Potluck Competition 2025

At the 2023 Branch AGM, Pat Halls suggested the branch consider a striking competition where those taking part are randomly drawn into teams, and everyone marks everyone, rather than the more traditional format of people arriving in pre-determined teams with a specific individual already assigned to judge. This followed a similar event from Pat’s previous stamping ground in Derbyshire.

The first Cheltenham Potluck was run at Winchcombe on 17th May 2025, from 2.30pm to 5pm. 17 ringers gathered, including 2 from the wider G&B.

Judging and Marking

• Some brief instructions were given for marking:
  [It would have been better to also have a trial run of marking, where everyone either marks or watches someone marking, with discussion after, to give everyone more confidence with the marking and more consistency.]
• While each team rang, everyone else was downstairs in the church marking the ringing:
  [Winchcombe is well set up for this, there were some tables for people to sit at, and the bells are very audible in the church. This is probably quite important in case it rains on the day.]
• With marks deducted for clashes (either one point for a ‘clash’ or half a point for a more minor ‘trip’) deducted, but half point awarded for very clean rows:
  [It would be better to just go with the whole and half points deducted, the half point awarded for good rows is too much complication.]

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Picking teams and ringing

• 4 team leads were assigned and took turns to pick their teams out of the pot:
  [There were two pots, one for less experienced ringers, one for more experienced. The less experienced pot only ended up with 2 names in, but this might have worked better with a larger set of people.]
  [Ringers were encouraged to put their name in twice, as there were not enough for 4 teams]
• Teams had about 3 minutes practice.
• 2 whole pulls on the treble to signal about to start test piece:
  [Suggested that this task falls to someone who has never done it before.]
• Test piece was call changes to at least Queens. Marking began straight from the pull-off, so the first 120 rows were marked. Teams could carry on ringing up to 5 mins, anything after 120 rows being unmarked:
  [We had a steward in the ringing chamber, and someone would signal to them when the 120 rows had been rung so they could inform the conductor. Winchcombe again is good for this as they have the window looking down into the church. Otherwise, a steward would have to count the rows in the tower.]
• We finished 4 teams in about an hour, Had tea and cake while the results were being counted up, handed out the results with A6 size certificates for all the bands, presented by Pat Halls. There was time afterwards for general ringing:
  [There would have been time for at least 6 teams. Some ringers would have liked to be in more teams so they could practice the competition ringing experience more.]

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Results

• The results were calculated while we had tea and cake.
• The minumum, maximum and median average marks for each team were read out, as well as the mean average. Result was taken from the mean average.
• The minimum and maximum varied wildy for each team, due to different ways of marking, but we think the averages still matched the correct order for the bands.

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Things required:

• A good number of marking sheets
• Lots of pencils
• Stack of little pieces of paper for the names
• Several pots
• Certificates enough for 6 teams
• Other prizes - Chocolates?
• Cake, teas, coffee, milk, sugar...
• Someone to serve teas etc
• Tower stewards

Going Forward

Attendees seemed to enjoy the day, and there was appetite to do it again next year.

Sarah Collacot proffered Prestbury as an alternative venue, but we need to find out if it would work in bad weather. Winchcombe would be happy to hold it with them again.

Many thanks to Cara Davies for organising, Winchcombe for hosting, Mike Rooke and Edward Kain for stewarding, Jackie Rooke and Kate Robinson for helping with the tea and cake, everyone who bought cake and drinks, Andrew Haynes for calculating the results, Pat Halls for the idea and presenting results, and everyone for making it such a nice occasion!

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