Happy New Year from the Kingston bell ringers!
If you ever fancied having a go at bell ringing, now is the perfect time to get in touch and learn. If you start now, you will be able to take part in ringing for the King’s Coronation in May.
Ring for the King
We are actively seeking to train new bell-ringers who will be able to Ring for the King when he is crowned on May 6th and after that.
Bell ringing is a wonderful hobby for people of all ages and there is something of interest to everybody, including for example:
• Teamwork – working as a team to ring changes together
• Physical and mental exercise – ringing is a technique that doesn’t involve brute strength but coordination and technique to control the bell in split second timing
• Music – creating the changes and permutations bell-ringers call music
• Social – bell ringers are very sociable people enjoying going for coffee and to the pub after ringing sessions.
• Friendship – bell-ringers have friends all over the UK and the world where bells are rung English style
This website will give you some more information and a flavour for what’s involved: www.bellringing.org/learntoring/
Contact your local tower captain and come along and watch to get an idea of what is involved.
Learning to ring church bells is a structured process that takes a number of one-to-one sessions to be competent at ‘handling’ a bell. Once mastered, practice enables the ringer to become more confident and gain greater satisfaction from ringing alone to start with and then with the team. You don’t have to be a churchgoer, there is no compulsion to stay for services.