Balance
I have always been impressed by the way tower captains exercise their role. There are so many demands. Perhaps there are two primary ones: achieving the best ringing possible and keeping the band members happy. They need to be kept in balance.
Ah! Balance! That’s the tricky bit. A ringing colleague recently shared with me the experience of a band going to a church with a ring of just three bells. The challenge was they had no stays. The bells had to be raised, but, of course, not overturned. And there was no letting go of the rope – a rather instinctive thing to do at the end of any ringing. He also shared with me that there had to be several trips up into the bell chamber to recover the rope!
Each of these three bells had to be to be kept in perfect balance, especially between pieces of ringing. It needs confidence and skill, otherwise there’s the chore of having to go repeatedly into the bell chamber, or worse, the danger of an accident.
Tower captaincy also requires confidence and skill. In one way it’s like the leadership of any group. There are always two dimensions to the role: achieving the purpose of the group, and managing the human relationships. If you focus too much on getting wonderful ringing you risk discouraging the ringers and leaving some behind and not feeling good enough. Focus too much on keeping everyone happy and the ringing can suffer. Any band should ring as well as it can and be a purposeful and cohesive body of people.
That little word ‘should’. But how to achieve the prized goal? Tower captains know the demands, the rewards and the cost of their responsibility. Thank you, all of you, for the balancing act that is yours.
Christian reflection: Love is the key, for God is love. Love is the source of creativity (even ringing!) and love is the ground of true community (even ringers!).
Revd Canon Bill Croft (Retired)