Us and Them (4)

In the last Newsletter, I discussed the pros and cons of recruiting from different groups. In this one, I extend that to think about the type of people that make good recruits, beginning with age.

Most discussions on the age of recruits grossly simplify things – usually along the lines ‘young good – old bad’, with a dividing line around 20. That is far too simple, and a sensible discussion needs at least four age bands. The boundaries are fuzzy, but for the purposes of this article I will consider: kids (under about 12), youngsters (in their teens), midsters (in their 20s, 30s & 40s) and oldsters (the rest).

Even that grouping is over simplified. The ability to learn physical skills does generally reduce with age, but individuals can vary a lot. For example one of the actors whom we taught to handle a bell for Midsomer Murders (with only a few hours tuition) was over 60, and I had a friend who took up wind surfing when he retired.

Kids – Some eminent ringers started very young. In our own Branch, Jonathan Carpenter learnt to ring when he was 6, and rang his first peal aged 7. The youngest person I taught was Charlie Herriott, then aged 9, who now rings things more advanced than I ever will. Often very young learners come from ringing families, and so don’t need ‘recruiting’. Children of this age lack the strength needed to ring other than light bells, and they may not have the stamina for long lessons. Their attitudes are not mature, they can have a short attention span, and it isn’t always easy for an adult to establish rapport with them. As a result, they might learn less rapidly than you expect, with a higher fall-out rate. With young children, you should probably consider each case on its merits, rather than target them as a group.

Youngsters – For decades, teenagers were the main source of recruits. That’s when most of my generation learnt. Teenagers have many things in their favour. They are used to learning (it is their ‘day job’) and in terms of strength and energy they are becoming more like adults than children. They have their lives before them, so if they stick at ringing in the long term, your training will have a big payback to ringing at large. On the downside, modern teenagers have a lot of pressures on their time, with homework and other sporting or recreational activities. At some point, they are likely to find they are doing too much, and need to drop something. Ringing is something they can drop without wasting any parental fees for lessons and equipment, so unless you have got them motivated to the point that they value ringing over other things, it may be what they drop when the pressure becomes too great. If you do motivate them, and give them opportunities, then they are likely to do well. Of course, someone else may reap the benefit if they leave home when they start work, as many of them will.

Midsters – These can be ideal recruits. They still have good learning powers (two of my fastest learners were in their late 30s) and they have an adult outlook on life, so they can apply themselves. They have the potential not just to be good ringers, but to be good leaders too. They are at the stage in life where the world is opening before them, and they are building their abilities. These strengths can also be a weakness, since these seemingly ideal recruits are also ideal for many other things, including building a career or starting a family. They should have learnt to balance competing pressures, but even so you may find them hard to recruit. If you do, and they get hooked, they should reward the effort.

Oldsters – Our population is living longer and retiring earlier, so that there are lots of people aged 50+ looking for ways to spend their time. Many of them want to remain active, and are looking for new challenges. Their growing numbers make them an easier recruiting target. They are more likely to make an effort to support a local tradition than youngsters are, and because of their prior life skills, they are often be useful members of a band in terms of organisation and getting things done, even while they are still learning ringing skills. The key question is whether or not they can develop into effective ringers. Some undoubtedly do, but many never become fully competent performers, despite investing considerable effort in trying to learn. As a generality, the ability to learn new physical skills does decline with age. Individuals can vary, especially if they have continued to learn new skills throughout their lives. But for most oldsters, the last physical skill they learned was driving a car in their teens – over half a lifetime ago – so learning to ring can be a real struggle. So in general, oldsters will take longer to learn, and fewer of them will master ringing than their younger peers.

Quite apart from the age of individual recruits, it is worth considering the age mix of your band. Ringing is an all-age activity, and there is much to be said for a diverse mix of ages. You might want to increase the diversity of ages in your band, or you might want to preserve the current balance, whether it be mostly young, or mostly some other age group. Of course, there may be offers that you can’t refuse, like a supermarket’s BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) where the parents of young ringers want to take up ringing, or vice versa.

In the next article I will discuss the motivation of potential recruits – what motivates them to take up ringing – and how that might that influence the eventual outcome of your recruiting.

Article originally printed in the Spring 2011 Sonning Deanery Branch Newsletter, 

  John Harrison, March 2011