REPORT OF RINGING DAY SEPT 2026

A very successful 6 Bell striking competition and ringing day was held on 19th September at Elizabeth College in Guernsey. Ringers from across the islands came together at EC to ring on the 10 Saxelby simulator bells there and compete in our inter island striking competition. We even had a mini ring (8 bells) set up to keep people busy between touches.

A fantastic day was had with lots of different levels of ringing, from beginners really cracking on with some call changes on 9 and anything from Stedman triples, 3 leads of Bristol to Yorkshire major.

The competition itself is open to all levels and as always there was fierce competition
between the 8 teams. This autumn open competition means we had 2 youth teams from
Elizabeth College and a team from almost all other Towers in the Branch. Congratulations to Town Church 1 who came on top this year.

Due to some travel logistics with judging we used Hawkear and
had a non ringing person (yes they exist!) operating the software. This was incredibly
successful and we all thank Duncan Loweth for making it happen, as well as organising the ringing day at EC.

The results were as follows:
TEAM NAME SCORE RESULT
EC 1 48.64 3rd
EC 2 87.37 7th
TC 2 71.14 6th
Jersey 51.28 4th
St Peters 114.84 8th
Forest 60.39 5th
TC 1 32.84 1st
Alderney 46.73 2nd
As with all ringing days, much tea/cake/sandwiches were consumed and as always a great thank you to all the helpers involved. Looking forward to

6 members of the Alderney band succeeded in their travel plans so were able to attend the annual outing. Unfortunately the last minute cancellation of the Little Ferry meant 1 person was prevented from coming too. We were joined by 3 friends from Reading, a couple who had visited Alderney in the spring & lived in the area of the outing, Matthew Higby who had organised it all & some of his friends 🙂 15 in all very much enjoyed a walking tour around the Bath City towers on Day 1 and some surrounding villages on Day 2. No tour organised by Matthew would be complete without a visit to his works, an opportunity to ring @ Potters Yard and see a fascinating demo of bellropes (complete with sallies) being made.

The AGM will be hosted on Google Meet.

To join the meeting: https://meet.google.com/hbk-myts-iap

Dial in (audio only): ‪(GB) +44 20 3937 4601‬ PIN: ‪441 902 966#‬

The Agenda will be:

We are progressing nicely through the alphabet. Scored Geegelup last night:
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=2012810
We were particularly attracted to Geegelup because of the ‘half-hunt’ feature, broadening our ringers knowledge of various structures that can be brought into play in composition:-)

Of course Peter has already got Hull & Ipswich so next stop will be Jerrom and then King Edward S Minor

Helen

The Alderney band have just enjoyed 2 consecutive weekends of bob doubles:-). The first weekend saw 3 from TC and Jane Le C to help , the second weekend had 1 x Jersey, 3 from St Peter’s/Forest and 1 from UK (he has a cousin live on Ay so is a regular visitor). Starting with plain hunt theory and practice we moved on via playing cards, walking & one handbell each to bob doubles. Everyone was more proficient at the end of the weekend than they had been at the start, also there was chat about returning for more so I judge them a success (but then I would wouldn’t I ??)

At last night’s practice – in addition to plain courses of St Simons, St Martins, Freizeland S Minor, treble bobbing on 8, touches of bob doubles we rang a tuneful & rhythmical couple of courses of plain hunt on 9 – a first for our all local band (obviously we have rung it with visitors but no visitors last night)

https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=2006533

Helen

Last night the local band successfully rang a couple of courses of Cloisters caters – all on our own – no helpers!
1. June
2. Jeremy
3. Arthur
4. Alexis
5. Ines
6. Helen
7. Aileen
8. Heather
9. Peter
10. Nor
Supporting from the benches = Donald & Nick
This is definitely the first time the local band has rung caters- ever!!!!!!!

Here we are enjoying coffee in The Georgian on Sunday morning July 26th at the end of a very busy week of ringing. Granite – named for John Wells’ 90th birthday – has been even more successful than previous anniversary weeks.
Bellboard tells a story of course, https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/event.php?id=23582
but it is only half the story!
The rest is about all the focus sessions which led up to the ‘firsts’. The schedule allowed for a great many opportunities for the local ringers to perfect their existing repertoire & to learn some new methods with steady ringers. Our Monday eve practice was for all Channel Island ringers so plenty of DNCBM , 3 leads of Bristol major, treble bobbing on 10 with our Jersey & Guernsey friends. Saturday morning had a good number of the Alderney band able to participate in Cloisters cinques after building up to it – over a 2 hr session – from doubles then triples and caters – wow:-):-)
Already looking forward to Amethyst in July 2027

We excelled ourselves this evening with a qtr peal of Ebor S Minor (I found it quite challenging!) – so that has secured E for Peter’s alphabet.
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1981943
Next will be Freizeland – named for a suburb of Manchester populated with Dutch immigrants from Frieseland in the Netherlands come to work in the mills

Helen

Our Stepping Stones Level 1 training week was very successful – students from Singapore, Jersey, Alderney & UK spent the week learning lots and having such fun that everyone has signed up for Level 2 next year :-)With the assistance of our helpers we had regular 12 bell ringing at St Anne’s over the course of the last 10 days too:-) & at practice last night not just 1 but 2 separate plain courses of Double Norwich Ct Bob Major were rung AND a bob course of Bristol Major
What can be better than that? Alexis ringing her first qtr of S minor:
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1979554
Very well done Alexis:-)