The First ART Leadership Workshop

Workshop Review

Appreciation is due to Barbara Le Gallez for organising a one day course on Tower leadership, most ably led by Pip Penney and attended by a group of ringers, mostly from the Ely Diocese. Pip went through a series of presentations on various aspects of tower leadership that formed the basis for discussion amongst the audience.

Sharing ideas and experiences is an excellent way of building up one’s knowledge, particularly in that perennially challenging task of recruitment and retention.It was good to hear that difficulties experienced oneself are very often common amongst other Tower Captains, and it was instructive to hear how different people come to grips with the challenges of being Tower Captain. In this way, the day was particularly useful and instructive.

Participants were mainly from semi-rural parishes and had not encountered the wholly different environment in which Pip rings and teaches. Being able to introduce her experiences into discussions was most helpful. We liked the format of the day. It was divided into different sections focussing on (say) recruitment, the legal aspects of ringing, how to get on with other people, dealing with challenging ringers who find difficulty in accepting novices, and various other interesting topics.

Following a short presentation from Pip, participants were broken up into pairs to debate issues relating to each topic. With perhaps half a dozen different topics and a different partner for each, we got to meet people who were strangers at the start of the day.

Nick was inspired to go back home and try to create a poster/handout promoting ringing, making use of tips from the day’s discussions. Martin found inspiration in how different people approach the challenge of introducing novices to call changes as a step towards mastering change-ringing, and picked up several useful tips. We can heartily recommend this course to others.

Workshop Feedback

Well-paced, good content, informative.

An interesting, enjoyable very and worthwhile day. I think this workshop would be useful for all acting or potential tower captains and I hope it will be run in the Norwich D.A..

Great! The thing is that I obtained many good ideas from the course and from the people on it.

Breakout discussions and feedback were most useful. Lots of good awareness raising although few definitive answers.

Content was very good but there was a relatively small amount that was new! I enjoyed the day.

Could more information re ART teaching modules be placed in the delegate resource pack

All excellent! Good discussion, good structure and dealing with difficult people. Really helped me find my place!!!

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