For a while now we have had this silly sort of in-joke here at Wombourne. Every now and then, during a Monday night's
practice, I will look at the assembled crowd and announce "One of these days I'm going to shout 'Go Cambridge', and you
lot will actually ring it."
This generally gets replies along the lines of "Yeah, you wish." or "In your dreams." and so that is what prompted
this set of pages. That's what my dream is. Teach them to ring Cambridge. Touches of Cambridge Major would be nice, but
lets just settle for a plain course of Cambridge Minor to begin with.
So, I need a plan, an acheivable plan, with targets en-route, acheivable targets, and a timescale, a realistic
timescale.
Thinking about this list in reverse order, I have a couple of constraints already. When I look at the band I have to work
with there is definitely an 'A' list of prospective Cambridge ringers. However, one of them has just got her degree
and is now looking for a job and another has just started what used to be called "sixth form" (i.e. studying for his 'A'
levels) and will have a lot of things temporarily more important than ringing on his plate for the next 2 years. The loss
of either, or worse still both, would be a major setback, but if it happens I will just have to deal with it as best I can.
In the meantime, looking at the band's current ability, I would like to get there in two years at most, if I don't lose
anyone. The current standard of method ringing is pretty low. We can ring plain courses of Plain Bob Doubles on most
practice nights and we are just venturing into ringing touches. In addition, on the Monday just gone (11/09/06), we had a
crack at Plain Bob Minor. It went OK for the first couple of leads, then it got a bit wobbly and it all fell apart just
before the third lead end.
As I'm sure anyone who teaches ringing will appreciate, it's a lot easier to place one learner in a stable
confident band than it is to teach a whole band of learners together. If one goes out, then its pretty likely that the
whole lot will fire up. Nevertheless, you've got to work with what you've got.
So, it is my idea that the subsequent pages will set out a plan of campaign and explain how we are getting along with
our progress towards the end target of "Cambridge or Bust!".