Raising awareness – engaging with the church and community

Bell ringers as part of the community

If your team enjoy social activities together outside of ringing, a bell ringers’ quiz team, or local events where people can meet and socialise with the ringers is a great way of becoming an established, familiar presence – they’ll know who you are and that you are easy to approach.

Perhaps the bell team would like to support events run and organised by other community groups – joining in with things which are important to others will generate goodwill and mean they are likely to support your events in return. For example, if the bell team turn up en-masse to the WI Barn Dance, some of their members might well be happy to serve cream teas at your open tower event.

How about donating some sponsored ringing as a raffle prize for a local charity, or open the tower on New Years’ Eve so that members of the public can come in and watch you ringing in the New Year? Publicise this beforehand and you may be surprised at the amount of support and good will from people who might not normally consider visiting the Church.

If you’re ringing for important local events (e.g. local fete, flower show, steam rally or even the Golden Wedding anniversary of a well loved local couple) alert people as to why you are ringing. Use posters, newsletters and social media to do this. Let the residents know that bells are rung in celebration for the whole community and for local people as well as for Church or national occasions.

Support the Church

Although many ringers are churchgoers, there are plenty who ring at practices and on Sundays but do not stay to services. This doesn’t stop the bell team from supporting the Church in other ways though – attending events, helping with mowing the churchyard, stewarding at the flower festival or joining in with a benefice lunch will all be appreciated (in addition to your ongoing ringing commitments of course).

Invite your PCC and Clergy up to the tower to meet everyone and watch the ringing; some of them may have never even seen the bells.

Raise awareness online

There are many ways to achieve this; and social media plays an important part:

• Have your own ringers web pages updated with reports of activities and photos – link it to church and other web pages in the area
• A ringers’ Facebook page with details of activities, photos and comments
• Be active on other Facebook pages for the area or other local organisations such as your church, scout and guide groups, WI, village, MU and schools
• Use Twitter and develop a following
• Have some images of your band ringing on YouTube
• There are other activity/events based web sites, Facebook pages & Twitter accounts for people to see “what’s on” in an area. Have a presence!

Find out more about websites and social media - the why, the what and the how.

Give a talk

Many local interest groups such as the WI, Rotary Club, Young Farmers, History Society, U3A or Townswomens' Guild have a regular series of talks at their meetings and are always delighted to hear from someone new.

How about offering to go along and talk about bell ringing? You could dig out bits of ringing paraphernalia to take along with you. What seem like worn out old bell muffles or ropes to us might be a source of fascination to someone who has never seen them before. Don’t forget to invite them along to the tower at any time if they’d like to come and see the bells up close or have a go. Even if many of those attending don’t take up ringing, they’ll be better informed about what’s involved and it’s all good publicity.

We've gathered together some tips and ideas about giving talks including presentations you can modify.

Partner with charities and companies

Here are two really good partnerships that were sent to us recently.

The local band which has partnered with the local Mountain Rescue team, who helped organise a teddy bear zip-wire down the church with all the proceeds going to the local tower fund. Both groups got publicity and could cross-appeal to each other's supporter bases.

Commercial companies are another way of raising awareness. The same band approached the local microbrewery who have agreed to do a "special brew" for them. The band is now thinking of running a competition to name the beer, design the pump clips etc.

Celebrate success

Don’t be shy about letting the community know when you’ve achieved something to feel proud of. If one of your team has just become an accredited ringing teacher or passed their Learning the Ropes Level 5, or conducted their first quarter peal, announce this on social media, but also consider writing a few paragraphs for your local newsletter or paper. You could write a simple article (intended for non ringers) about ringing and why this achievement is significant. End with a sentence or two about how to contact you if people would like to learn more. Local radio coverage is also ideal for ringing as they will probably be delighted to record your bells and interview you. If this happens, be prepared for the kind of questions the presenter might ask, such as ‘if the lightest bell is called the Treble, why isn’t the heaviest called the Bass?’

The media page of the Central Council website gives some excellent advice.