January 2008
December is usually a busy time for the bell ringers and this year we’ve been busier than ever. We sent a group across to Old Swinford for the Ringers Association carol service at the beginning of the month and created a very good impression with our smart new shirts and fleeces. St Mary’s are having to raise money to repair the stonework of their tower and it was interesting to compare notes.
Later in the month we rang for the carol service of the Women’s Institute and as I write this we’ve still got the Festive Coffee Morning in the Village Hall, carol singing around the village, and all our Christmas Day and New Year duties ahead of us.
Our own planning moves on slowly. We’ve discovered that the frame supporting the bells is not as old or as interesting as we thought it might be and so we might be able to make some modifications. The eight ropes are supposed to hang down from the bells in a circle so that each ringer has an equal amount of space but our bells are arranged rather awkwardly and some ringers have less space than is comfortable. It would be very nice if we could take the opportunity to improve this whilst the bells are out of the tower.
We’ve also been busy at Beoley. Some of us go to their practice sessions to get a bit of experience on different bells but last week we discovered that we’d been co-opted into their Christmas Tree team as well. The Beoley ringers have the job of hauling the tree into church and getting it safely into place; presumably on the grounds that they’re used to ropes and tying things up.
Finally, this is the start of our second full year of fund raising and we’d like to thank everyone who has helped us and supported us during 2007. Over the year there have been far too many to list everyone’s names but in December we were grateful to Blue Box software who have agreed to keep our web site at www.alvechurchbells.org.uk running for another year and to Sue Brotherton who donated the tea and coffee for our coffee morning.
A Happy New Year to all our audience.