Today, we were invited to join the National On-Line Virtual Call Change Striking Contest! And by no less a person than the President of the Central Council…
If we compete (and that’s to be decided), we’ll be up against other youth bands – but also some of the top ringers in the country, includingsome of the specialists in call change ringing – from the towers of Devon and North Cornwall. I can promise that even if we do enter, we won’t win, but we may give some bands a run for their money!
A great evening last night on Zoom!
It was the ART Awards Night.
The Association of Ringing Teachers awards don’t come with golden statues, but they are highly regarded in ringing circles and they do come with a certificate and a cheque!
This year, of course, it took place on Zoom (so attendance was good!) There were some remarkable nominations in a wide variety of categories – amazing people doing amazing things. The Kildwick MiniRingers were nominated in the Youth category. I’m just pleased that we didn’t have to compete with some of the others!
The Sarah Beacham Youth Award is in memory of a lass who I rang with on several occasions who died in a motor accident some years ago. We were up against a number of other groups – the most impressive of which is a school in Guernsey which has, to a significant degree, incorporated bell ringing into their curriculum. They shared the prize with us.
This was a truly international affair. As prize winners, we shared the platform with the couple from the West Coast of the USA who invented the remarkable Ringing Room software that we are all using during this lockdown. There was another lady from Australia who has developed a community that uses Ringing Room to ring with others, regardless of where they are. The St Martin’s Guild from Birmingham won the award for inspiring leadership and the Learning the Ropes Achievement Award was won by a 9 year-old, Donny Brock from Roos in East Yorkshire. There were several others!
The cash prizes aren’t enormous (our £400 was the second highest of the night). I think I value the certificate just as highly! We will have to decide on a fitting use for this prize that will benefit present and future MiniRingers.
An overview of the winners can be viewed on the Ringing Teachers’ website
Our Thursday Ringing Room band is making great progress!
Our performances are clearly not up to the standards of all those Clever Ringers out there, but when you combine the average age of the participants (just over 12) – and the fact that half of them have never rung a change in their lives – and that two of them have barely set foot in a ringing chamber of any sort, then it is pretty amazing stuff!
We all know that it is far easier to introduce someone to an activity like bell ringing when there is a competent band around them. These six young people are doing this almost on their own by Distance Learning and, tired as they must be of staring at a screen all day for school work, they still spend an hour a week, tackling the complexities of Bobs and Singles.
They are making great progress though and, to celebrate our menbership of the Western Branch which is holding a Quarter Peal Month, we decided to see what we could achieve.
The headline tally of 240 changes sells the band a bit short – we tried ringing as many touches as possible but, of course, only counted the ones fully completed. We didn’t count the 120 that fell apart in the very last lead! We didn’t count the 60 that died at the second bob with two leads to go.
All in all, we probably rang around half of a quarter peal though, of course, it’s recorded as “240 changes”. But very well done, all of you!
Following the announcement of a further period of national lockdown, with heavy hearts, we have decided that it is right to suspend public worship in our church buildings for now.
The regulations don’t actually ban public worship but, considering the increased threat caused by the new variants – and the largely elderly profile of the congregation, this seemed to be the correct and responsible decision to take.
For the safety of our clock winders, I am afraid that we have also made the sad choice to stop the church clock. Ringing, is of course also suspended.
Our faithful band of Ringing Room Ringers is carrying on regardless!
Although the decision is pretty academic for the Kildwick MiniRingers, there will be no Skipton Music Festival this year – and so no chance to defend the two trophies that they won last year.
Even if the Festival had gone ahead, it would almost certainly have been for solo performances only. And, anyway, we can’t meet to rehearse!
Last year’s Festival got through by the skin of its teeth, Lockdown 1 being announced as it drew to a close. Let us hope and pray that the centenary celebrations of 2022 will be able to go ahead.
It was a real joy, yesterday, to take advantage of the Christmas relaxation of the rules – and to sound out joyfully for Christmas.
Bells across the country sounded out together and we rang at 6.00pm, albeit just with five bells. That is the maximum we can ring whilst maintaining social distancing regulations.
Theresa, one of our ringers who wasn’t ringing yesterday, took some video footage.
See it here!
The tentative first steps into Ringing Room have begun to develop into something a good deal more solid – and the average age of the ringers has taken a decided plummet!
With a good deal of help from Jane and Jenny, the practice has become focused on our younger ringers – and has shown the special joy of “remote ringing” because we’ve been joined by three people from Deepest Wales! They comprise Sara, an accomplished ringer who has no easy access to any ringing locally – and two of her children – who have only ever had a passing glimpse of a bell tower.
So we seem to be meeting regularly with eight or nine each week – and we’r dividing our time between Plain Bob, one or two “different” minimus methods (fewer bells make for easier ringing!) – and some tune ringing as well.
Just five of us gathered and by the end of the session we had managed three leads of Bob Doubles. Of course, this was a “virtual meeting” which, once we had ironed out the conference software, worked well.
It’s really hard to ring without all of the external prompts and clues that we’re so used to – but that difficulty is, I suspect, a great deal of the value of this. As we get more used to counting places, we’ll get better and better at this!
Everyone reckoned to come back next week – so it can’t have been all pain…
Following four months of sad silence, we will soon be making a joyful noise to summon folk to church. True, it’ll just be four bells – but it’s a start!
A few of us have been feeding our habit, using some software called Ringing R oom. It is a lot of fun – but it fair makes the brain ache! And it’s not, really, what we come to the tower for.
The advice is now that we can ring for services only – and under some quite specific restrictions. We’ll be following these!
There is a .pdf with some specific advice that may inform ringers about what we’re trying to achieve and to help you to decide whether or not to take part. Download it here.
There are several things that we can do to keep the Bell Ringing Brain Cell in action. One of these is to play with some worksheets. These will appear irregulary from time to time.
Find them here: Some Resources (or on the menu above).
The latest one is out today. It introduces Place Notation, a cunning way to condense a complicated method into a single line!
Do let me know if you find them useful, interesting, boring, incomplete – or whatever.
