I write this after returning home from the annual 8-Bell Striking Competition at Quex Park which also included the Extraordinary General Meeting to discuss the rule changes to the Bell Restoration Fund.
Five Districts entered the competition and all successfully completed the test piece of 280 changes of Canterbury Pleasure Bob Triples. Paul and Kate Flavell from Kingston-upon-Thames were invited to judge the contest. Prior to announcing the results, they commented that some of the ringing was a little slower than they expected and quite a few faults were accrued by the little bells and big bells not working together.
Congratulations go again to the Canterbury District who were declared the winners. The final results were:
Canterbury District 86%
Lewisham District 84%
Rochester District 79%
Ashford District 77%
Tonbridge District 76%
As many of you will recall, the Extraordinary General Meeting took place as well, immediately after the contest. As more than 25 practising members were present, there was a quorum and the proposed rule change to the Bell Restoration Fund Rules as outlined in the notices was agreed by the membership present.
The Quex Park ringers laid on a barbecue lunch which was greatly appreciated and, following that, further ringing was available at the Waterloo Tower as well as on the brand new ring of 6 bells that make up the CCCBR Touring Tower. Many of those present availed themselves of both of these bells.
My apologies go to those who were hoping to ring at All Saints Birchington. Unfortunately, a service that I was not aware of prevented access to the tower at the published time, however several members made use of the bells at St Nicholas at Wade.
My thanks go to all of those involved in today’s event, especially members of the Quex Park Society for assisting with the organisation and catering.
In a couple of weeks, it will be the turn of the Kent Young Ringers to be in the spotlight as they travel up to London to take part in this year’s Ringing World National Youth Contest. I know that I have written about this before but I have always found this to be a very inspirational and positive event. We are all gradually becoming aware of the shortage of ringers at our towers and it needs to be borne in mind that we must get young people interested and engaged in this activity to ensure that it continues to thrive.
As part of the preparation for the RWNYC, Jen Thomas (our Youth Officer) and I, together with some of the Kent Young Ringers team, were interviewed by Cathy Booth for a Fun With Bells podcast that she is preparing. For those of you who have not come across this yet, Fun With Bells started in 2019 and explores the world of change ringing on tower bells, hand bells and other bells! It is released monthly and can be accessed either as a podcast at https://funwithbells.com/ or by searching YouTube for ‘ fun with bells’.
Cathy has already covered a range of topics here, the two most current ones are reflecting on the state of ringing at the moment and what may need to be done in order to address some of the issues that we are facing now. The Sepember podcast will be about the RWNYC and should follow on very well from where the current podcast ends.
Before I end, may I just remind you that the draft copy of the revised Association rules is available for comment. As I said in my last ‘Words from the Chair’, the final draft will be put to Districts for discussion at their ADMs in October, however I would welcome any comments about this document to ensure that the document that I have published for your comments is both workable and gives a greater degree of flexibility for how the Association can be run. The document is available via this link: https://kcacr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Redrafted-Rules-of-the-Association-for-Consultation.pdf . There is also a summary of the main changes made here: https://kcacr.org.uk/kcacr-rules-proposed-amendments-for-consultation-2025/ . Please do send any comments to me at , the closing date for comments is 14th July so that I can prepare a final draft for circulation by 1st September to be presented at the 2025 AGM for adoption.
Neil Jones
KCACR Chairman