Category Archives: Events

Open towers at Bermondsey and Rotherhithe – 20th June

This Saturday 20th June, between 2.30 and 5.00pm the Docklands Ringers are opening the bell towers at both St James’ Bermondsey and St Mary’s Rotherhithe to members of the public. This is an opportunity to climb the tower to see the bells ringing and watch the ringers pulling the ropes. The art of ringing the changes is quite fascinating and the ringers will explain how it is done. You may even be able to have a quick go – it is great fun.

The eight bells at St James’ were installed in 1990, but replaced an earlier set cast in 1828, reputedly from canon captured at the battle of Sebastapol. The eight bells at St Mary’s were restored in 1996, but six of the bells were originally cast in 1748 and they replace an even earlier set. Both peals of bells therefore have a long history and the bells have been rung to celebrate many historic occasions over the centuries.

There is an active team of ringers who ring at both towers. For those who would like to find out more and have a longer go there will be a ‘taster evening’ at both towers on Tuesday 23rd June 7.30pm – 8.30pm

Surrey Assoc: Method focus day – Docklands area towers

Saturday, 20 Jun 2015, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

We hope to combine the fun of an outing with the support given on a training day.

Ringers will be grouped by ability and assigned helpers.

Students and helpers will then travel round to each tower as set out below. Rotherhithe have their open church afternoon, and they are keen the tower will be open and the bells ringing during the afternoon, good publicity for ringing!

The number of groups we can run depends on student and especially helpers that come forward to help. Until we know that, planning is very, very tricky!

But in principle we would like to have:

Rounds and call changes
Plain Hunt on its own and to method
Plain Bob and or Grandsire inside
Treble Bob Hunting or slightly more advanced

	2.00 till 3.00	3.30 till 4.30	5.00 till 6.00
Group A	St George’s in the East	Rotherhithe	Bermondsey
Group B	Rotherhithe	Bermondsey	St George’s in the E
Group C	Bermondsey	St George’s in the East	Rotherhithe

What to do NOW:

Express your interest to come, especially if you can be a helper
PRINT the POSTER for your tower

From there we can plan and set up groups. It should be a fun day but please let us know whether you will be there so we can plan!!!!

Contact Caroline Prescott (Master of the Northern District of the Surrey Association) directly or via your tower representative for Surrey

Bring your sunglasses!!!

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’

Isle of Dogs simulator on BBC Click programme

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

We taught lions, tigers, wolves, bees…and a policeman!

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.

http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=349774

http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=350033

http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=350034

http://www.bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=350032