July 2011

Up in the belfry we have had a few notable ‘firsts’ recently. Before practice on 29th June Edward Clark successfully rang this first quarter peal “inside”. Ringing inside means that he rang a bell which was not the treble nor the tenor, thereby having to actually know the method. He did brilliantly!
I also scored my first quarter peal of Stedman Triples on 3rd July which I was really pleased about. Stedman Triples is actually a ‘principle’ rather than a ‘method’; I don’t really know myself what this means except for the fact the treble bell rings the method like all the other bells (apart from the tenor) rather than just hunting up and down through the bell order.

July was a five Sunday month with quarter peals being rung for Evensong on each of them – and a successful month it was too with four of the five quarters being successfully scored and the fifth almost being scored! The fifth quarter peal was unfortunate to say the least. We were ringing – rather well as it happens - Cambridge Surprise Minor (NB a 6 bell method) when unfortunately the conductor “miscalled” it. To his great credit he carried on hoping to get the quarter to come round at the end - which he did successfully. However, when he got home and worked out exactly how many changes we had rung it came to 1247 – just 13 pulls short of the necessary minimum 1260 changes (on 6 bells) needed for a successful quarter peal. So I am still waiting for our 100% successful quarter peal month……….maybe August?!

July 23rd saw the very successful annual Parish Fete. Our role for the fete was different this year. Firstly we were asked to ring “open” (ie with the shutters open) for half an hour before the fete opened. We were delighted to do this and really enjoyed it. We were then asked to open the tower (with the shutters closed for noise control) for only a further 40 minutes for people to come and visit us and to “have-a-go” at ringing. In the past we have manned the tower all day and, as well as helping raise funds for the chosen charities, used it as a recruitment opportunity. I have to say that I felt sad to have to turn away disappointed visitors (and potential future ringers) and that the Bellringers were unable to contribute as much as we would have liked to the monies raised.