Ringers met today to ring a quarter peal on Great Gransden bells. This is the first quarter peal on the bells for eighteen months (9th March 2020), such a long gap whereas we are usually ringing about eight quarters every year, but the Covid pandemic prevented us from ringing very much until now.

It was lovely to meet up with ringing family and friends and we rang a very enjoyable and creditable quarter, being 720 of Single Oxford Bob Minor and a 564 changes of Plain Bob Minor. The ringing took 45 minutes and two minutes of the ringing be heard by clicking this link. It is the end of the Single Oxford and the change over to Plain Bob.

The ringing was very good throughout and we were pleased to be able to slot back into ringing so easily after such a long wait!

Monday 2nd August, the ringers meet with a little apprehension. We are to ring 120 call changes (the extent on 5 bells), which will take about 25 minutes. Most of us haven’t rung for any longer than 10 minutes since Covid restrictions have been eased, and so are a litttle out of practice.

The bells are already up from Sunday’s ringing, so that saves us a job, but it takes us a few minutes to settle into some reasonable rounds, and we had to start again after a few minutes of ringing because someone forgot to switch on the digital recorder!!

Off we go again, and all went well with changes being called approximately every 3 whole pulls, and the extent took 24 minutes to complete.

We were pleased to be able to mark our ringing as a celebration of the birth of David and Sheila Prest’s grandson, Dylan William Brayman Prest on 28th July 2021.

Follow this link to hear the last two minutes of our ringing.

Saturday 24th July 2021

A super Saturday afternoon at the Gransdens’ Societies Fair featuring about 20 village organisations. From bowls club to tennis; from singers, guides and golf, to childrens’ club and horticulture; something for everyone.

The bell ringers were there too, inviting people to ring the Ely Association’s mobile bell. Fifteen people from age 7 to ??? had a go and all were able to ring within a few minutes, the younger ones needing a little extra help, but some coming back later for more practice! Every participant was issued with a complulsory “I rang the mobile bell” sticker; greatly appreciated by children and graciously accepted by adults!We were encouraged to receive many comments about how much people enjoyed the sound of the bells and although we didn’t gain any new recruits our presence at the fair was educational and enjoyable.

Thanks to the Ely DA for loaning the bell, the orgasnisers of the fair for giving us the opportunity to get out into our community, and to all our ringers who helped fly the flag. It was a great day!

We rang the front five bells this morning because it was rather warm, and although it was still relatively cool at 9.15am it was warming up quickly in the mini heatwave! We rang call changes with the 5 in.

Lockdown will be eased on Monday 19th July and the latest CCCBR comunication confirms that all social distancing is off, mask wearing is not complusory, and length of time ringing is up to us. The House of Bishops has issued guidelines and comments and it will be up to individual parish priests and churchwardens as to what, if any advisory measures are put in place.

A copy of the CCCBR statement has been circulated to our ringers and we will discuss this on Thursday 22nd at our practice. Meanwhile, a new risk assessment is being drafted.

Thanks for the feedback on the website so far. I have made some amendments and tried to pick up on typos. Please continue to let me know if you spot any errors (and encourage others to sign up for the updates!).

We had an enjoyable practice on Thursday, with eight in attendance (excellent!). This meant that, due to Covid regs, two had to wait downstairs while the others rang, but there were plenty of volunteers so that everyone had several rings. We continue to ring call changes only and usually for about ten minutes at a stretch, but the quality of the striking is pretty good and I hope were all enjoying it.

As we expect to have all Covid restrictions lifted on 19th July I have set aside Wednesday 21st and Tuesday 27th as possible dates to ring 120 call changes as part of our stamina building initiative. Ringing will last about 30 minutes. I think we will only have enough ringers for one team at the moment, so we’ll decide on the date soon.

I am collecting names for attendance at the Societies’ Fare on the 24th July and although several of us are involved with other village organisations I hope there will be plenty of opportunity for everyone to ring the mobile bell.

We are ringing the SIM next Tuesday 13th at 10.00am, and there is a normal practice on Thursday at 7.30pm. Dont’ forget that we have a calendar on the website which I hope will always be up to date with ringing events.

On Friday 2nd July we held our annual Ringers and Singers safari supper when members of the church choir and the ringers visited three different venues around the village. We had a very relaxing and pleasant time in the balmy evening sunshine, taking the opportunity to explore our hosts’ beautiful gardens. We all met together for the sweet course where some enjoyed a game of croquet until poor light stopped play, but our social chatter continued until well after dusk.Thank you to our hosts for opening their gardens, to Sheila (photo credit) for organising us, and to everyone for their great company.

I have done more work on the website design, creating and adding a site logo which heads each page. The idea is to present a modern look for bell ringing which will be attractive for visitors and new ringers.

I have introduced a QR code to new advertsing posters for church and other notice boards. The code can easily be scanned with a smart phone camera and takes the reader to a 15 second clip of the bells ringing. The website is gradually taking shape and we hope to launch it in the next couople of weeks.

I am currently working on another website as I try to bring together all the information I have on local bell towers and history, so work on this site has slowed for the time being. But, I am experimenting with diferent website themes and have just changed this one. This may not be the finished product as I am still learning my way around WordPress, but hopefully I will have decided on a theme by the time all the pages are fully populated.

I have today added a new page to the website called – “The Restoration Project“

This page includes a summary of the origins of the very extensive tower and bell project of the late 1990s and some of the elements involved. I am currently scanning key documents and have added some already.

I had originally placed this information on the Archive page, but felt that as it is quite an extensive subject it deserves a dedicated page. Still to come – further documents and lots of photographs, but this will happen in due course because I will have to scan them before I can upload them for viewing.

Upgrade? I am currently using the free version of WordPress, which, whilst very useful does have its limitations. Now that I have more of an idea as to how it works and what it can do I will probably upgrade to add further functionality. I will be considering this over the next days.

Feedback – If you have any questions or comments about the website or content please do not hesitate to contact me.

Content on the website is coming along. Pages have been set up with menu headings on each page. Some pages have been populated.

A description of our tower management can be found on the Meet the Ringers page, and a virtual tour of the tower is found on the What’s in the Tower page. Our ringing outings and social activities can be found on ther Archive page.

This is the first Blog post and is in its own way a trial posting.

25th May 2021

As lockdown was eased slightly from 17th May we have been meeting in the tower to ring four or five bells according to the guidelines on social distancing. We had two daytime sessions last week which included most of our ringers. More sessions this week will encompass everyone.

We are ringing on silent bells and using the simulator for the sound. So far, we have rung call changes, just to get back into ringing a bell, but we will soon ventuire into Plain Bob and Grandsire Doubles.