The Northwest Residential Ringing Course runs from Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th August 2022. This new course, held in the North West of England, welcomes ringers from all over the UK and is now open for bookings.
The course will provide classroom-based theory as well as practical sessions in local towers. It will end with an optional ring at the world’s heaviest set of bells.
Accommodation is on campus at Myerscough College, near Preston, which also features a bar and loads of local facilities. The course offers a packed extra-curricular program covering many areas of ringing including and an opportunity to learn handbells, tower maintenance, rope splicing, etc.
Please have a look at the website at https://nwringingcourse.uk/ which gives details about the course and how to apply.
There are five subjects on offer, plus many extracurricular events. Each subject has a theory component in classroom and a practical component in a tower. The subjects are:
1 Moving on with Minor
Targeted at: Ringers who are confident at Plain Bob Minor and maybe a few other minor methods, and who now wish to expand their repertoire of minor methods.
What’s involved: Plain courses and touches of methods such as St Clement’s, Original, Little Bob, Single Oxford, Double Bob, Single Court, Kent Treble Bob, Oxford Treble Bob, Double Oxford and perhaps even Cambridge will be taught and practised.
2 From Six to Eight
Targeted at: Ringers who are confident ringing doubles and minor and would now like to progress to triples and major. It will also suit ringers who have already tried ringing on eight bells but find it rather difficult.
What’s involved: The sessions will ease you gently into ringing on eight bells and then focus mainly on Grandsire Triples and Plain Bob Major, but will attempt to cover whatever you currently ring on six bells and would like to ring to triples and major. We hope you will leave the course with the confidence to take advantage of future opportunities to ring on eight bells.
3 Stedman
Targeted at: Ringers who can ring Stedman doubles and would like to progress to triples and even caters, or learn how to ring touches.
What’s involved: This topic will cover and demystify all the fascinating theory of Stedman. If you’ve only tackled plain courses, or you would like to learn to call some touches, then this topic is for you. Immerse yourself in a Stedman boot camp for a few days and never look back!
4 Basic Conducting
Targeted at: Ringers who are confident ringing touches of Plain Bob Minor and Grandsire Doubles and would like to start calling them. You might even already have some limited experience calling these methods, which would be an advantage but isn’t a requirement.
What’s involved: The topic will deal with calling positions in Plain Bob Minor and Grandsire Doubles and give you the confidence to call a variety of touches, up to calling quarter peals. The emphasis will be on knowing and practising exactly when to make the calls, and building up a repertoire of touches of various lengths. Depending on time and demand, the topic might also cover calling touches of Stedman Doubles.
5 Advanced Conducting
Targeted at: Those who wish to add “keeping others right” to their existing skills of calling the bobs and singles.
What’s involved: You will learn things like the transposition of coursing order resulting from a call and how this explains why the familiar calling patterns work for many different methods.The topic will cover how you can keep track of the coursing order during a touch, know how a call will affect the coursing order, how this assists you in knowing which bell will do what at a call, and to put people right if they go wrong. It will open up the ‘magic box’ of conducting and cover what you should be doing in your head to help keep the ringing right, or at least know if it has gone wrong. There should be some real “lightbulb” moments as you learn and understand some commonly used techniques that can make a huge difference to the chances of success in a touch or quarter.
A flyer for the course is available to download from this link.