December 2005
We have had a very busy year in the tower and I hope you've appreciated the difference in our performances. We started the year struggling to get a team together, considering ourselves lucky to have four or five ringers on a Sunday, and wondering whether we'd be able to ring at all next Christmas. We've ended the year having the choice of ten ringers and being able to ring six or eight bells regularly for every service. We've also started being able to ring for special events outside the normal routine, Alvechurch Alight and for the Family Service for example. It's been a good year.
With Christmas approaching we are going to need all the help our new ringers can give. We will be ringing for the Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning services as usual but we're hoping to be able to bring back an old tradition and start a new one.
The old tradition is that we always used to ring out the old year at midnight on December 31st. We've not been able to do this for the past few years because various family commitments meant that one or another of the ringers couldn't make it and we were unable to gather enough of a team. Now that we've got more ringers we can afford to let three or four have the night off and still put on a respectable performance.
The new tradition is that we hope to be able to put together a team for the Middle School's carol concert. We have four pupils from the school who are ready to ring the school into the church this year and we'll volunteer a couple of the older ringers to take over the heavier bells. Next year though I hope we'll have a full team from the school who'll be able to take over the whole performance.
We have one other new non-ringing commitment before Christmas. We'll be in the Ark on December 4th with a stall where we can tell you more about the bells and answer any questions if you're interested in joining us next year.
We'll also be launching our appeal to build up the Bell Fund. Bells don't need much maintenance but our oldest bells date from 1711 and we can only ring them today because three centuries of ringers have looked after them for us. It's now our turn to make good the wear and tear of the last fifty years so that the bells can carry on ringing for future generations of villagers. I hope you'll be able to support us.