jthomas

Kent Young Ringers participate in SEECON (April) and RWNYC 2024 (July)

It’s been a busy few months:

Our Kent Young Ringers managed just a few practices all together this year, but have improved enormously in the time available.

We travelled to Bushey in Hertfordshire for this year’s South East England contest at the beginning of April. This was  a lovely, sunny spring day where we rang at 3 towers as well as the contest tower at Bushey.  Breakfast and carrots featured, of course! Our young ringers enjoy keeping up some traditions. The team rang their best yet and were placed 3rd.

Results:

1st – W & P – peal speed 3 hr 9 ( plain hunt on 7)

2nd – Young@Herts – peal speed 3 hr 13 (Call Changes on 8)

3rd – Kent – peal speed – 2 hr 46 ( CC on 8)

4th – Essex – peal speed 3 hr 3 ( CC on 8)

5th – Sussex – peal speed 2 hr 51 ( CC on 6)

6th – Middlesex – peal speed 2 hr 43 ( CC on 6)

7th – Bucks & Berks – peal speed 3 hr 5 ( CC on 8)

8th – Surrey – peal speed 2 hr 51 ( CC on 6)

Fast forward to 6th July after a few more practices. This turned out to be a chilly, windy and pretty wet sort of day, with the sun only appearing in the evening! However we were not to be daunted and enjoyed a fabulous day organised by the ASCY and the Ringing World in London with a record number of 37 teams entering and over 300 young ringers enjoying the delights of ringing in London towers. The day culminated in a grand photo on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral with the results ceremony under the spectacular Dome.

We had started off early in the morning in sunshine or in rain from various distant locations in Kent (Whitstable and Benenden being the furthest), meeting up with other team members as our trains got nearer to London. Most of us could walk from Cannon Street to St Mary le Bow, but the north Kent contingent had to brave the Underground, too.

Breakfast (warm sausages and pastries) started us off in the porch at Bow. We then started our programme for the day: viewing the stalls, and having a go on the mini – rings and handbells before climbing the tower steps to ring here at St Mary le Bow, joining with 3 or 4 other teams. On then to St Giles Cripplegate where we were fortunate to be on our own for most of our allotted time and allowing us a little practice of our test piece. Lunch was next: up in the Roof Garden at 120 Fenchurch Street: a bit windy here, but the rain did hold off and Cathy Booth was able to do a couple of interviews for September’s Fun with Bells podcast. After a quick sprint to nearby St Olave’s Hart Street, and a “good luck” video call from last year’s team captain, Ellen, our team climbed the steps to ring our contest piece (the best they have ever rung ). After the team photos we retraced our steps to St Lawrence Jewry and then St Magnus the Martyr for our final ring of the day. Although this ringing room was VERY crowded everyone had a good ring, with Callum, George, Hannah, Lily and Oscar getting a chance to ring PH 11.

Orange Oscar kept an eye on us throughout the day and can be seen on the far left of the front row of the (huge) group photo on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. We had amazing front row seats under the Dome of St Paul’s Cathedral for the results ceremony, led by head judge, Tom Hinks. Many congratulations to Worcester Cathedral for their win in our Call Change category (13 teams).. All results in the photos and on Bellboard.

KYR were fabulous (as always) on a fabulous day, rounded off by the bells of St Paul’s being rung as we came out of the cathedral for pizza and home. See next week’s edition of the Ringing World for further reports.

Thank you to all those towers where we have held practices and to the continued support, financial and otherwise, of the KCACR.

Over 300 young ringers from all over Britain gathered on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral

Team Shirts 2024

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NOT a warm and sunny July day!

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By jthomas, ago

Parental Consent & GDPR Forms updated / sessions Sat 23rd September 2023

https://kcacr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kent-Young-Ringers-Kent-MINI-Ringers_-Parental-Consent-GDPR-form-2023_24.pdf https://kcacr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kent-Young-Ringers-Kent-MINI-Ringers_-Parental-Consent-GDPR-form-2023_24.docx Our Kent MINI-Ringers will be meeting this Saturday 23rd September 10:00 – 12:00. This session is open to our youngest and newest ringers in Kent, who are able to ring a bell unassisted in their own towers. We also welcome new learners aged 12 to 17 to come Read more…

By jthomas, ago

Kent Young Ringers descend on York

Kent was represented by a team of 6 Young Ringers at this year’s national youth ringing contest (RWNYC) in York on Saturday 8th July 2023.

They enjoyed a wonderful weekend with two main highlights:

1) Ringing on the lovely 12 bells at York Minster; they all had several turns at ringing rounds. Ellen and Callum both rang the tenor very competently and James, Ellen and Callum rang 8, 9, 10 to Plain Hunt Cinques.

2) The team was thrilled to be placed 3rd with a score of 8.5/10. 17 teams took part in the Call Change category. (Full results are on the RWNYC website)

After too many hours travelling north on Friday 7th July our 6 team members and their 6 adult “shepherds”  finally arrived at the York North West Premier Inn for a good sleep before meeting up at breakfast the next morning. Our first port of call was a Park and Ride car park for the bus which would take us in to the centre of York in time to board the double-decker coach (which we had all to ourselves) from the Memorial Gardens out to our first tower of the day at Bishopthorpe. We were very pleased with our ringing on this 14cwt ring of 6 and were able to practice the test piece of 180 rows of call changes. We had now relaxed enough into the day to enjoy the journey back into York, complete with the driver below interspersing some ad-hoc singing by advising us of various interesting landmarks. We were happy to find some of the 22 intriguing cats in York on the “cat trail”.

A speedy walk through the ancient streets of the city took us to our next tower, St Lawrence which is home to a 7cwt ring of 8 bells and was the venue for the call change contest. We srt off at a brisk pace and were reasonably pleased with our effort here. Indeed the feedback from the contest judges praised our brisk speed, the fastest ringing of the day, and congratulated the consistency of our treble and tenor ringers. After the obligatory team photo we had time to eat our sandwich lunch in the grounds of St Lawrence. This enabled us to hear the good striking of the next team,  and to be just a little pleased when they also had a little “crunch”. This team ended up being placed first in our category and we were pretty pleased to be awarded 3rd place.

We retraced our steps through the city to the Oratory. Due to its close proximity to the Minster, ringing on the 10 here was actually on the simulator, ably managed by our good KYR friend and previous team captain, Jamie Austin. The pressure of the contest was now behind us,  so we really enjoyed the rest of the day’s ringing.

The Spurriergate Centre, set out as a relaxing café venue, was our next port of call where we enjoyed ringing a variety of methods to involve our helpers including Cambridge S Minor.

Following this we had 45 minutes to explore the Mini-rings and stalls on offer inside York Minster before gathering to climb the very clean concrete spiral staircase to the Ringing Room. Here we joined forces with two other teams to ring Rounds, Call Changes and some very satisfying Plain Hunt Cinques on these beautiful bells under the expert guidancecof Simon Linford. Ellen (of course!) and Callum rang the tenor really very well and Lottie (aged 10) took a turn at strapping the tenor with our very own Association Chair, Neil.

We had a little time on our hands either side of our final tower of the day, St Martin le Grand, which we filled with quick browse around a couple of shops or rested our legs in a coffee shop or just were amazed at the number of (very obvious) hen parties parading around the streets!

We shared our time at St Martin’s with the Sussex Young Ringers, but our youngsters’ enthusiasm for ringing was beginning to wane a little now due to fatigue and the extreme muggings of the day.

Finally it was time for all 25 teams to gather in the Central Methodist Church for the all-important thanks, results and presentations. There was a truly wonderful and generous atmosphere here as the teams received their results and medals and David Hull was thanked for his work over the last five years.

We rounded off the day by partaking of pizza in the Minster, (the first time ever for pizza in the Munster!) and participating in the games organised by the YCRA  and then made our way south to Doncaster for our second hotel night.

Sunday morning brought the opportunity to ring at Bentley,  Sprotbrough and Doncaster Minster before a final coffee in the Wool Market and our journey home.

We are indebted to David Hull, Will Bosworth and the other members of the organising committee for arranging another FABULOUS weekend and are hugely grateful to the KCACR for their financial support in enabling us to attend.

Very many thanks.

Jennifer Thomas 21st July 2023

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By jthomas, ago