We gave it our best shot…

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!

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

Oh, No!

… so it’s back to Lockdown 3

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!

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

No Festival this year

Kildwick Foundry BellsAlthough 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.

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas to you all!

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!

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

Establishing a new Routine

So… it’s Lockdown 2

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.

Posted in MiniRingers | Leave a comment

The first Kildwick practice for some weeks

We met – a few of us – and rang together!

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…

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

We should soon be ringing!

Ringing advice

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.

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

Place Notation

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.

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

Looks like it is “That’s All” for a while…

What a pity – I had hoped to run a once-a-month quarter peal attempt this year.  We scored one in January and another in February, but, even when we get back to our Yorkshire Tail Ends, it’ll be a while before some of our band get back up to speed for their attempts.  Well done, though, to first Angus and then George, each of whom rang good quarters.

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment

A Triumph – eventually

We Won!Frankly, the opening piece of their entry in the Skipton Music Festival 2020 lacked a certain degreee of… well, pretty well everything! In hindsight, they should have stopped and restarted. However, they rang Bobby Shafto better than I’ve ever heard them. Judging these things is always a subjective thing, but we were all delighted when we heard that we had won our class!

We knew that one of the Kildwick teams would win the change ringing class – our Kildwick Foundry Bellsthree teams were the only entries! In the event, the “MidiRingers” were judged to be the best, though another judge could just as validly chosen the “MicroRingers”, or even the whole band “MiniRingers”. I still think that, as a spectacle, changes on twelve bells take a lot of beating.

The Kildwick Foundry trophies were awarded for the very first time this year, so – whatever happens, the MiniRingers’ name will head the list on the oak plinth.

Posted in Uncategorised | Leave a comment