This might seem a bit daunting and you will need to discuss it with your Tower Captain, but, with their permission, it can be a good way of finding out the challenges which they face on a weekly basis. It is also your opportunity to put your stamp on the practice and maybe try something different (without being too revolutionary of course). Remember, you don’t need to be the best ringer up the tower to run a good practice, you just need to know how to make the best use of who is there.

You could start with asking to run just part of the practice, but you must be there at the start so that you know what has been rung already. Being in charge will give you a different perspective of the ringing as well as giving you valuable experience, but it will also have benefits for the rest of the band. It will mean that the Tower Captain will have someone else to run the ringing when they are away, plus having a different person in charge can make a refreshing change. Perhaps you want to try out something (within the capabilities of the band) which you learnt on a course or have seen rung in another tower?

You will probably find that you ring much less than you might normally do. This gives you “thinking time” to assess how the current ringing is going (is there something that you might have done differently to improve it?) and time to plan what you might do next, possibly by looking at who is sitting out.

You need to be flexible because you never know who might come through the door, although you will probably have a good idea of which ringers attend regularly and what their abilities and requirements will be. Try to ensure that everybody gets at least one ring at something “for them” and don’t be afraid to use the more experienced ringers to call things. Choosing a good band in support of a learner is also important, as is having the right ’minders’ standing behind as and when appropriate.

If you’ve enjoyed running part of a regular practice and it went well, why not set something up yourself and tick off another challenge by organising a special practice?

If you are ready, one of the ART Module 2 Training Schemes may help you develop the skills needed to run practices and give you some ideas of things to try.

Completed one of your 50 things?

If you’ve completed one of the 50 Ringing Things, tell us all about it via Facebook or write a blog!