Here’s a summary of what’s been going on in the Bicester Branch in August.
Ringing Events
| Saturday, 15 August 2020 | Islip (St Nicholas), Oxfordshire | Tolling |
| Saturday, 15 August 2020 | Kirtlington (St Mary the Virgin), Oxfordshire | 75 Tolling |
| Saturday, 15 August 2020 | Weston on the Green (Blessed Virgin Mary), Oxfordshire | Tolling |
Activities
The improvement works at Weston on the Green are nearly complete; the new ropes are in and the new carpet is down.
In Stratton Audley they are hoping to ring three bells at each of two weddings coming up in September.
Ringing Room
Several groups of local ringers have been making good use of the online platform for virtual change ringing called Ringing Room, which is the ‘go-to’ application used by a huge number of ringing teams in the UK and across the world. It’s very enjoyable, is free to use and can be accessed at https://ringingroom.com/
Jon Mills of the Oxford Guild has written an interesting account of his journey to find and use Ringing Room – click here to read it.
Kirtlington, Bletchingdon and Weston-on-the-Green Ringing Room practices
Shortly after lockdown began, the ringers from Kirtlington, Bletchingdon and Weston towers transferred their practices to the Ringing Room website, creating a shared virtual tower for weekly practices and for virtual quarter peal attempts.
Our virtual practices are been well attended and we have seen great progress in the learning of methods by all regular attendees, many of whom have only started ringing in the past 2 – 3 years, with all having rung inside to plain courses of Grandsire and Plain Bob Doubles, and a number ringing observation to touches of Bob Doubles. The team has also been able to practice variations on Plain Hunt including Treble Bob Hunt.
With the temporary removal of the challenge of handling together with learning the methods, our ringers have achieved a number of successful virtual quarter peals including first on covering tenor and first on treble. More virtual QPAs are planned.