MC Ringing World article tomorrow

[Tim Barnes]

All,

Tomorrow's Ringing World will include an article by the Methods Committee that sets out proposed changes to the Decisions, and seeks feedback from the ringing community on these proposed changes.

As members of this group are aware, the MC is late in launching this consultation, so there is now limited time available to prepare and vet updated Decisions language for proposal at the 2017 CC meeting.  The MC has therefore divided the proposed changes into a small set that (subject to feedback) will be proposed at the 2017 meeting, and a larger set that will be considered at the 2018 meeting.

The consultation article is also now available on the MC's webpage (https://cccbr.org.uk/services/methods/).  The items slated for proposal at the 2017 meeting are as follows:

- Widen the definition of a Method by allowing them to be false in the plain course.

- Relax the requirement for bells to be heard outside the tower.

- Allow peals on simulators (but still requiring human ringers).

- Allow peals of Triples or lower stages to include not more than one touch in which each row appears at most one more time than any other row.  This is to correct the anomaly that today you can ring a 5100 of Doubles made up of (42 * 120) + 60, but you can't ring (41 * 120) + 180.

- Relax the requirement that “Any shift or error in ringing shall be corrected immediately.” It would be more realistic to use a phrase like “as quickly as possible”.

- Relax the requirement that says “No error in calling shall be corrected later than during the change at which the call or change of method ... would properly take effect.” Again, it would be more realistic to say “as quickly as possible”.

I'd like to encourage everyone in this group to submit feedback to the MC on the proposed changes.  While I imagine most people in this group will support the above changes (because they are all consistent with the document we produced), I suspect some of the changes will be opposed in other ringing circles.  For example, the distinction between a false method and a true composition may not be clear to everyone, and simulator ringing may be opposed by traditionalists.  I'm therefore hoping that feedback in support of these changes won't be outweighed by opposition.

Due dates for feedback are Friday Apr 7th for the 2017 changes, and Friday May 12th for the 2018 changes (the MC would like to have feedback on 2018 changes ahead of the 2017 meeting so that the CC can be given an update this May on the likely course of changes in 2018).

Feedback should be emailed to met...@cccbr.org.uk.

Regards

Tim