and in expectations about practical activities (over and above merely turning up week by week for practice night). Of course to meet such expectations would requires us to think about the role of people.

Working with local people

We recognised that local people needed to be part of the solution, but we found it hard to make concrete suggestions. The obvious potential local 'agents' are association officers (including CC reps) and holders of association book stalls (as well as any individual enthusiasts).

The wide variation of sales from bookstalls suggests scope for bringing the less effective ones up to the level of the rest. We realised that personality and other local factors had a strong bearing, but felt new ideas might be possible. We need to communicate more with bookstall holders, and this should be two way communication. We ought to make them feel part of a wider network. Perhaps Council members should help to provide these communication links.

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More aggressive advertising

We agreed that more could be done (though at a price). For example, individual publications could be targeted with fliers containing snappy extracts, glowing comment, etc. Inserted in The Ringing World they would be much more prominent than the usual monthly advertisement (perhaps with gift wrapping for Christmas). Distributed to association bookstalls they could given away for tower notice boards.

We could potentially make more use of indirect opportunities to bring material to ringers' notice. More reviews could be published, and not just at the time of initial publication. Retrospective reviews based on use might also be considered, or periodic re-reviews for those who have recently begun ringing.

The web offers much flexibility for doing this, as well as using conventional media. It is less transient than newspapers or newsletters, but more readily extended and updated than books.

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Recommendations

The recommendations below have come out of the working group's discussion. They represent the collected thoughts of the participants.

Some are straightforward and easy to implement. In several cases they have already been put into practice.

Some require more consideration before they are implemented. In particular they need discussion in the relevant committees, to determine feasibility, and how best to go ahead.

Some are in areas where, although there seems to be a clear need, the best approach is less clear and requires further exploration to identify a way forward.

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What we will do next

The working group was convened and worked in a short timescale. We could not work through all the consequences of the recommendations. The committees who sponsored the working group will look at how to implement the recommendations in the near future.

What you can do

We have identified that there is potentially an important role to be played by people at local level, within societies. As the representatives of those societies, we would like you to take away the ideas we have produced so far, discuss them with your officers and ringers, and help us by answering the following questions.

1. Do you support what we have recommended so far?
2. If not, what would you modify?
3. What else do you think the Council and/or its committees could do to help disseminate useful information to your local ringers who need it?
4. How can we best help those people at local level who act as links in the chain, both for generating enthusiasm and for conveying information?

If you think you can help in any way, either by providing ideas or by 'doing' then we would like to hear from you. Please send any comments or suggestions to me.

John Harrison, Education Committee and working group chairman

2 Murdoch Road, Wokingham RG40 2DA

0118 978 5520