I need three more ringers for a funeral at Oundle on 1st July from 12.30 untl just before 1pm. Volunteers to ring the back bells especially welcome. The usual wedding fee of £25 will be paid.

Rgeards

Sue

I am to be interviewed by Kev Lawrence on BBC Cambs Radio tomorrow morning at or after 7:05. The theme is volunteering as a bellringer every Sunday morning. Not sure exactly how it’s going to go – it will be live! Hoping I don’t make an arse of myself and that we get some good PR for bellringing. I am going to (try to remember) to say that we need more learners.

Nick Elks

Calling all fun-loving people to support St. Marys Peterborough charity fundraiser evening, 7pmstart, on Saturday 28th June, of hilarious table-top pig-racing with raffle and interval refreshments (please bring your own drinks and glasses unless you wish to wash-up at the end of the evening!). See attached poster. Tickets from Diana are just £6, email:- diana_cherryfields@yahoo.co.uk please, so we know how many to cater for, thank you.

Sadly St. Marys has no car parking of its own but there is a reasonable fairly large one behind (roundabout exit before church from ringroad side) the church which takes card and, on a good day, cash!

I hope to see you all there supporting a good cause and to have fun amongst super company,

thank you.

from

Diana

I’m going to start with the AGM, which was held on Saturday. Thanks you to the Kettering branch for the arrangements, including the weather, where the sun induced people to spill out of the Church House at Barton Seagrave onto the lawns behind. 

Guild AGM

The AGM was held on Saturday. After a service including a pop quiz on bells, a splendid tea was enjoyed in the adjacent Church House. This was followed by the AGM, at which Simon Dixon stepped down as Master & Jim Bence was elected. Jim & Gwynneth White stood down as Report Editors and Nick Watts was elected. Cat Hemmington was elected as Youth Officer. The post of PRO remains vacant. 

Recruitment & Training Officer. 

In my last mail I sent out the role description for the Recruitment & Training Officer, which had been initiated at the GMC meeting in May, with an introduction from Simon Dixon. At the AGM, the President pushed for a deferral of the appointment until September as only very short notice had been given to members. On a vote, this proposal was agreed by the meeting.  Unfortunately, the existing nomination was not acknowledged, which was regrettable. Concern was expressed from the floor about how this hand been handled from the Chair. As a result, an apology will be sent to the person concerned, thanking them for their willingness to stand and with the sincere hope that they will carry over their nomination until September.

Nominations for this post are, therefore, still open and can be sent to me before the Summer Festival. The role description is attached. 

Social Event – date for the diary. 

After the success of the social events for the Centenary, there will be a social event factored into the Guild’s calendar. We’re starting with a Quiz and fish’n’chip supper on 14^th February 2026. Location TBC and details to follow nearer the time, but please put the date in your diary. And let’s see if I can remember to bring the Guild’s quiz trophy with me this time!

Teachers and ringing

Part of the Ringing 2030 project has been to produce a set of lesson plans suitable for Keystages 2 & 3.  The plans contain lessons with different curriculum focus covering multiple different areas through different aspects of ringing. It aims to familiarise children with ringing, it is not trying to teach them to ring, but that could obviously be an offshoot of this. 

There is now a desire to have teachers of these key stages look at the plans and trial them. They need to work for teachers other than the author of the plans. There will be a zoom meeting on the 20^th July. If you are interested, please register. If you interested but can’t attend, please contact Andrea Haynes, who is running the project: andrea.haynes@cccbr.org.uk. She’s in Rugby direction, so our area’s in a good position for testing0. 

Calling all teachers who ring!

Striking analysis

You may have heard of Hawkear, a system that takes a recording of a piece of ringing and can analyse it for striking and present a graphical display of the ringing – helpful for those of us who think visually. It has not been widely applicable, as the system has to be trained to detect the strike for the bells at the specific tower at which it is installed. 

Oliver Rice had a bit of spare time and has generated an app that can take a recording of any tower and present a similar visual analysis of the striking. He’s called it Brenda, which stands for Bell REcording with Novel Data Analysis. He apologises to anyone called Brenda! 

Oliver posted that “After a month or so of reasonably intense beta testing, I think my striking web app is probably ready for public consumption… I still expect there to be plenty of bugs — please let me know if you find any! I also imagine it’ll crash this evening if lots of people use it, but we’ll see. Many thanks to my beta testers for finding problems and suggesting new things.

Since my last post I’ve added several new features, including a plaintext ‘striking report’ aimed at providing useful feedback, and a ‘touch library’ where you can create and share collections of ringing. 

It can be found at https://brenda.oekrice.com/ . If you don’t have any recordings yet but would like to see what it can do, I’ve uploaded some example touches to https://brenda.oekrice.com/Analyse_Striking…

It has been tested successfully at around 50 towers with a wide variety of bell weights and acoustics, and usually works with ringing chamber recordings unless the bells are particularly indistinct or quiet. It also works nicely with most recordings from the 12 bell website if you’d like to try that.”

You obviously need a recording of a piece of ringing that doesn’t contain too much other noise and each bell can be heard. If anyone tries it, we’d be interested to know what you make of it. 

Wicken church roof

I’ve rung at Wicken several times, but never realised that the chancel ceiling is significant. It is of papier mache and is now to be restored. I’ll try and remember to have a look next time I ring there.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgrdxey9gxo

Dates for the Diary

Guild 10 Bell Practice Saturday 12^th July. 10:30 – 12:30 Higham Ferrers. 

Guild 10 Bell Practice Saturday 12^th July. 10:30 – 12:30 TBC

Guild Summer Festival Saturday 13^th September. Ringing at Yarwell & Wansford, Contest and evening ringing at Castor.

And Branch events. 

Thrapston Branch Practice Thursday 19^th June 2:30 Wadenhoe

Wellingborough Surprise Practice Saturday 21^st June 10:30 Woodford

Daventry Branch Practice Saturday 21^st June 3:30 Church Stowe, 6:30 Pattishall

Culworth Branch Practice Saturday 21^st June 4:00 Lois Weedon, 6:30 Pattishall

Towcester Branch Practice Saturday 28^th June 10:30 Greens Norton

Northampton Branch Practice Saturday 28^th June 2:30 Duston

Thrapston Branch Practice Wednesday 2^nd July 7:00  Titchmarsh

Guilsborough Branch Practice Saturday 5^th July 3:00 Great Oxendon, 6:00 East Farndon

Peterborough Surprise Minor Social Sunday 6^th July 2:30 Nassington

Peterborough 8 bell practice Friday 11^th July, 7:30 Castor

Kettering Branch Practice Saturday 12^th July, Weldon 2:00, Corby 3:15. 

I’d like to thank members for my repeated election as Secretary and to assure them that I will always work to what I believe to be the best interests of the Guild.

Thanks

Helen

Helen Allton

Secretary: Peterborough Diocesan Guild of Church Bellringers

Facebook: www.facebook.com/PDGCBR

Website: www.pdg.org.uk

e-mail: secretary@pdg.org.uk

At the Guild Management Committee meeting held at the end of May it was decided to create a new post of Recruiment and Training officer in order to build upon the work done in training since the end of lockdown. Attached is a suggested job description.   

Anybody wishing to stand for this post would need to be proposed and seconded in writing (email is fine) prior to the day of the AGM. 

If anybody would like to discuss the job please contact the master. 

Regards, Simon

below is the role description

I’m going to start with a thank you. This week has been Volunteers week. Each and every ringer is a volunteer, offering their time, effort and skill to support their tower, their branch and their Guild. Without each of you, there would be a lot less ringing taking place across the diocese. So thank you for turning up and ringing. 

Guild AGM

Talking of turning up, the Guild AGM is fast approaching, it’s on Saturday. The main part of the day will be at Barton Seagrave, with towers open in the afternoon. Details can be found on the website, here:  https://pdg.org.uk/homepage/agm Harrington have been confirmed, so the towers are as listed. 

Please get your names for tea and any dietary requirements to Caroline Mitchell by 9^th June.

See you there!

We still have some posts without nomination, PRO & Report Editor still looking for a volunteer or two… 

VJ Day

Having just got the list of towers that rang for VE day, next on the horizon is VJ Day. There are more details on the CCCBRs website. 

VJ Day

Banners of bellringing

As a cross stitcher, I have sometimes used bellringing methods as patterns for cross stitch. Instead of a note, each bell becomes a different colour. This link gives you an example: https://www.facebook.com/PDGCBR/videos/1745784608932919

But I’ve never done anything on the scale of this project. Edward Bruce is planning on hanging two banners 33 ft long in the crossing of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, in Edinburgh. The video explains more. I particularly like the way the light catches on the material of the woven banners. https://youtu.be/CdtsPaB8KAM

Other means of communication

If you are on Bluesky or Instagram you can follow the Guild feed on both of those platforms. We admit we’re still getting the hang of it! 

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/pdgcbr/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/pdgcbr.bsky.social

Be good to have you along. 

Dates for the Diary

Guild AGM Saturday 14^th June. 1:45 Wilby & Harrington, 2:45 Cranford St John, 3:30 Barton Seagrave for ringing, service, tea & meeting (5:45) and evening ringing. 

And Branch events. 

Thrapston Branch Practice Thursday 19^th June 2:30 Wadenhoe

Wellingborough Surprise Practice Saturday 21^st June 10:30 Woodford

Daventry Branch Practice Saturday 21^st June 3:30 Church Stowe, 6:30 Pattishall

Culworth Branch Practice Saturday 21^st June 4:00 Lois Weedon, 6:30 Pattishall

Towcester Branch Practice Saturday 28^th June 10:30 Greens Norton

Northampton Branch Practice Saturday 28^th June 2:30 Duston

Thrapston Branch Practice Wednesday 2^nd July 7:00  Titchmarsh

Guilsborough Branch Practice Saturday 5^th July 3:00 Great Oxendon, 6:00 East Farndon

Peterborough Surprise Minor Social Sunday 6^th July 2:30 Nassington

See you on Saturday

Helen 

Helen Allton

Secretary: Peterborough Diocesan Guild of Church Bellringers

Facebook: www.facebook.com/PDGCBR

Website: www.pdg.org.uk

e-mail: secretary@pdg.org.uk

Hello all,

Although everyone is welcome to St Mary’s 8 Bell Practice on Sunday, we will have a special method of Double Norwich for those of you who wish to try it.

Kind regards

Elaine & Jane

The 8 Bell Practice at St Mary’s, Peterborough, 8th June will now start at 3. 30pm to accommodate any Cathedral ringers who may wish to attend following their QP.

Just a reminder that there is a £2 fee to all participants to cover a donation to the church/tower.

Looking forward to seeing many if you there.

Kind regards

Elaine & Jane

Calling all fun-loving people to support St. Mary’s Peterborough charity fundraiser evening. A 7pm start, on Saturday 28th June, of hilarious table-top pig-racing with raffle and interval refreshments (please bring your own drinks and glasses unless you wish to wash-up at the end of the evening!). See attached poster. Tickets from Diana are just £6, email:- diana_cherryfields@yahoo.co.uk please, so we know how many to cater for, thank you.

Sadly St. Marys has no car parking of its own but there is a reasonable fairly large one behind (roundabout exit before church from ringroad side) the church which takes card and, on a good day, cash!

I hope to see you all there supporting a good cause and to have fun amongst super company,

Thank you.

Diana

Please note that the venue has changed for this event and now at FOTHERINGHAY and not Cotterstock.

Apologies for the late notice. We have made contact with everyone who told us in advance that they are attending but if you hadn’t let us know hopefully you’ll see this message before you make your way to Cotterstock! There will be a sign on the door explaining it has moved.

Jane