St Chad's Bellringers
We are a group of Camponologists (Bellringers) who ring at St. Chad's Church, Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire. New, old and visiting ringers are welcome. We are available to ring at weddings, and any other celebrations/events at St Chad's Church
We ring Fridays from 6:45pm to 7:30pm, then 8pm until 9pm. Helen Kay is the Tower Captain and can be contacted on 07940995690.
St.Chad’s Bellringers
In recent months, we’ve welcomed several new people to the bellringing band. One of our new recruits, David B (the 3rd David in the belfry), learnt to ring as a youngster, took a long break from ringing (family, career etc) and, now retired, is ringing in the band after a few weeks of refresher training. In January, Archie started to learn bellringing as his skill for Bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and is being taught by one of our young people. More about that below. Jayne and her daughter Victoria, ring at St Michael’s, Kirkham. They have been joining us on a Friday night. Victoria has written a piece about the ringing that was achieved for St.Chad’s Day. First, David (now known as Fid in the belfry), writes about Richard who is teaching Archie. In the Belfry, we have a good number of youngsters who have become ringers in recent years and they have always been taught by the older ringers……but not that old! This has recently changed with one of the youngsters having taken part in the ART (Association of Ringing Teachers) teaching course. Richard is teaching Archie and has adapted his own version of teaching, whilst still aligned with the requirements of the course. He has helped Archie progress at a good pace, and always corrected those small errors that creep into his ringing as they creep in to all of our lives. It is great to see youngsters, not only just taking part in these sorts of activities, but leading them, when we know that some Gen Z are being associated with not doing as much as they should. As we are showing, the words of Alan Hansen from a long time ago are wrong; we are winning with our team of kids. David Kay ______________________________________________________
David, Pauline, Richard and myself are member of The Association of Ringing Teachers. They recently had their Awards, and unbeknown to me, Pauline put forward a nomination. ART ringing awards nomination: Recruitment and Retention - Helen Kay. At the end of last year, I became aware of a national ART awards scheme recognising excellence in bell ringing. One of these awards is for Recruitment and Retention. This is an important part of the bell ringing community as we are experiencing a time when many churches do not have enough ringers. Of course, I immediately thought of our own Helen Kay, Tower Captain here at St Chad’s, whose dedication and drive has helped the dwindling numbers of bellringers swell to a very reassuring twenty. In 2018, Helen along with her brother David and mother Mary - Tower Captain at the time - planned to recruit more ringers. They enrolled themselves on the ART training course to train new bellringers. Training completed, they just needed people to teach. Facebook enabled them to spread the word of a “taster session”, which I will be forever grateful that I spotted. Several ringers joined the band, most of whom are still enjoying ringing. In 2021, another taster session was held. This was hugely successful, attracting many people of all ages and resulting in a large queue winding down the church path. More ringers recruited, the biggest challenge then became how do we train so many new ringers at once? We temporarily added Saturday mornings as a training time, and eventually increased ringing time on Friday practice evenings. Helen encouraged two of the newer ringers from the 2018 group to help teach. Obviously, with an eye on the future, offered the opportunity for these two to do the ART training course to teach ringing to others. Excellent thinking as one was a young man of only 14 years old at the time. He hopefully has many years of ringing ahead of him, and Helen has done her best to ensure that knowledge and skills are passed on. The newest recruit has come to us through Helen engaging with local youth groups from Scouts and Guiding to have a tour up the tower, see the bells and have a ringing taster session. Plans have come to fruition, the tower is busy, ringers at all stages are encouraged to improve, try more difficult ringing methods, and generally have fun. We don’t just meet in the tower. Helen has arranged ringing tours of towers both locally and further afield, including ringing the rather large bells at Blackburn Cathedral. It’s not all ringing, we often have theatre trips, meals out, and other social events. As I stated earlier, it is the dedication and drive of Helen that keeps the tower going; all the organising of ringing for weddings, Sunday service ringing, ringing for national events, ringing trips and social events, and her enthusiasm and encouragement of involving the younger ringers. I felt she deserved some recognition for all the time and effort she puts in. Our ringers span the generations from teenagers (5) all the way up to mid seventies. Helen, as a trained youth worker and mental health first aider, has ensured that in the St.Chad’s tower, everyone is treated equally and fairly and everyone has a voice. It is a very relaxed atmosphere, with very much a family vibe and a lot of banter and laughter. I am very pleased to say that Helen’s nomination resulted in her achieving “Highly Commended”; 2nd Place. Congratulations Helen, well deserved, all the St. Chad’s ringers are pleased for you and proud of you. Pauline Taylor Bellringer - St Chad’s One of our ringers asked if he could organise ringing on St Chad’s Day. This was agreed and below is what happened. On Saturday 2nd March, the bellringers of St Chad’s including ringers from St Michael’s, Kirkham, rang from 11am to 1:30pm to mark the anniversary the death of St Chad in 672AD. St Chad was Parish Church of St Chad and St Hilda’s Charity Number 1131531 P a g e | 13 Nov/Dec 2023 a seventh century Anglo-Saxon monk and bishop of the Mercians who helped spread Christianity. It was open ringing for everyone, which consisted of Call Changes, Plain Hunt, Grandsire Doubles and Bob Doubles, which made sure that all the ringers’ different abilities were catered for. We made an attempt to ring 672 changes to signify the date of St Chad’s death, but unfortunately wasn’t accomplished first time. We made several other attempts, which were also unsuccessful, but we concluded that all the attempts added together must have added up to 672, or even more! Despite not completing the 672 attempt, the ringing was fun and enjoyable, so it would be fair to call it a success overall. We received many wonderful compliments on Facebook from local people, which was really lovely and encouraging. I was very proud to be asked to join in the ringing on St Chad’s Day. Victoria Young Ringer at St Michael’s, Kirkham If after reading this, you are interested in seeing the bells, observing the ringing or would like to chime the Hurry-up bell for the 10am service on a Sunday, please do get in touch. Also, as Spring is here, the belfry door will be open more, so please do pop by and say hello. Helen Kay Tower Captain