Fwd: Today's explanatory document

[Don Morrison]

Peter Niblett wrote to Graham John yesterday:

> I have had some similar ones from Don, which I will answer tomorrow,

As he promised, Peter did indeed reply to me. His reply appears below. I will also forward my re-reply to him.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Peter Niblett <peter....@btinternet.com>

Date: Fri, May 27, 2016 at 8:28 PM

Subject: Re: Today's explanatory document

To: Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org>, CCCBR Methods Committee <met...@cccbr.org.uk>, David Richards <cccbr-...@norfolk-st.co.uk>, Leigh Simpson <le...@simpleigh.com>, Fred Bone <fred...@dial.pipex.com>, Robin Woolley <ro...@robinw.org.uk>

Cc: Graham John <gra...@changeringing.co.uk>

Don

Thank you for your comments. As Graham has forwarded the reply I sent to him, I won't repeat everything I put in that, but I will say a few additional things.

Your main concerns about the proposed changes in Motion (G) seem to be that they could go further than they do. That's a valid view, and that's why we have Motion (H). What we are trying to do in (G) is get some things underway that (we hope) aren't too controversial and so have a good chance of getting agreed, and then we can get more done next year, once the principles of what we are trying to do have been accepted

For example adding MEBs into change 1 would, I think, be more easily done as part of a more radical restructure of this area.  Also, as you have noted in a later email, it might be sensible to rewrite (J)A.2 to accommodate the various combinations of add/alter/omit a bit better. 

On change 2, I agree with your point that we should not be trying to legislate against people doing silly things. They have always been able to, and by and large they don't.  I'm more concerned here about terminology and the integrity of our definitions. I agree with Graham that we should aim to be more precise about our definitions, and I'm worried that it's going to make it difficult to define what we mean by  Stage and  Cover Bells if we have methods which purport to be at a particular stage, but don't actually involve all the bells at that stage. Maybe I am worrying unnecessarily, but it's easier to remove restrictions rather than to add them later.

Change 3 (1250 vs 1260). We don't currently have any definitions for Quarter Peals (I recall you saying that we've managed perfectly well without them), so we have some people who think that a quarter of Triples should be at least 1260, and others who think that 1250 is enough. They get on happily side by side. What we want to do here is to make an objective statement about what you need to do to name a method, without having to get into the business of defining a Quarter Peal.  I realise you could point out that by my logic 1250 is ok, since I just said it's decoupled from the (non-existent) definition of a Quarter Peal, but the rationale for choosing 1260 is that it should be acceptable to people who hold both views (it's only 10 additional changes after all).

Change 5.  The umpire wording came from Tim Barnes' document, so we assumed it would be acceptable to R-T readers. Video recording is a wider question, and you could argue that it should apply to Record Lengths as well. Also what about live streaming for towers where the bells can't be heard outside the tower?

You have a valid point about publicising this work better. We set a timeline in (H) which should give plenty of time for review and comment, but you would like to see what's happening (or not happening) before then. This is perfectly reasonable. I would suggest using the CC website for this.  One other thing we need to consider is how to get a wider review of the proposals.  I am sure that you and Graham won't be shy in saying what you think, but I'm still worried about how we get more viewpoints represented.

Anyway I hope you agree that we are trying to move things along in the direction that you would like, and we aren't trying to be deliberately difficult or obtuse.  

Peter

-- 

Don Morrison <d...@ringing.org>

"You're only given a little spark of madness and if you lose

that, you're nothing."   -- Robin Williams, _A Night at the Roxy_