KCACR County page
	Last updated 9 February 2012
	Click here for County officers 2011/2012
	Click here for County events in 2012

District news items appear separately but topics of general KCACR interest are listed below, with the most recent items at the top of the list. Click here if you can't wait to see all the latest local news. If you think your District's offering (or indeed the county stuff) looks a bit dated don't shoot the messenger — send something in!

AGM 2012

Just a preliminary reminder so far, but the AGM will be at Headcorn on Easter Monday 9 April. Full details will appear in due course, but in the meantime a nomination form for the election of officers is available here. Note that Peter Sims (Chairman), Pat Phipps (Treasurer) and Craig Huxley (Handbook Editor) are not seeking re-election, so new candidates to fill their places will be needed. In addition Margaret Funnell (Hon Gen Secretary) has given notice of her intention to stand down in 2013, and it has been suggested that an Assistant Hon Gen Secretary should be elected at the 2012 AGM with a view to him/her taking on the onerous task of Secretary in 2013.

New eight for Kent?

Well, not exactly. We've done some research and, with a bit of help from Dickon Love, come up with the following intriguing story: In April 2011 Buckingham Palace released the news that the Queen's Diamond Jubilee river pageant of 1000 vessels will proceed down the Thames on Sunday 3 June 2012 from Putney Bridge to Tower Bridge. The flotilla, over seven miles long, will be made up of five sections each separated by a "herald barge", the first of which will be a floating belfry containing eight new bells with a tenor of about 9¼ cwt cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. These have been commissioned by the 17th century City church of St James Garlickhythe, Upper Thames Street, just south of the Mansion House, and have been granted the title of "Royal Jubilee Bells" by Buckingham Palace. However, before the bells' epic journey they will visit Kent in May, to be hung in a free standing tower in a warehouse in Edenbridge. Dickon says: After we have rung them a bit, and checked that they all work OK, they will be dismantled and then set up in the Rochester District, on a boat in Gravesend. I expect that this is where the tower will live for a while, although it hasn't yet been finalised. We will be going for a peal on the bells, but I am not yet sure precisely where they will be at that stage! They will then be on display in St James' before being ceremoniously raised into the tower, where it is hoped that they will be ringing by the end of the summer. Further information will be posted here as and when, and there will be more stuff in The Ringing World as time goes on.

Subs for 2012

Subs for 2012 are now due and, as there was a change at last year's AGM, it seems a good idea to publish the new rates here. They are:

Practising members: £10
Practising members under 18 or over 65: £5
Practising members in fulltime education: £5 [note that this is a new category brought in at the 2011 AGM]
Members over the age of 65 who have paid 25 consecutive annual subscriptions: free
Life subscription: £150
Associate members: not less than £1*
Non-resident life membership: £7.50*

*Note that associate and non-resident life members are not entitled to vote at KCACR meetings

Quarter peal update

Anthony Leeves, our Quarter Peal secretary, has produced a brief report on quarter peals rung during 2011. He says:

Over 1,000 quarter peals have been recorded as rung in the Association's area in 2011, the first time that this has been achieved since these records were started in 1998. My full comments for 2011 quarter peals will be posted on the QP website in February when I send the details to Craig Huxley for the Handbook. Suffice it to say that the leading conductors (so far) were Mike Little (152) and Graham Coker (151) followed by Mark Chittenden-Pile with 50. Cathryn Hills is again the leading lady conductor. The leading towers were Birchington, All Saints (89), Great Chart (60) and Kennington (59).

8-bell striking competition

The method for the 8-bell striking competition on 30 June 2012 is Single Oxford Bob Triples, and we're grateful to Don Niblett for suggesting a suitable touch, details of which are below:

210 Single Oxford Bob Triples

   234567
   275634
   246375
-  752346
-  467352
   423567
Repeat twice

It is given on page 65 of The Ringing World Diary for 2012

Handbook 2012

To clarify timings for everyone involved it was decided at the November general committee meeting that the timetable for production of this year's KCACR Handbook should be published on the website, so here it is:

Perhaps it would be helpful to begin with the chronology of events following the publication of 2011's Handbook on Easter Monday 25 April 2011:

1. The Handbooks having gone into general circulation ahead of the meeting, it was quickly brought to my attention that there were some issues, namely that a batch of books had problems with pagination and that some peals were missing. The extent of the problem was not clear: as far as I was concerned, the Handbooks were correct.
2. Lengthy discussion ensued at the meeting regarding the issues with the Handbook and I reported that the Handbook was correct at the time of going to print. It was proposed from the floor that the Handbooks be sent back to the printers in order for the problems to be rectified.
3. Following the meeting, I gathered as many Handbooks as I could (unsure of whether or not some batches had gone into circulation; it came to my attention a couple of weeks later that some had gone into circulation) in order that I could get them back to Canterbury and return them to the printers for checking.
4. Due to my work commitments, it was difficult to arrange a mutually convenient time for the printers to collect the Handbooks, so there was a delay of a couple of weeks before the Handbooks were returned to the printers.
5. I went back to my original digital copy to try to ascertain exactly what had happened. When Frank Lewis and I compared notes, it seems that the Handbook was correct during proofreading, but the copy that went to the printers and the copy that I used to check the proofs were incorrect — this is why I did not notice any problems when I was checking, because the two copies matched. I suspect that this was a problem with the way in which my files were saved on my computer. I made this clear to the County Chairman when I had realised what had happened.
6. The pagination of some of the Handbooks remained an issue. The printers checked every copy to discover that only 24 copies were rejects. This number was accounted f or in the "overs" (spare copies at the end of a print run).
7. It was decided that the Handbooks would be redistributed along with a peal supplement and the missing peals would be reproduced in the 2012 Handbook.

Ringing for England

The following letter has been sent to the Association General Secretary, urging ringers to get in touch about ringing on St George's Day. It seems that it might be possible to get a mention on The Archers if enough folk make contact.

Dear Secretary,

In 2010 the first year of this campaign we managed to get the BBC on board and I also tried to engage with The Archers. In my ignorance I did not realise they required at least a six-month lead in for any inclusions. As a result we missed out. However, I contacted them again and hip hip hooray, they ARE interested. As a result, before they commit themselves to us they have to know that you are going to commit to the campaign and ring out across the land on 23 April. So —

Could you please contact all your bands and ask them if they are willing to join in. Of course I understand it is not possible for everyone to say yes but if we could get a good majority signed up and who knows more might be able to come on board nearer the time.

At the same time could you also ask them whether they concur with a communal 6 o'clock in the evening ring. This was put forward by me initially because I felt it was the best time to catch as many people as possible who would be out and about and so more exposed to your wonderful work. Again not everyone will be able to but if we could get a good majority then this could be put out as part of the campaign. 23 April will be a Monday in 2012 so a weekday will catch all the commuters etc.

This information is required urgently by the BBC producers so in order to keep their interest alive could you please email me back AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

My Best Regards, Libby Alexander.

Ringing for England Campaign, libby@ringingforengland.co.uk

We don't know who Libby is, although we do know she is based in Putney. As she refers to "your wonderful work" we assume she's not a ringer, but could get us a decent bit of PR from the Beeb.

Striking competition rules

Rupert Cheeseman from the Lewisham District has proposed a number of changes to KCACR striking competition rules, and his suggestions are available in a PDF file, accessible here. A lot of his thoughts make a lot of sense, while others may prove more controversial. Download a copy and have it on the agenda for the January quarterly meetings. We'd like your feedback. Note that a slightly tweaked version of Rupert's draft was uploaded on 6 December, so if you downloaded your copy before that date, then it might be an idea to go for the lastest opus, which is dated 6 December at the foot of page 2.

Risk assessment

Peter Sims, who's not only County Chairman but also our Health & Safety Advisor, sends this covering note (revised on 17 November 2011), together with a sample risk assessment form. In addition to the .PDF version mentioned below, there is also an Excel file, which users are able to modify to suit local needs.

Church authorities (PCCs and churchwardens) have a legal obligation to carry out risk assessments for all the activities in the church, including that of ringing and day-to-day maintenance of the bells. Apart from the legal requirement it makes sense to think of: "what things can go wrong, then trying to think of simple, sensible ways of preventing them". Avoiding accidents is beneficial to us all.

For most churches, the PCCs and wardens will not have sufficient understanding of ringing to be able to do this assessment properly, it is therefore probably best done by one of the ringers, but this should always be done in conjunction, and in full consultation, with the church authorities.

There are many, many ways of carrying out risk assessments. The attached example is based on the latest guidance from the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). The intention is to keep it simple and only consider the obvious hazards (things that can cause harm).

I have tried to give a worked example for a typical tower, but every ring of bells will be different, eg ground floor rings, those in the transept etc, all have their own sets of hazards although many are common to all towers. Please use the example as a guide, changing, adding or deleting as necessary.

The columns should be self explanatory, but the example lists most of the normal hazards, with typical ways in which they can frequently be minimised (or ideally removed altogether).

If you think that you could sensibly do more on a particular item, add into the next column what is to be done — remember to keep it realistic and practical — rebuilding the tower to provide an alternative escape route in case of emergencies, may be desirable, but usually highly impracticable!

Don't forget to involve the wardens etc in making your recommendations for improvements where it involves them. Make sure at the end that they are given a copy, so that it can be included within the main church risk assessment and also so that they can implement and monitor the changes needed from them (repairs to steps, improvements in lighting etc).

Having completed the document, there is no reason why a copy can't be left on display in the tower if you want to but, at the very least, its findings in terms of what the ringers need to do should be brought to everyone's attention as necessary.

If you are still having difficulties, please contact me for further advice/guidance — my snail mail address is in the Handbook and on the officers page of this website.

In extreme situations, it should be practical to arrange for a special visit to assist or give advice (not to do it for you — unless you require a paid consultant!).

Peter adds a caveat (17 November 2011) following an incident at Northfleet in early November 2011, when all six ringers and three members of the choir had to be taken to hospital by four ambulances as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning from the boiler positioned on the ground floor below the ringing chamber.

Thankfully all are OK and were released from the hospital after five hours of surveillance.

It would appear that there was a major leak in the flue just above the boiler that was serviced on the previous Friday or Saturday! The whole thing is being investigated by the police and local EHO and being treated as a crime scene.

This has highlighted a very important omission in the tower risk assessment that I did and the draft on the website (rev3). I have added a small bit onto the end of the form, which is now renamed rev4. The links above now call up the new documents.

Peter Sims, MCIOB, TechIOSH, RMaPS, MIIRSM
KCACR Safety Advisor

Tower listing

In November 2011 we changed the mapping for grid references and we now use StreetMap. The earlier, Multimap, system was unfortunately taken over by Microsoft and converted to Bing. Despite many complaints from various groups Bing didn't seem able to cope with OS references. StreetMap is still a British company and it's to be hoped that they will support grid references for the foreseeable. All codes have been converted (and tested), but if you spot any anomalies, please let Webmaster know asap. The flipside of this is that we have to put up with a certain amount of ads, but this seems a reasonable price to pay for a working system.

For the benefit of SatNav junkies all towers now have a postcode allocated to them. These have been shamelessly lifted from Doves Guide online, to whom thanks, and should be accurate. If, however, you spot any errors please let Webmaster know as soon as possible. Quite a few of the postcodes have been amended following updates for the 2011 Handbook.

Brian Butcher

We were glad to receive (22 October) the following from Brian: I have been in hospital for a week after a biopsy caused sepsis, but the biopsy showed no cancer and the first one showed only a small sample in 1 out of 12 so I am now back on active surveillance with blood tests at three months and a further meeting with the consultant in a year's time if the bloods are OK.

KCACR membership nomination form

An updated version of the membership form (version 2.8) is now available from this site, and may be retrieved by clicking here. This is only a slight modification of the previous version, but it takes into account the amended rule 4.

Note that this form is in PDF format and requires Acrobat Reader to access and print it. If you haven't already got a copy of Acrobat Reader it may be downloaded from a number of Internet sites — or it often appears on CDs attached to computer magazines. If all else fails, get someone else to download it for you (they'll have to do your printing for you, too).

County six-bell competition 2011

It was a lovely warm and sunny day when all six Districts assembled at Hunton for the annual six-bell striking competition. The draw took place at 2.45 pm; Tonbridge District had requested to ring first as one of their band needed to go early. Ringing commenced at 3.00pm.

Graham Haywood from Nottingham had found a place in the churchyard from which to hear the ringing and judge the competition.

Tea was provided as a running buffet in the village hall just opposite the church.

After all bands had rung the judge gave his comments on the ringing. He said that while the standard was very high, the speed of ringing was in two distinct groups. Further the treble and two were the most difficult bells to ring. He gave out the faults incurred as he went along and at the end it was revealed that St Dunstan's Canterbury had won by half a fault.

The trophy was then presented to the winning band by David Manger.

Daniel Brady thanked Graham Haywood for judging and the Churchwardens and the ringers of Hunton for the tea.

posn	District	rang	represented by	faults
1st	Canterbury	5th	St Dunstan, Canterbury	13
2nd	Maidstone	2nd	All Saints, Maidstone	13½
3rd	Rochester	4th	Meopham	15½
4th	Lewisham	6th	Beckenham	17½
5th	Tonbridge	1st	Hadlow	33
6th	Ashford	3rd	Frittenden	35½

David Manger (centre) presents the trophy to Len Huckstep (right), assisted by Graham Hayward

Margaret Funnell

The Essex Trophy 2011

The 2011 Essex Trophy 10-bell striking competition took place at St Peter's, St Albans in Hertfordshire on 10 September, with six teams entering. Ian Mills sends us this report:

Seven "Ringers of Kent" and three "Kentish Ringers" ventured to St Albans to attempt to ring a faultless plain course of London (No 3) Surprise Royal, this year's test piece for the Essex Trophy. The band consisted of 70% Lewisham District, 20% Ashford District and 10% Maidstone District ringers.

Six teams entered and Kent rang third, with a creditable performance, which impressed the graveyard pundits. Alas, the team that rang last impressed the judges, John and Cathy Hughes-D'Aeth, even more. Every team made it through to the end of their test piece, but none of them managed to complete the test piece without at least one trip being made.

For the second year running, Kent came a close second, displaying a measure of consistency that neither this year's nor last year's winners can claim to share. This mixed-District band should be proud of their achievement.

Next year, a different approach will be used; the Kent band will be organised by the District that wins the Kent 10 Bell Challenge Competition. This will be held on 25 February 2012 and the Essex Trophy will be seven months later, on 8 September 2012.

I would like to thank the KCACR General Committee for giving me the opportunity to organise the Kent band for two years running, but after two unsuccessful attempts to win the trophy, I appreciate what an achievement it was for the Kent band that won it 26 years ago.

Ian Mills

The Kent band: front row (l to r): 1: David Hilling, 2: Liz Barnes, 3: Gwen Rogers, 4: Peter Swift, 5: Damien Smith, back row (l ro r): 6: Mark Chittenden-Pile, 7: David Macey, 8: Colin Wyld, 9: Ian Mills, 10: Phil Rogers

The 2012 competition will be hosted by the Sussex County Association, venue tba.

The full Essex Trophy results are available on the EACR website at www.eacr.org.uk/essextrophy. Summary results are at the bottom of the page as before and a detailed table is available by following the "Full Results" link.

KCACR rules

Some changes were made to the Association rules at the 2011 AGM, but until a member pointed out the fact recently, we hadn't managed to get them online. This has now been rectified and the April 2011 version is now accessible. The relevant changes affect rules 4 and 16(ii).

Tower location sheets

Daniel Brady from Staplehurst has come up with a great idea. He writes:

Attached is a document similar to one I have produced for the Maidstone District. Each page has the location information for one tower. This is designed to help emergency services find a church as quickly as possible. While the Handbook does now have tower postcodes these sheets also have grid reference, latitude and longitude, just in case a postcode does not correctly pinpoint a tower. I propose that we encourage towers to display these sheets in the tower somewhere to cover the, hopefully unlikely, event that it needs to be used.

There is a page for every tower in the KCACR area, in a PDF file. Click on this link to open the file. You don't have to download or print the whole shooting match, but you can locate your tower and print just the one page you need. It's quite a good idea to have several copies, possibly one each for the ringing chamber, porch, vestry or wherever seems logical.

County quarter peal week 2012

Following a recommendation by the general committee and mention at the 2011 AGM it was decided to hold a KCACR quarter peal week in 2012 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen's accession. The original dates chosen were in February, but it's been pointed out that the national celebrations will be during the first week of June. Therefore, at the general committee meeting in August it was decided to change the dates to 1 - 10 June 2012. OK, it's a bit more than a week, but we get two weekends this way. It is hoped that we can ring a quarter in every ringable tower in the county. Further details will be published in due course, but make a note in your diary NOW.

County 10-bell challenge 2012

At the county general committee meeting on 20 August it was decided to mount a county inter-District 10-bell challenge competition, to be held on 25 February 2012. Further details will appear here as soon as they become available, but if your District is interested in entering/taking up the challenge book the date now.

County 8-bell competition 2011

The 2011 competition was held on 2 July at Chelsfield in the Lewisham District, and five out of the six Districts attended and attempted the set piece of a course of Uxbridge SM.

As it was a warm sunny day the judges, Mary Holden from St Mary Abbots, Kensington and Robert Sworder of Southwark Cathedral, were able to sit in the churchyard to carry out their duties.

The draw took place at 2.45pm with ringing commencing at 3.00pm. Canterbury District who were drawn to ring first requested to ring last as two of their band were caught up behind an accident on the M2.

Lewisham District served a running buffet with plenty of cups of tea which were very welcome. Some photos of the event appear below. Click on the thumbnails to display a larger picture. If you hover your cursor on the left or right of a picture you'll see a "prev" or "next" box. Click on these to navigate. When you've had enough click on "close".

After all bands had rung Peter Sims welcomed the judges and all who had participated. The judges then gave their deliberations and the results. Mary Holden said the bells were challenging and the bands that got to grips with the odd struckness quickly performed best. The winner was Lewisham District to whom the trophy was presented.

Dominic Meredith thanked the judges for coming and presented them with tokens.

Margaret Funnell

The full results were as follows:

For anyone interested in trivia, a photo of the trophy and a list of winners appears below.

The KCACR 8-bell competition trophy

By some lucky chance webmaster just happened to have the KCACR 8-bell striking competition trophy in his kitchen early in September 2006 and he decided to take a photo — after all not everyone in the county has had a chance to see it yet. So here it is in all its glory, with a list of the holders of the trophy over the past 27 years. The trophy had to be expanded in 2009 and now looks rather different, so in the updated picture it's not sitting in webmaster's kitchen or on a tombstone in Chelsfield churchyard, but on Rupert Cheeseman's lawn [thanks Rupert for the updated (and highly polished) photo].

For those not too sure about the 8-bell striking competition, a few explanatory words might be in order. The 6-bell competition starts with a competition in each District, and the winners in each District represent that District at the County final. The 8-bell version, on the other hand, is organised around teams selected by Districts to take part, so there is no local contest. You'll notice that Lewisham and Tonbridge have quite often been winners and for quite some time there's been some pretty intense competition going on there — and long may it last!

The trophy		The winners
		1985 Ashford 1986 Lewisham 1987 Lewisham 1988 Lewisham 1989 Tonbridge 1990 Tonbridge 1991 Lewisham 1992 Lewisham 1993 Lewisham 1994 Ashford 1995 Tonbridge 1996 Lewisham 1997 Canterbury 1998 Lewisham 1999 Tonbridge 2000 Lewisham 2001 Canterbury 2002 Tonbridge 2003 Lewisham 2004 Canterbury 2005 Rochester 2006 Tonbridge 2007 Canterbury 2008 Tonbridge 2009 Ashford 2010 Canterbury 2011 Lewisham

A loo by any other name?

The Bishop of Rochester paid a visit to a KCACR church recently. One of the ringers spotted this juxtaposition of notices at the foot of the tower, and took a photo. Webmaster thought it was humorous enough to warrant posting to the website (though some might consider this a warped sense of humour). Of course we're not at liberty to divulge the location, but quite a few folk will recognise it instantly!

County AGM 2011

The AGM was held at Speldhurst on Easter Monday 25 April. The service in the parish church was taken by Karol Leeves, a reader and also a ringer, and was attended by over 60 members.

A delicious lunch was then served to over 50 people in the village hall and was followed by the EGM. This started at 2.55pm and was called in order to reverse the allocation of subscriptions for 2011 to ensure the General Fund had sufficient funds to meet our outgoings. The motions was carried.

The AGM started immediately and over 88 members and friends attended. The usual reports were presented and it was agreed that subscriptions would increase to £12 for full members and pro rata for others from 2012 and further that for 2012 all subscriptions would go into the General Fund.

Kate Flavell, Vice President of the Central Council gave an interesting speech on Central Council Communications.

The two rule changes proposed were both carried — full details were on the Agenda for the meeting.

All officers were re-elected for a further term (details on the Officers page on the left). Four members received 50-year membership certificates.

It was suggested and agreed that an Association Quarter Peal Week be held in February 2012 to coincide with the Diamond Anniversary of the accession of the Queen (further details above).

The meeting finally closed with a vote of thanks given by Mr Manger to all involved with the day.

Margaret Funnell

Handbells at Ringing World centenary

For those who weren't able to be there (or if you were there and would like to hear it again), this is a link to the fabulous touch on 24 handbells on 26 March 2011 at Central Hall Westminster.

. . . and just for fun (it is handbells after all) you might like to give this one a go.

Porch notice online

For ages now the KCACR has had in its reams of paperwork available to ringers a porch notice card on which ringing times and contact details may be entered. These have always been (we think) free of charge and available from District bookstalls. For some reason, though, they've never been available online — until today that is. Thanks to Ian from Sandwich for what should really have been a no-brainer all along.

To access the porch notices (printed 2-up on A4) simply click here. You can either download the file (PDF) or just print it as is.

Bells from Kent II

Following on from the story below we now learn that the other bell from Abbey Antiques in West Malling is being relocated to St Peter's College, Johannesburg, South Africa, to become the tenor of a light ring of six being installed there. The bell from the Brasted back garden is also going to St Peter's. Gives a new twist to that immortal phrase about "there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England". Further detail will be published as and when we get it. Meanwhile the photo below shows the Brasted bell (Warner's 1887 and rumoured to be ex-Westerham fire station) in its previous rural home.

Modification to tower listing

For the benefit of SatNav junkies all towers in the towerfile listing now have a postcode allocated to them. These have been shamelessly lifted from Doves Guide online, to whom thanks, and should be accurate. If, however, you spot any errors please let Webmaster know as soon as possible. Being of the old school Webmaster really feels that all ringers should use OS maps rather than this newfangled technology stuff, but I suppose one has to move with the times — eventually.

Bells found in antique shop

Fraser Clift from Kemsing sends us this interesting snippet:

In late April 2010 I was alerted to the fact that a couple of "small bells" had been spotted in an antique shop in West Malling. We popped over to see them at the weekend, and guessed (probably incorrectly, judging by the Imber tenor weight) that they were about 1 cwt (John Taylor) and maybe 3-4 cwt (Mears and Stainbank, 1905). I immediately contacted Dave Kelly, Secretary of The Keltek Trust, who purchased them on a visit to Kent in May (when he also took a bell found in a garden at Brasted).

At the end of August I received an email from Dave saying that the smaller of the two bells acquired from Abbey Antiques was installed at Imber church on 30 August. Details of the installation may be found at http://www.btinternet.com/~keltek/imber.html

There may be a lesson here: anybody coming across old bells for sale, or going begging, should either contact Keltek, or pass the information on to me or Brian Butcher and we'll forward it to them. I've recently been given information about a bell in a Hastings antique shop, with possibly more at a redundant chapel in Pembroke. Watch this space!

The New Ringer's Book

There is now a really splendid new book for new ringers (the title is purposely ambiguous) available. This is the first book of its kind and one of the co-authors is none other than Auntie Catherine, one time KCACR Training Officer. This is a book like no other book on ringing. When did you last come across a 160-page book on the basic elements of ringing which contained over 250 coloured photos plus loads of coloured diagrams? Not only this, but most of the photos involve bells (and belles) in Kent. Even the front cover includes no fewer than seven photos taken in Kent.

Catherine writes:

The Central Council Education Committee has taken years to produce The New Ringer's Book, which has been through several incarnations along the way. It is decades since I first felt the need for such a book, particularly for beginners. It is for this reason, not because by some chance my name appears on the cover of the final version, that I do hope everyone will find it useful. Those involved with writing it have actually learnt (and debated!) a lot along the way — and so it seems reasonable to expect that even experienced ringers/teachers will be able to find something of value in its pages.

Email addresses on website

Urgent need for publicity

As most KCACR members know, we don't currently have a Publicity Officer (or PRO if you will), so we asked the last holder of the office, Peter Dale, to send us a job spec for anyone thinking about taking on this valuable job.

Any organisation that doesn't advertise its activities doesn't deserve to flourish, and the Association is still without a Publicity Officer nearly a year after I relinquished the post at the AGM in 2009. Surpisingly this important and interesting role doesn't require a great deal of time or effort so I'm at a loss to understand why nobody was prepared to take it on.

As I view it, it is a twofold responsibility. Firstly it involves gathering details about ringing events and communcating them to the membership; secondly there is the need to keep the public informed about what we do, and it can all be done from the comfort of one's computer desk.

I have one mailing list of ringers' addresses, and another list with addresses of contacts in the media. Admittedly they are not as extensive as I would want, and they'll need updating now. Every month or so, if I remembered, I'd send an email to the ringers' list reminding everyone to tell me about events they had planned, or any other noteworthy news. I'd forward any reply back to the list, usually with a bit of tweaking to make the piece more readable.

For any items of interest to the general public I would send a brief email with outline facts to the media contacts, giving my contact information for further details. It was a system that worked very well, with minimum effort on my part. I urge people not to be backward about coming forward to be nominated for this crucial work.

Peter Dale

New! County bookstalls online

A list of all books, CDs, ties etc available from District bookstalls around the county has been added to the site. This is not yet complete, since it's hoped to add links to the Central Council bibliography page in due course. In the meantime any thoughts or comments would be welcome. Click here for access.

Child protection

Child Protection now has a separate page — see item on left.

Imagine

No, the KCACR hasn't taken on a music critic, but we thought ringers in general might be intrigued by these two links to YouTube. You've probably read/heard about the rendition of John Lennon's Imagine on the bells of Liverpool Cathedral. This took place on 16 May 2009 as part of Liverpool's Futuresonic (an Urbanfest of art, music and ideas), and was performed three times between 12 and 1pm on that day. The first link is an external view, while the other is an internal view showing the ringers doing their stuff. Well worth a click we thought. (Talking of clicks, you may find that the best way to make the thing work is to right click on the link and select "open in new window".)

Training officer

The long and short of it is that we currently don't have one. We are in need of one however, someone to take on a really satisfying and truly worthwhile role. Catherine Lewis, who did the job for 15 years, says she really enjoyed it, but felt she'd probably got in a bit of a rut and a change was needed. She has written some notes on the skills/qualities she thinks are necessary, along with a few words on how she did the job (just to give an idea of how it can work) — they are available here.

The Jubi Peal Walter Dobbie's portable Silver Jubilee ring (the Jubi Peal) is now being looked after by Charles Tassell at Ulcombe. Requests to borrow this equipment should be made to Charles on 01622 858733 or email to charles@tassell.co.uk. There is no hire charge, but a donation to the BRF will be requested.

The Jubi Peal in action

County events in 2012

Hard hat area

The shot on the right shows a safety fence erected around building work at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Should we be proud that a ringer is being used to demonstrate safety measures? Or is the recent spate of dodgy publicity having the wrong effect? Thanks to Brian Butcher for the photo.

Cloches de verre

The photo on the left shows one of those typical French enamelled advertising panels, this one having a fairly topical content for ringers. We've come across ceramic (flowerpot to you and me) bells, but there must be a case [pun noted, but not necessarily intended] for producing bottle bells. This particular panel is available for sale on one or two websites, and it looks as though it might be going for a couple of hundred euros. Thanks to Fraser Clift of Kemsing for spotting this one

Mills & Boon in Kent?

At the service at a recent District meeting we were intrigued to see that one of the hymns appeared in the service sheet as "As pants the heart for cooling streams". Will the ripping of soft silk blouses come next, we wonder?.

Framework for training ringers

The Education Committee of the Central Council has produced a Framework to help bands, whatever their local circumstances, to take a more systematic approach to the way they train their learners. The Framework covers all angles, but is not prescriptive. Its headings cover all aspects relevant to training, and the statements under each heading describe objectives that good practice will achieve, but it's down to each band to decide how to get the best results.

The easiest way to use the Framework is as a checklist. For each aspect, does the way you do things take account of it? Is it practical (taking account of your situation)? Do you need to do anything about it? Could you explain why you do what you do, if anyone asked?

The Framework headings can also provide the structure for a written code of practice for your tower, if you ever needed to produce one.

Articles describing the history and development of the Framework were published in The Ringing World on 21 October 2005 (p1010)*, 12 May 2006 (p446) and 9 June 2006 (p542).

*A copy (in PDF format) of this article is available here.

If you have any comments or questions, please please contact the Chairman of the Central Council Education Committee at edchair@cccbr.org.uk.

Lock up your lightning conductors

No, this doesn't apply to ringers of fast peals, but to those bits of copper that run down the side of your towers. With scrap copper fetching about £2900 per tonne (that is about £1.30 a pound in real money) easily nickable sections of lightning conductor (LC) are a worthwhile source of revenue for certain types of villain. After all, many LCs are in obscure parts of the church, often out of sight from the road, and all you need is a lightweight ladder and a pair of cutters and — bingo! — you can snip out about 10 quids' worth of copper in no time at all.

There has been a spate of this sort of thing for a while now. Several churches around the Stockton / Darlington area have been targeted, plus three towers (and the town hall) around Cleckheaton. Nearer home, Limpsfield Chart, just over the border in Surrey, lost about 20 feet of LC. The latest attack was at Brasted, where no fewer than three LCs were cut off in their prime. The perpetrators here weren't too clever, since one of the LCs was actually an aluminium one — but the damage was still done.

There probably isn't any way to stop this sort of thing, and we don't know if there are any means of protecting LCs. Also it's not too clear whether periodical checks by steeplekeepers serve much purpose (the s/k at Brasted checked about three weeks prior to the theft) but maybe ringers could provide a useful service to their churches by having a quick shufti at the LCs on their towers every now and then. The folk at Brasted were going to have a simulator practice the other night, but it had been a stormy and thundery day, so it was felt that it might be safer to abandon the event.

A great pity, really, to be held to ransom by a few mindless yobs.

Email addresses for KCACR officers

Following a suggestion made at a recent general committee meeting, generic email addresses have now been set up for Association officers. These addresses will remain static whoever actually holds the office. So, if Fred Bloggs takes over from Frank as webmaster, Fred's email address will remain webmaster@kcacr.org.uk.

KCACR and Bell Restoration Fund Rules

Know your rights! An up-to-date copy of the KCACR Rules is now provided on the website as well as in the annual Handbook. This will be modified as and when any changes are made, so the version here will always be the latest. To download your copy of the Rules as a PDF file click here.

Insurance update

The following is a brief résumé of the Association's insurance cover.

The Association has two insurance policies to protect its members.

Personal accident insurance

This provides cover in the event that a member is injured in an accident, resulting in permanent or temporary disablement, or in death. The level of cover (as at January 2011) is as follows:

Temporary total disablement has an excess of the first seven days, and cover does not extend beyond 104 weeks from the date of the occurrence of the accident.

Members are covered while ringing, instructing, inspecting, or doing work of any description on towers and/or bells and/or their fittings and framework anywhere in the UK, including travelling directly to and from the church or up to wherever there is a break in the journey. Learners who have not yet been elected members are included whilst under instruction by a member of the Association.

Public liability insurance

This gives protection against claims from third parties for compensation following accidental injuries to persons and/or damage to property. The policy held by the Association provides indemnity up to £2 million for any one occurrence, or series of occurrences arising from one event. Property damage is subject to a £250 excess.

Members are covered while ringing, instructing, maintaining, inspecting, or doing minor repairs on towers and/or bells and/or their fittings and framework anywhere in the UK. Minor repairs in this context consist of any works not involving removing the bells from the frame, and are restricted to internal work only. Member to member cover is no longer provided, but this should be covered under the Liability element of a member's household Contents policy since the member would be acting in a private capacity and any claim would fall upon this insurance.

Major works will be offered to a church by the BRF subcommittee on the understanding that the church is responsible for insurance.

Note from the General Secretary

The above is only an outline description of the general circumstances that could give rise to a claim, the persons covered under those circumstances, and the maximum levels of cover to be expected. Please direct any questions about particular scenarios to me (margaretkcacr@aol.com) so that I can seek a definitive ruling from the insurers.

Guidelines for BRF grant applications and practical assistance

The KCACR Bell Restoration Officer has drawn up a set of guidelines to be applied by local fundraisers when applying to the KCACR for a grant towards work on bells.

KCACR can help with bell restoration in two ways

1. By practical help in doing some of the work or, in some cases all of the work, in the tower.
2. By financial assistance in the form of a grant.

For the full guidelines and the opportunity to download a PDF version, click here.

The church bells of Kent

This is a site compiled and maintained by Dickon Love and contains details of all the towers within the area of the KCACR which have three or more bells hung for ringing. Each tower entry includes a tower picture, details of current and previous bells and tower history. In some cases there are links to tower home pages and pictures of the bells. There are also quite a few files of sounds of the bells.

So if you haven't visited CBofK recently, then here's yer chance. Click here to go there right away.

KCACR membership — what's in it for me?

[The following article by Peter Sims in an Ashford District Newsletter some time ago seems to answer a lot of questions we hear voiced from time to time. Any comments to webmaster or Peter would be appreciated. — Ed]

As a relatively long serving member of the Ashford District Committee and District Representative on the County Committee of the KCACR I am often asked questions like: Are there any benefits of me being a member? What do I get for my annual subs? Where does all the money go? or, Why can't I be a ringer without bothering having to join the KCACR? All very good questions and effectively asking, "What does the Association do for its members?"

For a normal member the fee is £10 per year (very cheap by anybody's reckoning — about 3-4 pints of beer, or 2-3 weeks average spend on the lottery). "But what do I get for it?" is the normal response. First and foremost the fact of being a member of a long established charitable ringing association — the only one that covers the whole of Kent, which in turn is part of the national Central Council of Church Bell Ringers. Maybe the objects of the Association should be used as a reminder of what it is all about:

The establishment, maintenance and encouragement of service ringing in the churches in its area: the recognition of ringers as church workers and the proper care and use of bells and belfries; the cultivation of the art of change ringing.

How do we go about trying to achieve this? The answer is: in a variety of ways, but primarily the ringers from the Districts meet on a monthly basis to share time together, practise things they might not otherwise be able to ring and generally share good news and bad news alike, encouraging and helping each other wherever practical. Many members frequently go to other towers to assist at weekly practice sessions, and quite a few help out with Sunday service ringing at other towers in addition to their own.

But who gets my £10 per year? Around 50% of all subs goes immediately to the Bell Restoration Fund, whereby it is used to keep bells around the county in a suitable state for ringing. The latest grant was £4000 to Eastchurch - a small parish church with a population of a few hundred. Without this grant towards the overall cost of £16,000 for major works the bells would probably have fallen into a permanent state of disrepair. Fundraising for similar projects forms a significant part of our activities. Of the remaining £5 approx £1.50 is paid on insurance for all members. Insurance carried by individual churches for ringers varies considerably and in some instances doesn't even exist. The insurance via KCACR covers all paid up members for both personal accident (whereby the individual can claim for injuries they suffer as a result of ringing activities, including those suffered whilst travelling to and from ringing), or for public liability (whereby somebody may decide to sue a ringer as a result of some damage they feel has been inflicted upon them or their property during the course of a ringing activity). As most of you are well aware, in this increasingly litigious age, everybody thinks it is their right to sue for almost anything, so to have the knowledge of good insurance cover is very comforting. Full details of the cover should be available in your tower, but can be obtained from the District Secretary on request.

A further £1.50 is spent providing every member with their own copy of the KCACR Handbook. This was recently reviewed as "one of the best, if not the best, in the country". The massive work of preparing the Handbook ready for printing is done entirely on a voluntary basis. Approx 50p is spent on publicity and training material, particularly aimed at trying to encourage new ringers as well as generally spreading the news about bells and ringing. Another 50p is spent on officers' expenses attending national meetings (please note; nobody is paid by the Association and many of the officers pay their own expenses as well as giving up their time to attend these meetings). The final 50p is spent in a variety of ways, including postage, payment of auditors and general running expenses, Nobody derives any financial benefit from the Association and many give a great deal; this is typified by the fact that even this newsletter is paid for entirely by the generosity of various individuals - tower copies are distributed free and the money from any copies sold to individuals is donated to the Bell Restoration Fund. [Peter is speaking about the Ashford District here, but most other Districts work in much the same way. — Ed]

If you think the Association should be "giving more", the question is, "What more would you like and how much more are you prepared to pay for it?" The last time a significant increase in subs was put before the county membership at an AGM it was overwhelmingly defeated. If you feel strongly that the Association should be doing more, please speak out constructively. Perhaps the final question should not be, "What more can the Association do for me?", but, "What more can I do for the Association?"

World War I records

Hazel Basford, our County Librarian, has put an enormous an amount of effort into researching the lives and deaths of KCACR ringers during the First World War. How would you cope if half of your band was killed over a period of six months? How would you feel if many of your mates had disappeared, never to return? Have a look at Hazel's report. It's an eye-opener. New items are slowly being added as they come to light. The latest (November 2002) offering is a poem about the Hayesmore brothers from Rolvenden.

Wedding fees

There has been some discussion in the County over the years of an idea for BRF fundraising. One suggestion (originating in the Ashford District) was that wedding fees should be raised by £10 (per wedding, not per rope), and that this additional sum should go to the BRF. This is not intended to be an edict from on high, but is an idea that might be discussed at a local (tower even) level. I have no idea how often Kent bells are rung for weddings, but even if it's only a couple of hundred times a year that could bring in a couple of grand for the BRF.

The scheme also has the great advantage of taking some of the burden off ringers — who after all should not always be called on to fund restoration work (so far as I know organists don't have funds to repair organs any more than choirs raise money for surplices and music). The load is spread much more thinly over a much larger catchment area — after all another tenner on top of the thousands reportedly spent on weddings shouldn't be too much of a problem for the folks being married.

Obviously approval for this sort of venture would have to be sought from the local vicar/PCC, but if the situation was explained by the local ringers, I doubt if there would be many problems. What do people feel about this idea? Think about it. Raise it at your District meetings. Discuss it at your tower meetings. Tell this site about it. But do something.

[It has to be said that, since this item was originally written, quite a few towers now do operate the so-called "spliced fund", and nearly £1600 was raised this way in 2003. But this still represents only about 160 weddings, so we could still do better.]

Was Freud a ringer?

Our lives, like bells while clanging,
An ordered course pursue.

Thus ran the start of the final verse of the Ringers' Hymn as printed in the service sheet at a recent District meeting. One wonders what Mr Wilder put in the original version — have we been under an illusion all these years?

Ringers' grace before meals

This is an occasional service provided for KCACR clerics at a loss for words when it comes to saying grace before a ringing event. This particular version was compiled by the Bishop of Norwich for the 2002 Central Council meeting.

Tenors and trebles, sallies and stays
These are all part of our ringing ways
Plain Bob and Grandsire, methods and peals —
Ringers work hard, so deserve their big meals.
So God bless our table, and we trust he will
Bless all the members of our Central Council.

Bishop Graham (himself a "lapsed" ringer) preaches a pretty mean sermon and gives a very good after-dinner speech, so he won't have to rely on verse too much, but this grace did seem a bit different. Minor modifications for local use would be quite acceptable without breach of copyright.

Roger Bailey

One of the links on the Homepage is to Roger Bailey's Ringing Resources site. Roger has links to all associations, many towers, all sorts of Central Council stuff, methods, ringing software, ringers' email addresses, weather forecasts, railway timetables — you name it, it's there. In fact so comprehensive is the site that The Ringing World no longer bothers to maintain separate listings, but sends you off to RB. Give it a go, but allow plenty of time, coz you could spend a long while surfing around.

A bit of etymology

[The following article by Gerald Sinfield appeared in the April 2000 issue of the Maidstone District's newsletter, The Belfry, and looked worth reproducing here — Ed]

Nowadays, the word Belfry relates to a bell tower, either as part of or attached to a church or other building, or standing apart on its own; but initially the word had no connection with bells and is not directly named after the bells which are now hung inside. The word originated in the middle ages from the Germanic word "bercfrit", which itself comes from two old German words, "bercen" for protect and "frit" for peace, and refers to an item of the German military. The Germans built movable covered wooden towers which were then called "bergfieds", or peace shelters. They were used to attack castles, walled cities under siege, or other fortifications. Soldiers would enter the siege towers and move them from inside, whilst all the time protected from enemy archers and other attacks, until they were alongside the enemy walls. From that position, the soldiers would then break through or climb over the walls. They proved so effective that many other European armies adopted the idea, with the result that the name then appeared in their languages also.

By about 1500 the siege tower idea was imported into this country, but the English found the name "bergfied" difficult to pronounce and so it was altered, appearing as the Middle English word of "berfrey". When gunpowder was further developed and used as a propellant as well as an explosive, there were then better means of breaking through defended walls. The wooden berfreys were suddenly obsolete, but because of their robust construction, they were hauled within the walls of cities to serve as watchtowers instead. Here they were equipped with bells, so that the watchman inside could sound the alarm.

Over the years, people began to associate the word "berfrey" with the word "bell" and they began to pronounce it as "belfry". Later, when churches were built with bell towers, the name was used for them as well, and the word Belfry is so used to this day.

You can either email the webmaster (webmaster@kcacr.org.uk) or write to me at the address on the officers page.