Applications open for the 2021 ART Awards

It is never too early to be thinking about who or what you would like to see recognised through the annual ART Awards. There are so many amazing people in our ringing community who support us, innovate for us and inspire us! Now is the time to make sure potential award nominees are on your radar and that you are in a position to gather the information and evidence to do justice to the nomination of those you most value and admire.

To help support your chosen nominations, we have asked two former judges to write an article on how to prepare a strong application and hopefully this will appear in the Ringing World and on the ART website later in the Autumn. We keep the award categories under regular review and have made a few tweaks to reflect current circumstances.

The Sarah Beacham Youth Awards

This year there will be one category covering all aspects of youth ringing (including schools) and the judges will allocate the total prize money (£800) to nominees as they see fit.

Inspiring Leadership in Ringing (sponsored by Talent Innovations)

Inspiring leadership breeds success, moves us forward and helps a wide range of endeavours to flourish at individual, tower, regional or national level. We are keen to stress that this Award is not only open to individuals, but also to towers and ringing societies, including Guilds / Associations.

The judges are keen to consider nominations not only for those who provide inspiring leadership to others, but also to those who inspire others to lead!

Excellence in the Development of Technology (sponsored by John Taylor & Co)

This is the year in which we have seen a huge range of the most imaginative, innovative and useful technical developments, including on-line platforms, tools and even robots!

Many of these were referred to in the latest editions of ART WORKS and Tower Talk and there have been even more since. If you have used these platforms to help retain your ringers or even to recruit new ringers and you have evidence and examples of success and good practice, then you should consider the Recruitment or Retention category below, rather than this technology category which is intended for those responsible for the creation and enhancement of the underlying technical developments.

Excellence in Recruitment or Retention (sponsored by Abel Sim)

Given the restrictions on UK ringing that we have had (and are currently experiencing), we are expecting the majority of this year’s UK nominations to focus on retention, with innovative approaches. Again, we are keen to stress that this award is not only open to individuals, but also to towers and ringing societies, including Guilds / Associations.

Individual Learning The Ropes awards (sponsored by The Ancient Society of College Youths)

The individual awards, for those who are enrolled on or have completed one of the ART Learning the Ropes Programmes, are divided into two separate categories (and will use separate application forms this year):

• Ringing achievement
• The ringer’s contribution

This year, the ringing achievement award will be open to both the handful of individuals who attained LtR5 on tower bells before UK Lockdown in March (and hopefully some more from overseas later this year) and all those achieving LtR3 on handbells by 31 December 2020. The judges consider the individual’s ringing development in terms of quality, quantity and complexity, the timescale over which the progress has been made and the support available.

The ringer’s contribution award is not based on ringing ability or attainment but is for contribution to the wider ringing community, for example, within a band, local area, Guild / Association or even the Central Council. For 2020, the contribution category will be open to anyone who is or has been enrolled on the Learning the Ropes programmes (on tower bells or handbells) at any level. The judges are particularly keen to see evidence of organisation or leadership or technical skills or wider initiative and/or innovation.

» Find out more and apply for a 2021 ART Award

Masterclass 2020

We are obviously bitterly disappointed that the Covid-19 situation has meant that we are unable to run the Masterclass for all the 2019 LtR5s in Birmingham or indeed anywhere else this year! The Masterclass has become recognised as one of the highlights of the ringing year. As and when the position changes, replacement arrangements will be made for that cohort – so that they do not miss out. It is still too soon to be able to advise replacement date(s) for 2021 but we will be in touch with the 2019 cohort as soon as practical.

As usual, the deadline for receipt of nominations for this year’s ART Awards will be 31 December 2020. The updated entry forms are now available on the ART website. Please don’t be shy! If you have any queries at any point in the process, please do not hesitate to contact me at stephanie.warboys@bellringing.org

Stephanie Warboys
ART Awards Leader