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Rochester District |
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The Rochester District now has its own website which provides loads of stuff about meetings, practices and so on. This is maintained by Gareth Lawson and is accessible directly by clicking on the link above. Give it a go and let Gareth know what you think. The KCACR site will continue to publish odd snippets, but the really up-to-the-minute stuff will be accessible via the link above.
Officers for 2008/2009 as under were elected at the 2008 ADM held at Frindsbury on 18 October:
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A small elite band of people attended the District carol service at Sittingbourne on 15 December. When the District secretary got there he was reminded of the reason he organised the event for Sittingbourne — to present a 50-Year Membership certificate to Laurence Mitchell. Unfortunately, it had completely slipped his mind and he had left the certificate at home. While at the meeting, the District secretary was also reminded that Hazel Mitchell is owed a certificate from a couple of years ago. This he also did not have. So, although Laurence was not at the meeting, chairman Alan Driver took the opportunity to congratulate both Laurence and Hazel and thank them for their many years of service. The certificates will make their way to Laurence and Hazel as soon as I can get them. Graham Cottle |
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| Alan Driver and Hazel Mitchell at Sittingbourne |
There is a really good comment which appeared in the September 2007 edition of the Tunstall Parish Magazine. This may be read on the County page — we put it there because it seemed so relevant to ringers at large. Click here to read the item.
The single bell at Borstal received a visit from the BRF at the beginning of April 2007 — pictures available here.
After a long wait and a lot of hard work by many the octave at St Margaret's were at last back in action on the morning of Sunday 26 March 2006 after having been silent for a period of over 30 years. This was the time when a capacity congregation saw the Archdeacon of Rochester, the Venerable Peter Lock, dedicate the newly rehung bells, which are now rung from the ground floor and are now hung clockwise. The processional hymn prior to the dedication was "Ding dong! Merrily on high". Despite this hymn's association with other events in the church calendar, there is in fact no reference in it to anything remotely related to Christmas — it's all about bells and their ringers, and seems entirely appropriate to the occasion. Maybe it was the tune which somehow called up memories of wassailing. However this gave Archdeacon Peter a wonderful lead-in for his introductory remarks, something along the lines of "May I take this opportunity to wish you all a wonderful Christmas"!
After the blessing and the handing over of the bells, a band of mainly local ringers rang for a few minutes and were duly applauded by the congregation.
After the end of the service a quarter peal of Grandsire Triples was rung by a group of people who'd been involved in some way with the restoration work or training the new band: Frank Lewis 1, Malcolm Smith 2, Anita Perryman 3, Arthur Vidgeon 4, Alan Driver 5, Brian Butcher 6, Neil Jones 7, Phil Stott 8.
The church is now in the process of training a new band with the help of ringers from neighbouring towers and re-establishing a schedule of ringing after 30 years of silence. Whilst they will try to accommodate visiting bands, please do bear in mind that the church is in the middle of a residential area of Rochester and currently the tower has no sound control. Consequently, in order to establish good relations with the local residents, ringing will need to be limited. There is already a peal attempt scheduled for April and it is unlikely that any more will be allowed until the sound control is sorted out.
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General view of the church, showing the splendid panoramic view over the Medway |
The view from the back door |
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Local ringers just after the dedication |
Some of the bells |
Brian Butcher has just sent in this letter of thanks and appreciation from Ray Shuter at St Margaret's. It's great to feel that the KCACR is really helping ringers and towers on our patch — Ed
Dear Brian
I have today received a cheque dated 20 June 2006 from Mrs C Hills to the value of £4,000 towards the bell restoration project in St Margaret's Church. The parish are very grateful to the Kent County Association of Change Ringers for helping them achieve their goal of restoring the bells and I would be very grateful if you could pass on their thanks to all those in the Association.
As you know, we now have a band of ringers in training under a team of ringers from Rochester Cathedral. It is truly wonderful to have the bells in action again and we have received nothing but wonderful comments from everyone. Thank you so much for all your help in the project and, not least, in helping us to receive this very helpful donation.
With best wishes.
Ray
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The BRF gang had what might have been a tricky problem in early
March 2006. The tenor at Cliffe seemed to be just that leetle bit too big for
the door. Lifting the door off its hinges might have solved the difficulty,
although filing down the soundbow was probably not going to be too popular with
the locals. In the end the intrepid BRF folk used the South door instead, and
all was well. Thanks to Brian Butcher for the photo. |
After having been unringable for the best part of 30 years the bells at St Margaret's were lowered from the tower by the Kent BRF gang (with a lot of help from the locals) on 3 September 2005. The frame came down a couple of weeks later, leaving the residents with a huge pile of timber at the foot of the tower and a thin layer of dust over almost the entire church. Thanks to Ray Shuter for these pictures of the frame and the gang.
A brief writeup on the dedication service on 26 March appears above.
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Three sections of the frame on their way to terra
firma (the frameside on the right is about 15 feet long!) |
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The pile of timber at the foot of the tower |
The splendid setting for an equally splendid al fresco lunch provided by the locals for the gang |
Are you an established ringer with questions about ringing that you were afraid to ask? Are you new to ringing? Are you just visiting this site by chance and would like to find out a little about this amazing bunch of people?
There is now a worldwide freeby encyclopedia on the Internet, called Wikipedia. This covers just about every topic you could ever think about, including ringers and ringing. This is written and edited by ringers, so it's far from the usual sort of stuff you find in newspapers. Try the link on the links page (or click here if you're keen to get started).
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