We have now spent two days at Bermondsey clearing out the handbell room and simulator area, repairing the ceiling and painting the staircase at the back of the organ leading up to the ringing room, with Mike, Morag and Luigi helping so far.
We are opening up the tower to visitors for the parish fair on Saturday afternoon 20th June and will be running some ‘taster’ events the following Tuesday, and another on the Tuesday after the Bermondsey Carnival on Saturday afternoon 4th July, and hopefully training some new ringers afterwards, so we want the tower to be spick and span and as welcoming as possible.
Today’s work has made a dramatic difference and as Mike says, you will need to bring your sunglasses next time you come to ring. It is just so bright!
We probably need to spend another two sessions freshening up the paintwork on the remaining walls and woodwork, and cleaning up afterwards, so if you know how to use a roller or paintbrush (or would like to learn). Please let Roger know and we will sort out some dates over the next five weeks.
Mike Todd says bring your sunglasses – The staircase behind the organ at St James’
A few weeks ago a crew from BBC’s click programme came to Christchurch to find out more about how we are using the latest release of the Abel simulator software to teach people to ring. This has moving video images of real ringers, so our new ringers can practice ringing in time with an electronic band of ringers, rather than real ringers.
They tell us that it’s less embarrassing than making mistakes ringing with real people, and we can be much more flexible in fixing up practice sessions, so our new ringers learn more quickly.
The BBC have told us that a radio version of the programme will be broadcast on BBBC World Service on Tuesday 6th January at 19.32. It will be repeated on Wednesday 7th January at 00.32; 04.32 and 13.42 GMT. It can also be downloaded as a podcast afterwards from – http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002w6r2/episodes/player
The producers have not yet scheduled the Television version of the programme, which will be shown on various BBC channels. We will let you know, once we know.
An article about the software was also published in The Ringing World magazine and is downloadable below from the following link: Ringing World article
Screenshot of Abel
Chris Hughes the author of the Abel software
Jinny Kuffluk, Graham Long and Chris Hughes ringing up ready to be filmed for TV
Well, almost a Bermondsey Tuesday night band – Morag is still recovering from her accident and hip operation, but Tony Faulkner from Poplar stood in to enable us to score the quarter at Isle of Dogs on Sunday evening!
A previous attempt at Rotherhithe a fortnight ago was not successful, and we had met an hour and half below the service to allow time for a false start, but we scored the quarter without stopping. This meant that we finished almost half an hour before the service and needed to ring up to it. It was the first of Cambridge Major inside for Colin.
Over the coming months we plan to arrange a regular programme of quarters and special practices at Rotherhithe and Isle of Dogs to enable more of our Tuesday night band (e.g. Ashley, Eva, Drew, Jonathan and Rob), to progress and score quarters of Grandsire/Plain Bob Triples and Plain Bob Little Bob, and Kent Treble Bob Minor/Major, working towards ringing Cambridge on the treble and possibly inside. We also need to arrange some more of Cambridge Major, so that we can ring it without any trips and polish our 8 bell striking.
In the longer term, once we have grown the pool of people who can ring these methods confidently, we can introduce other methods such as Yorkshire into the regular repertoire, but we will be careful not to spread ourselves too thinly, or run before we can walk. Maintaining a surprise band is like a pyramid and this needs to be built on firm foundations, otherwise it becomes too slender and can collapse. However we have a number of other people at the base and we look forward to scoring quite a few doubles quarters with them too.
At Christchurch Isle of Dogs about two months ago we installed sensors on all of the bells to help train a new band. After we saw the latest release of Abel at the Roadshow we installed it and acquired a spare projector (my clients don’t need me to take my own projector to presentations these days). By moving some of the peal boards we had a perfect screen on the opposite wall, with near life-size images of the ringers.
At our tied bell practices over the last couple of weeks we have tried various things, with excellent results. By using the ‘add method’ feature we have been able to add various kaleidoscope exercises (dodging and place making), as well as many of the exercises in ART’s teaching tool box. Even experienced ringers find it difficult to jump in and ring a method straight away on the simulator, but the moving ringers and the use of the various exercises to split down the learning process into small manageable steps really helps.
Our new ringers have been able to progress much quicker than at a normal practice. The problems with a normal practice are that you can only give each beginner two or three ‘prime rings’ in an evening (a touch specifically for them with a strong band around them) – and the experienced ringers don’t want to spend all evening just ringing things for the beginners. With the new release of Abel, I have been able to give the new ringers much more rope time in an hour and a half session, so they get more practice to perfect things, and are being brought on much faster. They also tell me that it is less intimidating, as they are less worried about making mistakes in front of other people.
We were also able to have useful discussions about striking. Without prompting I found that several of the beginners were watching the striking display at the bottom of the screen to see how far out they were. It was particularly useful to slow the peal speed down to 4:30 and to have a discussion about counting your place and including an open hand stroke lead, and then to get them to count along, before gradually speeding up. It was much clearer than doing this in real time.
Teaching people how to lead was also much easier to explain. By slowing the motion down I was also able to show how the treble needs to wait till the tenor is almost catching their sally, before the treble pulls off to start the next handstroke. I know that ropesight is not as accurate as ringing by rhythm, but I am pretty sure that my new ringers are using a combination of both senses. With our multi-bell interface I have also found that two new ringers can practice ringing rounds at once, so long as they are not on adjacent bells – 2 and 6 work well.
Although it’s not the same as ringing with real people, it is far better than previous versions of simulator software and allows us to do far more with our beginners. We have effectively been able to set up a second practice night, without the need to find four more experienced ringers each week, and who are prepared to ring just rounds, call changes, kaleidoscope exercises and plain hunting all night long. Just what is needed if we are to train new ringers, and to enable them to progress fast enough to maintain their interest, on anything like the scale that is required.
Taking the Charmborough Ring to the Bermondsey Street Festival on Saturday was always going to be an interesting experience. The ring captured the imagination of the public, especially the younger members of the local community. Over the space of four hours a steady stream of people came forward. We were able to give each of them a few backstrokes and then they were able to ring the backstrokes in rounds, with experienced ringers ringing the other bells. One young person described the experience as ‘awesome’ and from the smiles on faces, many of whom had visited the face painting stand earlier, many others felt the same too!
Our colourful ‘I rang the bells today’ stickers with the Learning the Ropes logo also proved very popular, and we know that we must have given at least 52 people a go during the course of the afternoon.
We also made some useful contacts in the local community, including the events manager from Southwark Council, who would like us to come to other events next year, and a person from the Riverside Parents Association.
Twelve people have said that they would like to find out more and left their e-mail addresses, and we will be following this up by making contact with them again over the next few days. They have been invited along to Tuesday’s practice for a taster lesson on the dumb-bell and if they are interested the plan is to arrange a course of six intensive ‘one to one’ lessons for each of them over the next fortnight. By the end they should be able to handle a bell on their own, and then join in with the main practice.
If we have a lot of young ringers, we may also arrange some sessions earlier on Tuesday evenings, before the main practice, and incorporate handbells and belleplates to help retain their interest.
