In "The Dream" I explained our starting point. So the plan is to gradually progress through a
list of targets. Firstly I want to get the whole 'A' list ringing touches of Plain Bob Doubles, affected.
Secondly (although probably in parellel) I want to get them ringing plain courses of Plain Bob Minor. Then we shall move
on to touches of Plain Bob Minor, with everyone able to make Bobs and Singles.
After that, I want to start ringing Bobbed Courses of Little Bob Minor. That will teach them to do "Treble Bob" work in
5-6, while just plain hunting the rest of the time. Then comes Bastow Little Bob Minor. For anyone who doesn't know it,
it's an apparently trivial minor method. The treble hunts to 2nd place and back (i.e
2nd, 2nd, lead, lead,
2nd, 2nd, lead, lead,
...) while everyone
else dodges in 3-4 up and down, and 5-6 up and down. This is an important stepping stone to the next target, which is
Kent Minor.
The treble work in Bastow is effectively the slow work in Kent, and the working bells in Bastow are the rest of Kent,
except for the "Make places in 3-4 if the treble is below you." part. Learning Kent will introduce treble bob methods
and therefore get the ringers used to the extra length of a plain course
(i.e. 120 changes and about 4 minutes ringing).
Now from Kent to Cambrdge is not so much a step as a giant leap so I will have to give a bit of though to setting some
other interim targets but once we start learning Cambridge in earnest I have another plan. It's not my idea, I got it
from somwhere else, but I can't for the life of me remember where I first came across it. Anyway, it goes like this.
You have your band of five inside ringers, and they are each allocated a particular bell. If person "A" is ringing bell
number 2 then you get them to learn the work of 5th place bell (which becomes
2nd place bell). Person "B" on 3rd learns the
work of 6th place bell (which becomes 3rd place
bell), etc. Then you call change the bells into 164523 (which is the penultimate lead head), shout
"Go Cambridge", and ring one lead ending in rounds. When everyone has got that OK you move backwards to the lead head
135264. Then get person "A" ringing bell number 2 to learn the work of 4th
place bell, etc, etc. Now you can ring 2 leads, with the advantage that the newly learned work comes first, so if you
can get through the first lead the second one should be a doddle because you've all already learned it. When I first
heard this idea I just thought "Wow, how sensible." so that's my plan.
First though, we've got to get to the learning Cambridge stage.