ART Conference 2023

Each day of the conference is split into three main sessions and you have a choice of presentations, classroom workshops and in-tower practical workshops that you can book. In each session you can book:

One in-tower practical workshop that will last either 90 minutes or two hours.
Two presentations or classroom workshops each of which will be either 45 minutes or one hour long.
A single classroom workshop which will be 90 minutes long.

The number of delegates in the in-tower practical workshops is restricted.We ask that you book a maximum of three practical workshops if you are attending both days, or a maximum of two if you are attending for only one day.

The practical workshops will take place in various towers across Birmingham. Time has been allowed before and after the workshops for travel and parking and we will try to coordinate travel closer to the date of the conference.

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Conference booking is now open

Saturday 11 March – morning session

The St Clement's Project – Barry Johnson

Barry is a retired civil and structural engineer who has been a member of the band at Gt St Mary’s, Cambridge for most of the last 50 years. He is currently churchwarden of St Clement’s, Cambridge. Just over ten years ago he thought it would be a good idea for Cambridge to have a new ring of bells as an additional resource for recruiting and training ringers. From the start it was hoped to have a paid manager to maximise the potential.

After finding a suitable tower, assisting with restoration and improvements to the church and raising a large amount of money he finally has the bells and all the facilities needed, but can the main purpose of the project be delivered and is it financially sustainable?

Teaching with unusual methods – David Smith

David lives in Brisbane, Australia, is a former president of ANZAB, an ART Tutor, and writes The Education Column published in The Ringing World. He recently retired after two terms on the executive of the Central Council, but remains a frequent visitor to UK.

This presentation will introduce a dozen or so methods that are “unusual” – they are not rung that often. As well as expanding your repertoire, each has an educational value, helping teach some practical technique or develop theoretical understanding. You are NOT expected to leave with a thorough understanding of every method. Instead, you will have an overview of how each method works and why it is educationally useful – the hope is that you will find two or three methods that tickle your fancy and that you can then explore further with your band.

Diversity in ringing... woke or what? – Chris Sharp

In this workshop, we will explore concepts associated with equality and diversity, briefly consider the outcomes of the Women in Ringing project, and investigate aspects of diversity relevant to our bell ringing community. Finally we shall confront the question: can ringing thrive without addressing its lack of diversity?

I was Director of HR for a local authority before specialising in equalities in the university sector. For eight years prior to retiring in 2015 I led a small equalities unit at the University of Leicester. I learnt to ring in 1963 and down the years enjoyed peal ringing both in hand and tower. My home tower is Belton (5) in Lincolnshire.

Did you see that??? Or common handling problems and how to solve them – Christine Richardson

Hello, I’m Christine Richardson, one of the ART Tutors. I ring in Sunderland and began teaching bell handling just a few years after learning to ring, when St. Andrew’s had more learners that the Tower Captain could teach at once. Fast forward to the advent of ART and I went along to see whether my teaching could be improved. I’ve been learning things ever since!

This workshop will be looking at what we can do when we notice our learners/improvers/ringers have a lapse in style. Is it ever too late to correct a handling fault so that they will be able to achieve their ringing goals more easily? What is the best way to approach the problem? What is the remedy?

We’ll look at solving common handling problems through open discussion and some practical approaches, with demonstrations and group working.

Delving into Devon Call Change ringing – Jon Bint

Jon has experience of both Devon Call Change and method ringing and is an ART Member. He is Tower Captain at Chagford and Drewsteignton in Devon. As a matre student, he studied music, graduating from the University of Birmingham in 1997. He was Master of BUSCR 1994-95, two NUA titles, gaining special mention both times tenoring to Grandsire Doubles and has rung two scientific peals, 20 years apart!

This in-tower workshop will provide you with a little bit of background/context laced with the practical sessions, of which the rise and lower will likely be a particular focus. Hopefully it will unlock some of the mysteries of Devon Call Change ringing and help you gain some hands-on experience of our old Art. Finally, Jon hopes that you will go away with the wherewithal to try it out for yourselves back home.

Saturday 11 March – early afternoon session

The trials, tribulations and triumphs of a village tower captain – Matt Lawrence

I learnt to ring as a teenager in the West Midlands in the mid 1980’s. It wasn't until moving to Shropshire ten years ago that (out of necessity) I started to teach bell handling and soon discovered how wonderfully helpful the ART teaching modules are. I have just finished a four-year stint as Ringing Master of the Shropshire Association and am on ART's Management Committee and CCCBR’s Volunteer and Leadership Workgroup as Recruitment and Retention lead. I am currently Tower Captain at Lilleshall. We have worked hard at recruiting and developing a band using ART's Recruitment and Retention Toolbox as a blueprint for our activities.

This session will be a ‘warts and all’ run through what we have learned from the past seven years of building and developing a band in a rural Shropshire village.

I'll be highlighting what went well, what didn't quite go to plan, what we'd do differently if we started again and how we coped (or should that be are still coping) through the covid pandemic.

Who makes the decision? Volunteer teams in ringing committees – Will Bosworth

A lot of ringing administration takes place at the level of territorial guilds and associations, and their branches and districts. We expect these committees to deal with everything from bell restoration to training strategy to safeguarding issues. One of the most difficult things in any institution is effecting change, and this is made even harder when the changemakers are volunteers, often there out of support rather than desire or natural skills. In this workshop we discuss the dynamics of teams, committees, authority and leaders, and particularly the issues involved when the members are volunteers.

Will Bosworth is the current editor of the Ringing World as well as a prolific ringer of peals and quarter peals. One day we'll get him to come on an ART course!

A structured approach to teaching raising and lowering in peal – Phil Ramsbottom

I’ve been ringing for over fifty years and due to circumstances in my early days, teaching for most of those. I take great pleasure in helping ringers to discover new and different ways of learning the many facets of this wonderful ancient craft.

Of all the ringing skills there are (and there are many) I feel that raising and lowering in peal is probably one of the hardest skills to teach. In this workshop I hope to be able to present a few ideas as to what to look out for in the pupil before even thinking about attempting anything, some of the do’s and don’ts as to how to go about it, and some exercises to try as part of the learning and development process. It would be good to think that those attending have at least a half decent level of competence at raising and lowering in peal.

Ringing full circle – Alison Edmonds

Hi, I'm Alison, I've been ringing just over 40 years, and for the last 5 of those, I've become more interested in ringing further round the circle. I have found that whilst ART is very good at teaching bell handling by breaking it down into many small steps, actually when learning how to manage a bigger bell the ringer is still just left/expected to go from drumming behind to turning a tenor in to surprise max in one go, and so, initially just for me, I came up with a plan to facilitate circling my own tower to quarters, something that isn't very common, and something I have now achieved.

Based on the ART exercise of ring rounds, stand and move round one, I developed a workshop to enable a group of participants, and a few facilitators to start with rounds and move round one, to ring plain hunt and move round one, and for the tenor ringer each time to decide whether they were drumming behind or hunting too. I've played a bit more with this, and am ready to move on to something a bit more testing than plain hunt.

Although my workshop was originally designed for women who felt that they'd like to try this bigger bell stuff in a bit of a protected environment, I have discovered that it's not only the women folk who feel that they could use some nurture and rope time, and so I'd like to share my workshop with anyone who is interested to try this technique to see if it could be more widely used as a teaching tool.

The workshop at Birmingham Cathedral will focus on every participant ringing every bell in the tower both to rounds and plain hunt, and each person will have the opportunity to turn in the tenor if they wish to try, working round one bell at a time. In order to maximise the benefit of this workshop, you should be able to ring plain hunt on 12 bells, but more importantly you should have an open mind and be willing to take a chance to achieve something new. Just a word of caution, the workshop is two hours long, and you will be ringing for most of that time, not continuously, but many short touches with minimal rope handover in between each one.

Joining me in running this workshop are two much more experienced bigger bellringers than me, Julia Cater and Eleanor Linford, both of whom have encouraged me hugely to follow this path, and without whom I would not be doing this. Go on, join us, you might just surprise yourself.

Saturday 11 March – late afternoon session

Diversity in ringing... woke or what? – Chris Sharp

Working with young ringers – Colin Newman

I am Colin Newman, and I lead the CCCBR Schools and Youth Groups workgroup finding and documenting ways to encourage and inspire potential young recruits. I have been actively involved with the Ancient Society College Youths since the mid 1990s, serving through the stewardships on 2002 and 2003, and then as Master in 2004. I now live in Bristol and involve myself with several of the city bands. Until recently I served as the coach of the ODG Young Ringers team which won the 2019 and 2021 Ringing World National Youth Contests.

The purpose of this workshop is to share experiences and ideas, of and for working with young ringers, which will be collated and used to produce an ‘ideas’ document to aid the wider community. If you're expecting a presentation then this workshop is not for you! So, if you have experiences with or ideas for working with young ringers then please come along and share at the conference and with the wider ringing community..

Running a good practice – Nikki Thomas

Nikki learnt to ring in Norfolk from the age of 9 having been taken along to listen to the “Proper Ringers” ringing the Christmas Eve peal at Long Stratton by her Dad who is also a keen bell ringer. Nikki joined the Guild of St Peter Mancroft in the 1980’s and has been a Guild member ever since. Having moved to Broadland along with husband Neil they established a band at South Walsham. South Walsham is a busy practice with a mix of all ages and all abilities. In November 2018 Nikki was appointed the Manager of the Mancroft Ringing Discovery Centre, a part time paid role that appears to occupy every spare minute of her time. The Centre runs a range of weekly ringing classes including two young ringers groups, Foundation Skills, Bell Handling right up to Pickled Egg.

Running a good practice requires planning, quick thinking, adapting the plan and a good review of how things went. Above all it should be fun and have something for everyone. Looking at different approaches to learn. How do we stop Plain Bob Doubles becoming boring?

The use of ringing games to help learning and improve our method ringing and our bell control. The aim of this workshop is to give you some fresh ideas, share best practice and take a different look at the weekly practice night. Toolboxes, blogs, The Ringing World, The Ringers Diary are all great places to look for ideas. Suitable for everyone who runs or would like to run a practice at whatever level you are on your ringing journey.

Calling practice night touches – Nick Brett

I live with a family of five in a house in Rugby, and we all enjoy ringing and teaching at local towers. I joined ART 11 years ago and have the pleasure of mentoring, assessing and tutoring new teachers. Conducting methods didn't come naturally to me, but I’ve discovered that practice night bands are very grateful if someone is able to put the calls in the right place.

In this workshop we’ll learn and practise the jargon behind touch notation, how simple touches work, the best way to know exactly when calls are made, how the call timing changes for different methods and why that’s important.

If you can confidently ring Plain Bob and Grandsire Doubles and and would like to become a good caller of practice night touches, then this tower workshop could be a very good place to start.

Assessing Live! – Dee Smith

Dee has been an ART Assessor for several years. She has recently joined the ART Management Committee with responsibility for Standards and Assessors. With a teaching background, Dee enjoys the team-teaching approach at Stretham REC and visiting different practices to support teachers and mentors in her ART Assessor capacity.

This workshop will be run as a live, interactive assessment (teacher, student ringer and assessor in action!) Attendees will have the chance to ask questions and give their opinions throughout the workshop as to how the assessment is progressing. This workshop is for any teachers who have not yet been assessed, as well as new or experienced ART Assessors who would like to ask for advice with situations that may occur during an assessment. Wiil the teacher pass the assessment?

It is expected that attendees will have attended an ART M1 day course and have a good knowledge of the assessment requirements.

Sunday 12 March – morning session

Giving effective feedback – Paul Lewis

Having been actively involved with ART since its early days, Paul is currently one of its Tutors and a member of its Management Committee taking responsibility for Standards and Assessors. Most of Paul’s week-by-week ringing is based in his home county of Shropshire where he works as a higher education senior lecturer and industry trainer.

This presentation will consider the important subject of feedback in ringing teaching – how we give it, receive it, act on it and move forwards and upwards with it. There will be a look at good, poor and indifferent feedback together with feedback not associated with words. ART assessment will be discussed where feedback is a key criterion being considered when aiming to achieve ringing accreditation.

The LtR Call Change scheme – Clare McArdle

Clare learned to ring in the 1970s at Harborne in Birmingham. Although she rings methods, she has enjoyed ringing and calling call changes throughout her ringing career. Clare is one of the founders of the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing. The School was established in 2013 to professionalise ringing training and provide an environment where students can guarantee that they are taught well, at their own pace, and get to a position where they are a valued member of a local band of ringers.

Taking a critical look at the original Learning the Ropes scheme Clare could see that a parallel scheme focussing on call changes could address this and so, the Advanced Call Changes scheme was born. The scheme draws on the Devon Call Changes tradition for much of its higher levels, but there is a big emphasis on developing versatility and conducting skills at all levels.

If you're interested in using advanced call changes in your tower, or introduce it in a tower near to you, then this presentation will be just right for you.

Building resilience and breaking habits – Jen Saunders

Jen Saunders has spent 16 years in management consulting specialising in workforce and HR transformation. She is expert in building skills that build resilience both for the company and for the individual. As the long suffering daughter and granddaughter of bell ringers she’ll be delighted to share some of these learnings and tips and tricks with the ART community.

Jen’s session will dive into the importance of learning new skills in building resilience for an individual in any profession or retiree. It will explore how this can benefit new ringers. But it will also look at the important role of changing habits – not just for the new ringers but for everyone in the bell tower. We will explore together the different habits you see and what impact those habits have on new learners. Finally we will consider ways to break them

Helping ringers progress from doubles to minor – David Smith

David Smith lives in Brisbane, Australia, is a former president of ANZAB, an ART tutor, and writes The Education Column published in The Ringing World. He recently retired after two terms on the executive of Central Council, but remains a frequent visitor to UK.

This practical session will explore ways of dealing with the common problem of a ringer or a band reasonably competent at one or more doubles methods, but struggling to move on to minor. The most obvious reason for this is difficulty in coping without a cover bell to define the end of each row and to lead off, often coupled with an over-reliance on ropesight.

The session aims to be more sharing than instruction. Come along ready to talk about the problems you have experienced, and to suggest solutions. We will try out and discuss various exercises. David will have a number of suggestions, but hopes that attendees will have plenty to suggest too.

Let's teach good striking – Ruth Suggett

I am Tower captain at Bardwell in Suffolk. The bells there were derelict until 2010, so since then I have been trying to build a band. I am also Editor of Tower Talk, ART's online newsletter for new ringers using the Learning the Ropes scheme.

The workshop is a tower based canter through some useful exercises and tips for putting good striking at the heart of your practices! Bring your own ideas and share some tried and tested techniques.

Sunday 12 March – early afternoon session

Teaching theory from day one – Andrew Brown

I was taught bellhandling and basic ringing theory in the mid 1970s by my Father, who had initially learnt ring theory during WWII. He’d been taught using pencil and paper and thumbs, on troop ships and land bases, long before he touched a bellrope. I have recently taught LtR Level 3 and Level 5 at the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing and am currently a regular helper.

Which comes first the chicken (bell handling) or the egg (ringing theory)? At what stage should things like grids, place notation, place bells, coursing orders and the importance of the treble be taught? Is original a viable early learning tool? How much can be learnt whilst not actually ringing and what resources are available? How do you translate the theory of a bell moving through hunting, places, and dodging into actually doing it accurately? Are blue lines or circles of work the only way to teach simple methods and to develop a method repertoire?

I will touch on all these ideas during my presentation. I hope to see you there.

Working with young ringers – Colin Newman

The purpose of this Workshop is to share experiences and ideas, of and for working with young ringers, which will be collated and used to produce an ‘ideas’ document to aid the wider community. If you're expecting a presentation then this workshop is not for you! So, if you have experiences with or ideas for working with young ringers then please come along and share at the conference and with the wider ringing community.

Building resilience and breaking habits – Jen Saunders

Making the most of mentoring – Paul Lewis

This tower-based workshop will be focusing on the value and importance of active mentoring as a critical part of bellringing teaching. It will consider the skills, attributes, awareness and flexibility needed in successful mentoring of both ringers and ringing teachers as they develop and gain experience. There will be practical elements centred on communication together with plenty of discussion, so please come prepared with your questions, scenarios, examples and any frustrations and successes to share!

Technique vs strength... there's only one winner – Lesley Boyle

Lesley has been ringing since she was a teenager and had the privilege of participating in some of the early ladies' peals. She says she has always made efforts to not be type-cast, enjoying being part of good front bell music, and also experiencing the rhythm of back bells working round each other.

Although Lesley has rung all sorts over the years ranging from Doubles to Surprise Maximus, she says that one of the most fulfilling things she has done is to teach people. She has been an ART tutor for a few years now and has had the pleasure of introducing many people to teaching using the structured ART approach.

Lesley’s workshop at Birmingham Cathedral is aimed at teachers and ringing masters, helping them teach with a view to turning out flexible ringers who can ring well round the back or the front, as the skills are complementary. We want them to ring a back bell with the precision of a front bell ringer, and ring a front bell with the planning and rhythm of a back bell ringer! In other words, it's about getting your weedy people to ring round the back, and your big blokes to ring round the front.

We will use tools to observe and analyse a ringer’s handling style, using each other as guinea pigs, with an emphasis on efficiently ringing heavy bells through good technique rather than strength. We will discuss the special skills needed to become a good front bell ringer. The aim is to leave the workshop with a plan to make the ringing lives of at least some of our band members more fulfilling and fun, by challenging ourselves to think outside our normal band-placing, armed with the tools and approaches to coach our ringers as they progress. After all "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but often times better than a master of one"!

Sunday 12 March – late afternoon session

The Essex way – Andrew Kelso

Andrew was taught to ring by Chris Frye at Dunblane Cathedral in 1986. He went to “finishing school” in Edinburgh, initially with the UEGCR, and later as Ringing Master at St Cuthbert’s. Work took him to Newcastle and then London, which provided new ringing opportunities and friends. He moved to Essex in 2013 where he is tower captain at St Peter’s Goldhanger and he became Master of the Essex Association in 2018. Ringing interests include teaching, peals and handbells.

Andrew, hopefully supported by some of his Essex friends, will be talking about the Essex Association, its development under his leadership, its association with ART and the many volunteers who've made this happen. Andrew has a positive story to tell, but I'm sure it's not all been plain sailing!

Building a strong future for ringing – Simon Linford

Simon Linford wears many hats – past Master of the St Martin’s Guild, Tutor at the Birmingham School of Bell Ringing, tower captain at Moseley, leader of the Brumdingers youth team, keen supporter of ART, and most recently (and currently) President of the Central Council. It is with the last hat on that this presentation will be given, but it will draw heavily on the experience gained from those other hats.

At the Central Council AGM last September Simon announced a major initiative called “Ringing 2030”, which recognises that the ticking demographic timebomb of ringing is ticking louder and louder, and if we want ringing to be a thriving activity in 2030 there are some things we probably need to change. Six months on, thought about Ringing 2030 will have developed somewhat, and Simon will take this opportunity to talk about the project, look at some initiatives already started, as well as gain feedback and experiences from the audience.

Ringing something simple. Well! – Gregory Russell

In this session, we will have bits of discussion about the diplomacy involved in motivating your band to work toward better striking, interwoven with tower exercises that explore how to achieve better striking when your band is ready to work on it. We will not be delving much into how to improve an individual's striking, focusing instead on the teamwork, motivation, and leadership aspects. Expect this to be a rather interactive session, with everyone participating in ringing, listening, critiquing and brainstorming.

Greg learned bell handling (badly) as a 4th former at The Groton School in Massachusetts, then taught handling (badly) as a 5th and 6th former, not learning to ring Plain Bob (badly) until decades later. While working on Cambridge Minor, he discovered what good striking actually meant at a NAGCR AGM, when a mentor from another tower arranged a band for a clean touch of Cambridge Minor for their protege. He has been a bit obsessed with good striking ever since.

In 2006, he was invited to join the nascent band for the new 12 bell ring at Trinity Wall Street (as steeple keeper), and hence offered much greater opportunity to progress as peal bands visited and the Trinity band grew and developed.

Call Change Masterclass – Clare McArdle

The inspiration for the Learning the Ropes Advanced Call Changes scheme came from a survey of LtR ringers and teachers, which showed that a major barrier to progress was the lack of reliable helpers and conductors to support the progression of new ringers from call changes into method ringing, especially where new bands were being taught. Taking a critical look at the original Learning the Ropes scheme Clare could see that a parallel scheme focussing on call changes could address this and so, the Advanced Call Changes scheme was born. The scheme draws on the Devon Call Changes tradition for much of its higher levels, but there is a big emphasis on developing versatility and conducting skills at all levels. This in-tower session will allow you to practise some of the more unusual activities in the scheme before you take them back to ring with your band.