Dear Friends,
The year 2013 in our Guild was tinged with great sadness with the loss of David Strong in November.
David had been Guild Master for six years and had done much work in many ringing areas. It was wonderful to have him with us at the Annual General Meeting in Jersey where he was given a well deserved standing ovation upon his retirement. There had been special ringing across The Guild in the autumn to thank David for his sterling work for our Guild and, later in the year, much ringing took place in his memory. We will miss David very much but we will carry his inspiration alongside us indeed.
The new team in office, elected in July, has been working with the very experienced Mike Bubb, and getting to meet more ringers from the various Districts; the members are The Guild of course, and we want to learn more of their aspirations and how we might help ringers and their towers.
At the Annual District Meetings that Christine, our Vice-Master, and I have attended we’ve had a great welcome - thank you - and we’ve had insight into District activities. It has been very helpful indeed. We’ve had much feedback from those meetings and the recent “Have Your Say” regional presentation in Winchester, organised by The Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and hosted by our Guild. We will do our best as a team to consider all of this information and then to plan a way forward to achieve “More ringers, ringing better”, for example.
There is so much positive and hard work going on across the Guild, thanks to so many willing volunteers - excellent, thank you everyone - and we hope we’ll be able to build on that for the benefit of all.
Ringers are continuing to give serious consideration as to how, starting in 2014, we might commemorate the centenary of World War 1. The matter of what and when to ring is quite rightly being decided at local level. Many are to focus on individual ringers in their own area that had lost their lives in the conflict. The Guild, like many other organisations, has a memorial to record members who lost their lives in World War 1. It is in the belfry of Winchester Cathedral and contains a list of names. This information and other details of the “Appropriate and worthy manner” in which ringers commemorated their fallen fellow members can be researched at http://www.methods.org.uk/wparch/dbrwm.htm
Ringing for public events, alongside of duty to the church, is expected of us, so we continue to strive to meet these demands by encouraging good training. It is very likely that a really good level of training will help retain new recruits. If ringers are able to handle well, they will feel comfortable, be encouraged and rewarded for their efforts and will enjoy the experience of ringing. Striking contests play their part in this as well, so we encourage ringers who have moved on somewhat in their training to consider working at being part of a competition band. Something to focus on, and to aim for, is very positive motivation. So we’d like to push on with training and to consider how we do things to ensure that we can “Recruit and Retain” successfully. A great phrase we were given to think about recently “Confident not complacent”!
Might we all need to consider how we’re viewed by non-ringers, maybe try to be more flexible in our ways and to be more “Outward facing”? A challenge for us all perhaps? Ringing is ALL about team work, so together I’m confident we can do it and do it well.
With good wishes and I look forward to seeing you in my Guild travels.
Vivien Nobbs