After a period of being without a rector, Richard Bray is due to be licensed as Rector of St Anne’s on Wednesday 3rd September 2014. Richard is married to Jenny and has four children: Timothy, Hannah, Samuel and Isaac. Richard is already involved with leading and preaching sometimes on Sundays in his capacity as Associate Curate. He also co-ordinates the home groups and organises the occasional ‘Who let the Dads out?!’ – St Anne’s dads & toddlers playgroup on Saturday mornings.
Author Archives: Roger
Rotherhithe barbecue success
Yesterday the churchyard at St Mary’s was full of noise, but this was not the ringing of bells; it was the live bands and PA system of the annual parish barbecue. The churchyard was also full of people from the surrounding area, meeting each other and enjoying a range of attractions.
One of these attractions was guided trips up the tower to see the bells, We arrived at 3.30pm and prepared the tower to receive our fist batch of visitors at 4pm. To start with there was a slow trickle, but from about 4.30pm until about 7pm, we were continuously showing people up the tower in groups four to eight at a time. As soon as one group came down, we had more who wanted to go up, and having seen the bells, they were then shown some live ringing and offered the chance of ringing some backstrokes on one of the bells.
Many of the people came from the surrounding blocks, or were members of the church, and had heard the bells ringing before, but did not appreciate how they were rung. We handed out leaflets and explained how they could come along and learn with us if they wished. Several said that they would. At the very least we have succeeded in engaging with the local community and the church family, and have thereby raised our profile. We are very grateful to those who have come along and helped, particularly those from the outer parts of the Surrey Association.
Drew rings his first quarter inside
Yesterday Drew rang his first quarter peal inside. He rang very well, only slipping off the line a few times, but quickly getting back on the line. This also means that he has now achieved ‘Learning the Ropes’ Level 4. Thanks to all those who have helped Drew progress to this milestone, including those who have helped with the recent Saturday Morning Ringing School sessions, and the ringers at Moor House and Farnham. It was particularly appropriate that it was rung at Stone, following his grandfather’s funeral there.
http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=338025
Roger
Tueday night band make progress
Members of the Tuesday night band at Bermondsey and Rotherhithe have made significant progress in March and April, quarter peals having been attempted and scored most weeks, either as part of the Tuesday night specials, or Sunday service ringing at Rotherhithe and Isle of Dogs:
Andrew Larsen has rung his first quarter of Kent Treble Bob Minor on the treble.
Joe Tilley has rung his first of Kent Treble Bob Minor inside.
Eva Redei has scored her first of Doubles on the Treble, and followed this up buy ringing the treble to another in two Doubles methods and the treble to another of Plain Bob Doubles
Jonathan Gregson has also rung his first of Plain Bob Doubles inside, and followed this up by ringing his first of Grandsire Doubles inside and Plain Bob Minor on the Treble
Louise Booth has also conducted her first quarter of mixed doubles.
In addition to these firsts, many other ringers have taken the opportunity to ring and several have also practiced their conducting skills; a total of eighteen ringers having participated (Harry Baulcombe, Andrew Booth, Louise Booth, Roger Booth, Luke Camden, Andrew Clark, Simon Fraser, Colin Friend, Jonathan Gregson, Gillian Harris, Richard Hensman, Andrew Larsen, Elizabeth LeMoine, Nolan Marchand, Eva Redei, Trisha Shannon, Joe Tilley and Mike Todd).
Besides the ones that have been scored, we have also lost quarters of Plain Bob Minor and Plain Bob Triples. Perhaps someone is sending us a message, but over the coming months we will make the effort to help more people move on to ringing Minor and Triples, although we will still need to continue ringing quite a lot of doubles, not only to refine our striking, but also enable those who are currently ringing the tenor behind, or hunting the treble, to move on. We also need to cater for those who are coming through the system and who will soon be ready to attempt their first quarter.
In addition to the quarters, Guseppina and Luigi Vincenti have also achieved their ‘Learning the Ropes’ Level 1 and are now working towards Level 2. There are several other people at the same stage, so it looks like that there is still more progress to be made and many more quarters to be rung.
Roger
Providing more ‘rope time’ to our new ringers
We have a steady stream of people coming to the Bermondsey practices who want to learn to handle a bell, or who can already handle a bell and are learning to ring rounds. The problem is that that the practices are already well attended, and it can be difficult to give everyone, especially new ringers, sufficient ‘rope time’ for them to make reasonably fast progress.
For the last two Saturday mornings we have held an extra practice from 10.00am to 12.00 Noon, one at Bermondsey and one at the Isle of Dogs, specifically targeted at helping those ringers at the rounds stage. We have invited ringers from our neighbouring towers in the Docklands area to both learn and help.
We have followed the ‘Learning the Ropes’ Level 2 curriculum and have introduced them to a graded programme of exercises designed to gradually improve their bell handling and listening skills. This has included ringing not only call changes where bells go quicker or slower one handstroke at a time, but we have also practiced changing places at backstroke, as well as ‘Kaleidoscope’ place making where bells move every handstroke and dodging which involves changing place every handstroke and backstroke.
We have also tried firing the bells and videoing our beginners so that we could discuss how they could improve their handling (however, we seemed to have a problem with the record function on the camera, so this did not work this time).
Another exercise was to ring a tune (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star) on the bells, which meant each ringer setting their bell at handstroke and backstroke. This really demands good bell control and after a few goes everyone seemed to get the idea.
We plan to hold another session next Saturday at Bermondsey, after which we will talk to our beginners and see whether they felt the practices worthwhile, and whether to hold more practices in the new year.
Ultimately it would be good if we could offer each beginner a course or term of targeted sessions, so that each of them can reach the Level 2 objective of becoming a competent rounds and call change ringer. They will then be able to join in on Sundays, and also be well prepared the next stage of learning to plain hunt.
Roger