at St Leonard’s Parish Church, Sherfield English SO51 6FP
Please come and join us for a traditional carol service of lessons and carols, accompanied by both church organ and handbells.
Open ringing before the service from 2-3pm
The service is from 3-4pm
Mulled Wine and seasonal food in the church from 4-5pm
Please e-mail MIcki Nadal emnad@btinternet.com with numbers attending from your tower
Developing proposals for a teaching centre at St John’s Winchester
Our District Ringing School and the WIMPS have been operating for the past two years, and it is important that we train up the next generation of ringers. As a third of ringers are now aged over 70, and another third are aged between 50 and 70, the Central Council of Church Bellringers estimate that we need to recruit and train up 10,000 new ringers over the next five years, with half of them under the age of 30. As part of our contribution to the national effort we have been discussing establishing a teaching centre at St John’s to act as a base for developing our training activities.
St Johns has a derelict peal of five bells cast between 1460 and 1654 at the top of the tower and the plan is to install a new ring of eight bells with a tenor of 8 to 10cwt in the vacant clock room below, and to equip the tower to hold regular training sessions. The church has a kitchen and toilets, and a meeting room. The church is five minutes’ walk from Chesil car park and the City Centre, so is well located. There are over 40 different teaching centres across the UK and overseas, and the flagship ones at Norwich and Cambridge employ part time administrators to coordinate the teaching.
The group in the meeting room at St Clement’s
Ringers from Winchester Cathedral who are leading our project, plus ringers from Alresford, Kings Worthy, Sparsholt and Stockbridge, and the Diocesan Guild’s Vice Master undertook a fact-finding visit to the St Clement’s Teaching Centre in Cambridge on Saturday 8th November. Cambridge has an active 12 bell band, the 300-year-old Society of Cambridge Youths, that ring advanced 12 bell Surprise methods. They regularly reach the finals of the national 12 bell competition, having won the competition four times since 1979, and came 4th in the final this year. There is also an active University Society who since 2016 have used the Charmborough Ring at the Freshers fair to recruit non-ringer students who would like to learn. A large number take up ringing, as some of our group found out on Friday evening when they visited the practice at St Benet’s, where over 20 students were present.
St Clement’s Teaching Centre was the brainchild of Barry Johnson a Wykehamist and member of the Society of Cambridge Youths. The centre has a new peal of six bells and been operational for the past three years. Part time manager Lynne Hughes coordinates the teaching activities. These cater for ringers from a wide area, with people travelling an hour or more from all parts of Cambridgeshire and sometimes further afield. Sessions cost £5 per hour for a group lesson to £10 per hour for individual tuition. Most of the sessions cater for people who would like to learn or improve their handling, focusing on foundation skills exercises, up to plain hunting and plain bob doubles. Everyone gets on well and tower captains are more than pleased that additional tuition and coaching is available for their ringers outside their own towers.
St Clement’s Cambridge
The bells can easily be silenced and there is a simulator which ringers can book to use, even some of the crack 12 bell band have been known to use it before the big competition! There are also new toilets, a kitchen and a meeting room. The centre has a group of nine teachers that they can call on, plus a group of over twenty ‘helpers’. The Centre uses ART’s Learning the Ropes scheme, which provides a structured framework for teaching, and helps with monitoring progress. The centre also works with year 5 and 6 pupils from the local primary school, and the Ely Diocesan Association’s Youth team the ‘Fen Tigers’. They have just held a day’s ringing at three towers in Cambridge at half term for young people. Each day between 2pm and 3pm members of the public can drop in to find out more about ringing. The centre charges £8 (adults)/£4 (children) for a half-hour bell experience session which is advertised throughout the City and received a ‘fourth most popular in the city’ ranking on Trip Advisor.
Colin Cook tries out the demonstration bell at St Clements
Everyone came away enthused and keen to do something similar in Winchester. Next we have a Zoom call booked for Sunday 23rd November at 7.00pm with Nikki Thomas who manages the Mancroft Ringing Discovery Centre in Norwich to find out more about their teaching centre. Everyone welcome. If you would like to join us, please follow this link:
We will also be holding a series of consultation events with ringers from the Winchester District and further afield early in the new year, as we develop our business plan for the St John’s Teaching Centre More details to follow.
WIMPS – Bells around Basingstoke – Saturday 10th January
St Leonard’s, Sherfield on Loddon in the snow. – Kevin Barton
Join us for ringing on our early January jaunt around villages near Basingstoke. Hopefully in sunshine, as above, but without the white stuff! Two towers and a cosy pub lunch followed by two more towers (and tea break with homemade cakes!). We’re starting gently at St Mary’s at Herriard – a six-bell tower (7–2–11) in a tiny village just south of Basingstoke, as we make our way towards our second ring at All Saints’ Odiham, a fairly heavy (12–1–11) six-bell ring, to work up our appetites for lunch. We then head north to recuperate at The Coach and Horses, a picturesque country pub in Rotherwick. https://www.thecoachrotherwick.com/
We ring on six again at Rotherwick church (9–2–10), straight after lunch. Our final ring of six bells will be St Lawrence’s at Sherfield on Loddon (8–3–1), where we will enjoy our customary stop for tea and cakes before our last ring of the day. A spreadsheet with details and timings will be uploaded as soon as the towers have confirmed. A menu will be posted here for pre-orders at the start of January, Donations for the day will be £2 per ringer per tower (total £8), payable if possible in advance.
If you would like to join our Spond Group, and receive invites to other training sessions and WIMPS events, follow this link https://spond.com/invite/CRCBA
Advance notice that our District AGM next year will be in Winchester on 14th February, with ringing at the Cathedral, followed by tea and meeting at St John’s, where there will be an opportunity to climb the tower and see where the new bells might be installed and find out more about the proposed teaching centre project.
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