We started the session by practicing ringing up in peal. We then rang rounds and call changes on the front 6.
We followed that with Plain Hunt practice and more call changes.
We then did Mexican wave (places).
Then the more experienced ringers rang Plain Bob Minor on the inside bells with Keith hunting on the treble.
Jeremy needed more practice on the place making, whilst rest preferred to practice dodging, so we “spliced” Mexican Wave with double dodging Mexican wave, which worked surprisingly well.
Then we rang down and went to the pub.
Sunday Ringing 22nd Sept 2019
This morning’s service was a combined service with Twyford, so some of the Twyford ringers joined us for ringing.
To start with Graham, Sue, Keith, Jeremy and Simon were the only ringers, so we rang up bells 3-7 in peal, and Simon rang up the 8. We then rang call changes on the 3,4,6,7 and 8. These were chosen as they form a major pentatonic scale which sounds quite nice.
Shortly after we started ringing, Matthew and Freddy from Twyford joined us, and we rang call changes on 6, alternating with Plain hunting on 5 with Keith practicing on the Treble.
We then rang down all 6 bells in peal.
Jeremy’s son had joined us to watch. We made good use of the recently set-up belfry video camera to show him what was going on.
Simulator training 19th Sept 2019
This evening Graham led Keith and Louise in some simulator training.
The 3 bell was muffled and the 4 tied. Louise rang up the 3 under instruction from Graham, and Keith rang up the 4. Louise and Keith then both practiced ringing in rounds to improve striking and bell handling. Louise significantly improved her scores from previous sessions.
Keith then practiced Plain Hunting on 5 bells from both the treble and from the 5 bell, whilst Louise continued to practice rounds and work on her technique.
We also had the opportunity to review the bell recordings which Keith previous made, loaded into Abel. It was agreed that they probably sounded a bit shrill.
Ringing Practice 16th Sept 2019
We started the evening with Graham, Sue, Stephanie, Keith and Jeremy ringing up 5 bells in peal, which was moderately successful, especially considering this was Jeremy’s first attempt.
Keith rang up the 6th and then we did some rounds and simple call changes with Louise to introduce her to call changes, and to give the rest of the band some practice on call changes.
Keith and Stephanie then attempted some treble dodging on 4 bells, with Sue and Vinni on the other two and Graham giving guidance.
We then did some more rounds and call changes followed by Graham, Sue, Vinnie, Jeremy, Stephanie and Keith practicing Mexican Wave on 6 bells, which went very well.
Before we finished we tried the treble dodging again, before practicing ringing down in peal and heading off to The Castle with everyone looking forward to a well-earned drink.
Ringing Practice – 9th Sept 2019
This evening’s practice was a fun and productive session. Graham, Sue, Keith, Stephanie, Wendy, and Louse were the early attendees and we started with practicing raising and lowering the bells in peal. This was partly to help with general raising and lowering technique and bell control.
Soon after this we were joined by Jeremy, Vinni, and Rachel. We rang some rounds, mainly for the benefit of Louise, our relative beginner, but also to develop listening and improve striking amongst the rest of the band. Louise is improving rapidly and is close to the point where she can take part in call changes, which she is looking forward to.
We also practiced some call changes as the band felt we hadn’t done that for a while and were a bit rusty, particularly Jeremy who had missed a lot of the practice sessions due to other commitments.
We then rang some Plain Bob Major, with Graham, Vinni, Sue and Rachel on the inside bells with Keith covering and Stephanie on the treble. This was a great exercise as Rachel was keen to practice Plain Bob Doubles, and it gave Stephanie a chance to exercise her hunting skills on a more complex method.
We rang more rounds and call changes later in the evening, and another attempt at Plain Bob Doubles. Then Keith practiced Plain Hunt on 5, although Graham and Vinni cheekily started to mix up the 4 and 5 bells.
Then we rang down and headed to The Castle.
We also had the opportunity to review the CCTV camera as some of the band, particularly Graham the Tower Captain, hadn’t seen it working. This is still in the temporary position, although it does give a fairly good view of the 3 and 4 bells.
Ringing Practice – 2nd Sept 2019
A few people were away this week including Graham, the Tower Captain. Simon and Vinni were there looking after Stephanie, Keith, Wendy and Louise.
We got a chance to check out whether the CCTV camera position was suitable and how well the night vision worked. It all seemed very satisfactory, so now we need to experiment with mounting positions and to make the installation more permanent.
We attempted to ring up in peal followed by rounds practice, primarily for Louise (although it’s good practice for all of us). We then made a few attempts at plain hunting, which didn’t go that well with two learners trying to hunt at the same time. We then did some more rounds and decided to cut the practice a bit short as everyone was feeling tired, so we finished by an attempt to ring down the bells in peal which wasn’t perfect, but is improving.
CCTV Install
Today we installed a CCTV camera into the belfry. The camera will be useful when training new band members.. This is a temporary installation to work out the best location for the camera, and to test the camera operation.
The CCTV camera has a night-vision mode which should allow us to use it without turning on the light in the belfry. The power for the camera is carried from the ringing room, so we can turn it on and off downstairs.
As a temporary measure, the camera is screwed into a piece of wood propped in the corner of the room. The camera is pointing at the 3 bell.
The camera is connected to the ground floor using the spare Cat 6 cable we installed when we were wiring up the simulator. This connects into a video balun and a video converter box to convert the CVBS signal into VGA suitable for the screen we have. A power injector is also connected tot he Cat 6 cable to feed power up to the camera. We have a VGA switch to allow us to switch between the camera and the laptop we use for the simulator.
The camera gives a pretty clear image in daytime, but we need to test how it performs in the dark. We also need to experiment with positions and viewing angles.
Wedding 30 Aug 2019
We rang for a wedding today. This was the first wedding that many of the newer band members had rung for. We had 8 ringers and rang rounds and call changes. Ringing were Graham, Sue, Owen, Keith, Duncan, Jeremy, Stephanie and Wendy.
The previous day, Stephanie, Duncan and Keith had visited the tower to ring the bells up.
Simulator practice 23 Aug 2019
Tonight we did some practice in the simulator whilst Graham worked with Louise on rope handling. Stephanie and Keith both practiced plain hunt on 5.
Afterwards Louise practiced rounds on the simulator, and Graham had a go at a 12 bell method.
It was a useful session and we ended with a debrief at The Castle.
Ringing Practice 19 Aug 2019
We started the evening ringing up and then ringing rounds and call changes. We rang the second half of 60 on thirds.
During the evening we rang Whitfield, Cloister, and another training method invented by Graham which was named “Again” as in “Go again!”.
We then rang the back six down in peal.
Attending were Graham, Sue, Duncan, Louise, Stephanie, Jeremy, Keith and Simon.