Oxford City Branch Practice 2 April 2018 at Kirtlington

St Mary's, Kirtlington

Twelve ringers from eight towers and three Branches braved the flooded roads to attend Easter Monday morning’s Branch Practice at Kirtlington. Although slightly down on strength from January’s practice at the same venue, we still benefitted from the conducting skills of Hugh, Paul and Malcolm.

We rang an extensive repertoire of methods including:

  • A couple of plain courses of Grandsire Triples
  • An attempted plain course of Plain Bob Major
  • A few courses of Plain Bob Triples for Andrew
  • Two touches of Grandsire Triples, including one for the correspondent
  • A few touches of Plain Bob Minor for Andrew
  • A couple of plain courses of Stedman Triples including a first go for yours truly.

All in all, a good practice.

Notes from ODG General Committee Meeting 25th November 2017

Our Guild representative, Ann Martin, has provided some notes from the last General Committee Meeting of the Oxford Diocesan Guild of bell ringers, held in November 2017.

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  1. There is a vacancy for the General Secretary for the Finance and General purposes committee. If anyone is interested, contacts are on ODG website.
  2. Education committee: Applications for the Michaelmas and Steeple Aston courses were up this year.

They are asking for help to organise the Michaelmas, Steeple Aston and Radley courses this year, in particular, for Steeple Aston, for arranging and booking the towers.  Anyone who would like to volunteer should contact the Education committee, contacts on ODG website.

It is the 25th Radley course this year.  They would like to hear from people who attended the first Radley course (and any other of the Radley courses).

  1. The Dove database is going to be brought up to date and re-housed on the Central Council’s server.
  2. Subscriptions remain as last year, £8 per member.
  3. There was a presentation about the new Guild website. In due course, they will be nominating a person from each branch to provide updates for their area.
  4. There was discussion on the suggestions in Ringing World for ringing on 11th November 2018. The suggestion was to ring muffled in the morning for 11 am, then remove the muffles and ring open later in the day. It was considered that it would be dangerous to remove the muffles with the bells up, but it would cause confusion to ring them down and then ring them up again.

The committee will relay the discussion to Ringing World.

  1. Safeguarding: Discussions are still ongoing with the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer, in particular with reference to the difficulty in having a safeguarding officer in each tower.  This is still to be resolved.

New Branch ringers’ ringing experiences

Here is the latest update from Kirtlington and Bletchingdon ringers in Kirlington Village News, which includes experiences of ringing from the viewpoints of two members who have joined the Kirtlington and Bletchingdon band in the past 10 months:

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“Many times in my life I have enjoyed the sound of church bells, and always thought, ‘I’d like to do that some day’. Finally in May I responded to an advertisement for new ringers in the Bletchingdon News and was very quickly inducted into the friendly team of ringers in the Bletchingdon and Kirtlington bell towers, with expert tuition from the Kirtlington Tower Captain.

English bellringing is an intriguing blend of art and science, involving both physical and mental exercise and, for me, a great sense of history. I’m excited to think that I’m learning an ancient skill, standing in a room in which our forebears stood ringing these same bells, some of which were cast three centuries ago in the early 1700s… Although a relative beginner I feel I’ve made good progress and joined a really friendly, supportive and encouraging group of people. I’m very much enjoying learning a stimulating and valuable new skill!”

Gus Bridges (joined May 2017)

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“My motivation to take up bell ringing doesn’t sound as riveting as Gus’, however, I am so thankful that the ‘I need a hobby – why not?’ moment came to me. Over the last 10 months I have been exposed to a whole new side of British life which I have quickly become addicted to; I now regularly find myself humming tunes, guessing how many bells a church has as I drive past, downloading various bell ringing apps or competing with myself about when I can cross off another bell tower! This new found obsession is not least because of brilliant fellow ringers who generously give their time to help me learn, who share their stories, and have taken me under their wings to become part of their proud history.

My ringing experiences so far have been wonderfully varied. As well as my regular weekly practices, I have rung for 1 baptism, 5 weddings, a few evensongs and the village summer fair! I have also attended two courses: a day course in Radley, and the intense Bradfield 4 day residential – I never knew that hand bells at 1am could be such fun! All of these opportunities have allowed me to quickly progress, and also to experience some of the quirkier Church belfries, like the swaying tower of Little Milton, and the really tall ladder before the “trap door like” entrance of Mortimer, have all contributed to me beginning to feel like a real bell ringer!

My next goal is to attempt a Quarter Peal, to consolidate learning of the most recent method I’ve been learning; Plain Bob Doubles. I have no idea what to expect for my first attempt of ringing solidly for 45 minutes, but I’m tentatively ready to accept the challenge!”

Ellie Seddon (joined November 2016)

Happy New Year 2017

Happy New Year folks!

Late on Saturday 31st December, 6 ringers pulled themselves away from Kathryn’s New Year party (a first for the Cole kids – though Grace fell asleep about 15 mins before midnight!) to head up Islip tower. We nearly had a lock-out as the visitors earlier in the day had left the key to the ringing room in the wrong place, but thanks to Sue looking at the colonies of ladybirds we spotted the key and made it into the ringing room in time to ring up and have 2 mins rounds before midnight.

Making sure we allowed for the leap second that was added to the end of 2016 the tenor tolled the 12 strikes of midnight (something the church clock hasn’t been doing for a few months) and then rang some call changes to announce the start of 2017 to the village. We then rang down and headed back to the PARTY 😀

New Year 2017- Islip
New Year 2017- Islip

Did any other branch towers ring in the New Year? (Let me know and I’ll add details to this page).

The first branch event of 2017 is on Tuesday at Islip – ringing is a great way to exercise off all those Christmas excesses so get ringing!

Anthony Cole

In memory 3 December 2016

Today a quarter peal was rung in Islip – details below:

Oxford Diocesan Guild
Islip, Oxon
St Nicholas
Saturday 3 December 2016 in 47mins
1260 Grandsire Doubles

1   Sally Wale
2   Kathryn Grant
3   Ron Burgess
4   Keith Thomas
5   Anthony Cole (C)
6   Teresa Carter

In celebration of the life of Eileen Mary Grant 30/1121-03/12/2015, her beloved dog Lucy 24/01/2002-23/11/2016 and the marriage of her granddaughter Alexandra Durnford to Tim Johnson on 03/12/2016

On tour 2016

It is the holiday season and the Cole’s headed for Cornwall last week for a (well needed!) holiday. In between visiting the Lost gardens of Heligan (we found them!) and the Eden Project we visited former Islip ringer Rachel Holt and guess what we ended up doing? When bellringers go on tour, we go ringing!!#

St German

Rachel took us to one of her new regular towers in the village of St German’s which is an 8 bell tower that rings call changes (Devon style) so a new experience for us! After ringing up  on the back 5 (fairly fast) we rang down again (slower) and then back up again on 7. We rang call changes (they called “up” as I do :D) but there were some differences.. they gave a warning “prepare to stand” or something like that… before calling stand; calls were made not the preceding handstroke (as we do) but 2 handstrokes before – which gives you more time to think before the change. The sally is called the “fillet” .. something fishy about that.. and when you start ringing up, instead of one bell ringing, then two bells, then three etc, they all swing their bell once then pull hard to check the bell so the first the neighbours hear is all the bells in rounds.

They asked me to call some changes towards the end and Sarah led down getting them to miss and catch (our style).

It was a fun evening and nice to try a different style of ringing.

Anthony Cole

Spliced anyone? 16 July 2016

On Saturday 16th July we held our annual branch training course. Following successive years of Ringing Up & Down this year we held a rope splicing course.

Stratton Audley hosted the course where 6 students came along to try both short and long splices. I demonstrated a short splice first of all and then (thanks to Steve for bringing some old ropes – unusable as bell ropes anymore due to their length/past breakages) we headed into the sunny churchyard to have a go. Results were mixed – some having difficulties and others finding it easier (and the resulting “fixed” ropes resulted in the odd tug of war to test their strength).

After a couple of hours trying we moved on to long splices (Jeremy had got ahead of us following the instructions printed off the website).. I demonstrated how to do a long splice and then the students had a go, again with mixed results.

It was the first time I had taught splicing so that was interesting and I have picked up some traps to watch out for another time, and the students seemed to enjoy the practice too.

Anthony Cole

Bank holiday Firsts 30th May 2016

Many congratulations to 3 of our branch members who scored “firsts” in a quarter peal at Bicester on Monday 30th May (Spring Bank Holiday):

  • Anne Martin: 1st Quarter Peal (and it was “inside” too!)
  • Steve Vickars: 1st Quarter Peal
  • Jeremy Adams 1st Quarter Peal as conductor

After a nervous start (fully expected given 3 “firsts” being attempted) the ringing settled and we managed some good striking throughout the quarter peal. There were a few little hiccups but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. Anne wondered “is that it?” at the end – such had been the level of concentration she achieved. A fabulous achievement from all and a good step up in their respective ringing career ladders. A visit to a local watering hole followed!

Full details below (copied from www.campanophile.co.uk)

Oxford Diocesan Guild
Bicester, Oxon
St Edburg
Monday 30 May 2016 in 44
1260 Grandsire Doubles

1   Anthony Cole
2   Anne Martin
3   Ron Burgess
4   Richard Haseldine
5   Jeremy Adams (C)
6   Steve Vickars

Rung on front 6
2,6: 1st QP
5: 1st as conductor