District Practice at All Saints Maidstone

Another successful District Practice was held on Saturday 12th May, this time on the beautiful 32cwt ten at All Saints, Maidstone . Twenty-four people attended and enjoyed ringing ranging from Rounds to Cambridge and Yorkshire Royal. Given the weight of the bells the standard of ringing was quite reasonable, particularly by those less experienced in ringing on heavy bells.

Spring Quarterly Meeting

The Spring Quarterly this year was held at West Malling. Around 25 people were in attendance for both the pre-meeting ringing and the meeting itself. The ringing ranged from Rounds and Call Changes to Superlative Surprise Major. Notably we also rang a few courses of Titanic Triples, quite fitting as it was the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic sinking. The meeting was relativley short; however, it did include the election of three new members, two of whom were at the meeting. One item that was raised under AOB was performing a new wedding fee survey. If people would like to participate they should fill out this form and return to Daniel Brady. The data will then be collated and redistributed out to those taking part.

Tom & Jacqueline Barlow Celebrate 40 Years!

On Easter Sunday an afternoon quarter peal of Ruby Delight Major was rung on the back eight at All Saints' Maidstone, to celebrate Tom and Jacky's 40th Wedding Anniversary. After a sucessful and very pleasant quarter peal the band enjoyed some Bubbly and a wonderful cake made by Mike. Click here to see a video clip of the quarter peal.

Maidstone, Kent
All Saints
Sunday 8 April 2012 in 49 mins (32-0-20)

1250 Ruby Delight Major

1 Graham D Heath
2 Jacqueline M Barlow
3 Kath E White
4 Adam A Brady
5 Thomas M Barlow
6 Daniel W Brady
7 Michael A Birkbeck (c)
8 David W Grimwood

Rung on the back eight for Choral Evensong on Easter Day and also in celebration of the occasion of Tom and Jacqui Barlow's Ruby Wedding Anniversary.

Otham's new six installed

On the afternoon of Wednesday 4th April Otham's augmented ring of six rang out for the first time. The back three are the original three, the 2nd and 3rd are Keltek bells (given by the KCACR) and the treble is a new casting by Taylors. For a video of the tryout click here (on Facebook: duration 1:36).

A spring morning at Boughton MonchelseaBoughton Monchelsea

More than 30 people turned up at the District Practice on the 13cwt six at Boughton Monchelsea on Saturday 10th March. It was somewhat reminiscent of the old days, with people waiting their turn to ring, others enjoying tea and biscuits (kindly provided by the local ringers) or standing outside the church enjoying the magnificent views across the Weald and the antics of the young deer in the neighbouring park.

Ringing ranged from Rounds to London Minor, and the first 120 Club draw of 2012 took place. See panel on the right for the winners.

Raising & Lowering Day proves popular

The Raising & Lowering Training Day on Saturday 11th February was a massive success, with more than 20 people attending. The morning session saw up to four people at once learning the skills of raising and lowering individual bells, each under the supervision of an experienced ringer. One such learner together with his mentor are pictured right. In the afternoon many peope attempted Raising and Lowering in peal for the first time.

Anyone who attended is welcome to let the District Committee have feedback on the event by completing the attached survey. It should only take a couple of minutes and is completely anonymous.

Tower Location Sheets

A recent emergency in a tower in our district has brought to light the necessity of being able to quickly and correctly convey your location to the emergency services.

Fortunately accidents and emergencies in the tower are a rare occurence, however I think it is very important that we are prepared. The document below has location information for all towers within the district, in the main part the emergency services are able to locate a tower using the postcode alone, however for some areas which are more rural a postcode may cover a large area so other information is also included.

I ask that you print out the relevent page from the document and display this somewhere in your tower.
Click to download Tower Location Sheets.

Daniel Brady
District Chairman


For earlier news please visit our News page