Peter Bevis has set himself the challenge of a ringing a qtr peal of a Surprise minor method starting with every letter of the alphabet. Obviously he already has a number ‘under his belt’ after 40 yrs of ringing but quite a lot of letters have eluded him….until now….
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1972907
a good start was made with A last night – just needs a bit more practice and then a qtr peal will surely be achieved:-)
St Pierre du Bois and Forest Band of Bell Ringers April 2026
This year has been a very sad one for our band with the death of Peter Gallienne who was the Tower Captain and Steeple Keeper of the Forest Church. He was responsible for organising the hanging of the Forest bells in what was a very challenging space in the spire.
Phil Le Conte is now the Tower Captain of both churches.
Our weekly practices at the Forest on Wednesdays at 3.00pm and at St Pierre du Bois on Saturdays at 9.30am are usually well attended with 10+ at both and we often ring on 10 at St Pierre du Bois for the Sunday morning service.
The new ringers who joined us for the “Ring for the King” initiative are still with us and doing well but we would still like to recruit more ringers as our average age is quite high and we need to ensure the future of our band.
Town Church
At Town Church we have been very much enjoying more of the same! Really focusing on the basic skills and improving our striking. Over the past year I feel we have really come on in terms of overall quality and I’m very proud of our band.
We have a variety of different “levels” from plain hunting on 7 through to surprise major. Since the beginning of the year, we have been incorporating some spliced surprise major into our agenda, usually holding an additional weekly practice for these “advanced” things.
Whilst practicing for the 8 bell competition, Joseph helpfully pointed us in the direction of “BReNDA” which is an online equivalent of Hawkear. It’s been giving some great feedback (in plain text form unlike Hawkear) and we’d highly recommend using it if you are wanting to analyse your striking without access to Hawkear. Link here: https://brenda.oekrice.
In terms of the next year, we are continuing to do more of the same with little leaps for each person focusing on their next little win!
Vale Church
2025 has been another difficult for the Vale ringers. We only have 5 full members on our books and with one of them being the Head Server, only have a maximum of 4 available to ring for service on a Sunday morning, unless a visitor turns up to give us a hand.
Only 5 quarter peals were rung by Vale ringers during the year, and we had to either borrow people from other towers, or rely on visitors in order to do so. It would be easy to be despondent when we look back only a few years and were ringing several quarters a month with ringers having to take turns to take part! But we must be grateful that although few in number, our members are loyal and turn up to ring for the main service every Sunday morning to call people to worship, even if we can only manage call changes or Plain Bob singles. It is very rare for the bells to be completely silent when they should be rung. Many other towers in this situation would just not bother to ring at all.
The obvious solution is to recruit new ringers but this is difficult. As you are aware, learning to ring is a fairly slow process in the early stages and hard to make interesting. We have recently had a few people show interest but it is too early to say yet if they will carry on.
Access to the tower remains difficult while we await training for use of a harness when climbing the ladder. The bells and ropes are checked every few weeks by a non-ringer who reports back if anything requires attention.
We continue to have problems with the clock chiming mechanism. This has been a long term problem which we did our best to attend to ourselves, but this is less easy since we have had restricted access to the tower. When Smiths of Derby came over to do their annual service, they mended the offending wires again, but this only lasted a few weeks. As a result, it was decided to keep the chimes switched off and the clock is only striking the hour at present.
We thank those from other Towers who help us out at practices or to ring a quarter peal for an important occasion. We need all the help we can get – please!
Jersey
This year has been a great success for the development of our local ringers, supported throughout by several visitors. A particular highlight has been the progress of our youngest ringer, Maisie, who has successfully rung her first quarter peal of Surprise Minor and Surprise Major quarter peals – both of which were rung to a very high standard. In addition, we have celebrated numerous first quarter peals for other learners ranging from plain methods through to Surprise Major. With the support of visiting ringers, we were also able to ring two successful peals during the summer, the most notable being an 8-spliced peal at St John’s, which was a first for a local member of our band. Sadly, the year also brought difficult moments. We rang to mark the passing of our friend and fellow ringer Mike Halsey, with visitors travelling to the island to pay their respects to a valued and respected member of the band. We concluded the year on a high note with the striking competition, where a combined band from across the islands rang an excellent quarter peal of Bristol and Stedman spliced. This was an impeccable performance and clearly demonstrated the value and success of these branch gatherings, as well as what can be achieved when we ring together
Alderney
We continue to post all our news at cibells.com/posts, we seem to be the only tower doing so – join us anyone?
The Alderney band is delighted to report that the new flat 6th has been installed. It handles beautifully and is pitched perfectly with its new companions. The rope circle of our new middle 8 is great – all in all a huge success. Our first qtr on the new bell was rung n the day of installation:https://bb.
Sunday morning Jan 25th saw the second qtr peal rung by the Alderney band with our new flat 6thhttps://bb.ringingworld.co.
We weren’t entirely sure what to expect of our new bell but it is absolutely lovely:-) To practice triples and major we had sometimes been (naughtily) ringing 1 – 8 so 2- 9 (with flat6) is not only musically far more pleasing obviously, but also just a tad heavier so has more ‘substance’ but the unexpected benefit is that the rope circle is tremendous:-):-) the 9 has always been a bit more forward/closer to the middle than the 8 & 0 so having it as the tenor of the middle 8 works VERY well indeed, and as flat 6th is also forward of the old 6 the circle is doubly improved. Our old middle 6, 3-8 has 3, 4, 5 & 6 in almost a straight line but 4-9 with flat 6th is VASTLY more circular. Now we have 2 eights and 3 sixes – affording us a huge variety on a practice night.
Whole band very upbeat about it, watching the hoisting and cleaning the tower afterwards – we even had an Indian to celebrate 🙂
We have just come to the end of john & June’s regular spring week on Alderney. This year we focused on S minor. We rang 5 quarters:
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/search.php?ringer=helen+mcgregor&from=16%2F03%2F2026
In addition we had 2 focus sessions on Cambridge minor and an hours consolidation of London minor – failed qtr peal attempt – but excellent practice.
We have been working on the touch of Bastow Little triples for April of course, Nick rang the treble for a plain course of bob triples, handling sessions with Ariane, Gina and Lynne, treble bobbing with Jane…..we kept them busy:-)
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/event.php?id=22757
In June on Alderney we will be starting again at Level 1. Having been delighted with the success we had with Cornwall S Major in the evenings the plan for next February is that we will embark along the Pickled Egg path 🙂
If you want to know more about Stepping Stones please see:
https://artonline.bellringing.org/course/view.php?id=18
or email me with queries: helen
Minor Stepping Stones is an ART structured scheme of work, adding one new technique at a time, through 5 levels to encompass over 40 methods from plain bob minor to 3 spliced surprise minor. 4 Alderney ringers have just spent a training week in Tulloch focusing on the latter stages of this scheme
With an hour of theory every morning – examining the structure of various methods, different approaches to method learning, over and under to produce the 41 standard methods, how does spliced work? and 2 hours of focused general ringing on 8 & 10 in the evening (DNCBM, Cornwall S Major, Stedman triples & grandsire caters) the programme was an exceptional opportunity to extend everyone’s abilities
A total of 10 helpers and 13 students provided a steady band for a focus session /qtr peal attempt in one tower while the remainder of ringers practised the ‘Method(s) of the Day’ in the other tower – full on, exhausting but such fun. The progress was tremendous:-)
When Duncan told us he had to be in Alderney for work at the beginning of February it gave us the perfect opportunity for (another) qtr peal of bob triples on our new middle 8.
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1931309
Happily Duncan made all the right noises about the sound/weight/circle shape :-):-)
In addition to spending an hour focused on Norfolk S Minor and an hour focused on Cambridge S Minor we also rang a qtr peal of bob doubles @ Wells with one of our latest recruits
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1932040
An evening of handbell ringing gave us an opportunity to practice St Clements Bob Major and Double Norwich Ct Bob major
Hurry back please Duncan:-)
Sunday morning Jan 25th saw the second qtr peal rung by the Alderney band with our new flat 6th
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1928597
We weren’t entirely sure what to expect of our new bell but it is absolutely lovely:-)
To practice triples and major we had sometimes been (naughtily) ringing 1 – 8 so 2- 9 (with flat6) is not only musically far more pleasing obviously, but also just a tad heavier so has more ‘substance’ but the unexpected benefit is that the rope circle is tremendous:-):-) the 9 has always been a bit more forward/closer to the middle than the 8 & 0 so having it as the tenor of the middle 8 works VERY well indeed, and as flat 6th is also forward of the old 6 the circle is doubly improved. Our old middle 6, 3-8 has 3, 4, 5 & 6 in almost a straight line but 4-9 with flat 6th is VASTLY more circular.
Now we have 2 eights and 3 sixes – affording us a huge variety on a practice night.
Whole band very upbeat about it, watching the hoisting and cleaning the tower afterwards – we even had an Indian to celebrate – attached
The Alderney band is delighted to report that the new flat 6th has been installed. It handles beautifully and is pitched perfectly with its new companions. The rope circle of our new middle 8 is great – all in all a huge success
Tonight we had some general ringing and then our first qtr:
https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1928478
Tomorrow morning we are ringing a qtr of doubles on the back 6 of the middle 8, with 4 more of the local band who weren’t in tonights qtr – Helen & Peter will ring again
Helenx
4 of the Alderney band are spending a week in February in Tulloch pursuing Level 5 ART Minor Stepping Stones programme. We didn’t feel quite ready for the challenge so invited 5 friends to join us in Alderney for a pre-course week. Starting on Friday Jan 2nd with Cambridge minor (one lead at a time to knock the rust off), we concentrated on lead end and half lead dodges and rang some touches. This was then followed by Ipswich on Saturday, Bourne & Hull on Sunday, Beverley and Berwick later in the week and also a session on London. It was certainly the case that the more surprise minor we rang the easier to learn/understand/see the lines it became:-) We scored qtr peals in Cambridge, Ipswich, Primrose, Primrose & Norwich, and finally one of Bourne.
We even managed a plain course of Double Norwich Ct Bob Major when Storm Goretti delayed departure so we could squeeze in a bonus session on 8. Everyone agreed it had been educational and fun and that we were now ready to throw ourselves into Level 5 next month:-)
HMMcG