Bingley Handbells News

As always we were busy over the Christmas Period.

We began with a visit to Gilstead Ladies in their impressive new
venue at the café attached to the new Fern House on Fernbank Drive. Space was a
bit short there but they made us very welcome and even provided a supper after
our performance.

We returned to Shipley Musical Union at the Anchorage. This
is always a group where there is plenty of room for us to perform and the
sing-a-long part of our performance goes so well with their strong voices!
However the Achorage is closing down now so they are also looking for a new
venue.

In fact it was a season of returns. As you will also have seen we returned to the Western branch tower bell ringers carol service and to a Mason’s event at Hoyle Court, Baildon.

We were very busy over the Christmas period and had to turn
away a number of late enquiries. The message for 2019 is “Book Early!”

After a well deserved post Christmas break we returned to
ringing on 16th January 2019 with a number of new and recent
recruits which makes us optimistic for the future. Until Easter we are trialing
practicing each week on Wednesdays at 7pm in the vestry although we may move to
Church House during Lent if there are any services at this time.

Solna Burnham
07884233382

What a
full and enjoyable day the tower bell and hand bell ringers had last month at
the 250th celebration day. We started by ringing before the Service,
watched by the Chair of Bingley Town Council and her colleague. As we had hoped
a bell theme then ran through the whole service and included a special poem,
appropriate hymns, readings by our ringers and pieces played by the hand bell
ringers and the junior hand bell team from Trinity All Saints’ School. We enjoyed an excellent, humorous and
supportive address and sermon by the Bishop, showing his impressive background
research on our bells and the bell ringers past, present and recruited for the future.
In general we felt the church had done its bells proud, and it was a pleasure
to see the large congregation swelled by a number of past ringers, ringers from
other local towers and special guests.

After
the service refreshments and celebratory drinks were abundant, alongside our
historical display, souvenir buns, biscuits and a tombola. Visitors had a go at ringing the Wombel, and
our tower tour encouraged the Bishop to climb up to the bell chamber to take a good
look at the action of bells as they were rung.

We
ended the day with a successful quarter peal rung on 6 bells. The 45 minutes successful
ringing, can be compared to the original 160 minutes of successful ringing,
undertaken by the 6 Bingley ringers of 1768. This great achievement by an all
Bingley Band of Ringers, so many years ago, deserved such a day of acknowledgement
and celebration by the church, its current ringers and their communities. Our
thanks go to everyone involved. We feel it was both a thoroughly enjoyable day
and a fitting remembrance of our 18th century predecessors’ great
achievement.

Solna Burnham & Ann Cossavella

Go Creative is an annual week in which different creative
events take place in local libraries offering the public the chance to join in.

This year there was a specific plug for handbell groups to
take part and we were asked by our national chairman to aim for target of 50 handbell
events nationally.

We were able to arrange an exhibition and a demonstration in
Bingley Library where we were joined by our new local junior team – Trinity All
Saints Mini Ringers. They of course were happy to take advantage of the
opportunity to leave school early that afternoon and made a very impressive
show of themselves – however some became
shy and were less keen to perform when their parents turned up!

The demonstration was a success although it was a shame that
only a few people wanted to ‘have a go’ . We do however hope the event raised
our profile in the town and maybe it will attract new recruits.

A cold, wet Saturday afternoon in the cafe at East Riddlesden
Hall was the scene of our first performance of 2018

We were fortified with refreshments including a warm (non-alcoholic)
punch and played at a social event arranged for the friends of East Riddlesden
Hall. The age of the venue fitted in perfectly with the age of some of the
pieces we played and the audience were most appreciative.

At the end we had our usual ‘have a go’ session and many
of them joined in. A number of them were knowledgable about music generally and
some even about bells specifically. Two of the ladies joined us at our next
practice and we are hopeful they will become permanent members of our band. To
assist we are trying to organise a special practice for them rather than
throwing them in completely at the deep end.

Things are usually quiet at this time of year. However March
sees a Get Creative week organised by the library service. We are hopeful that
we will be able to arrange an exhibition, performances by ourselves and the
children of Holy Trinity School and a have a go session for library goers young
and old in Bingley Library. Maybe this will attract some more budding ringers.

Watch out for posters and other advertisments!

The Christmas period was busy as always.

Firstly we entertained the Wilsden senior
citizens prior to their annual lunch at the village hall and the residents of
Aire Valley Court in Bingley. We had rung at both these venues before and it is
always gratifying when we are asked to return because we feel that we must have
done something right the first time. This does however mean that we need to
ensure that we play different pieces for them.

The same weekend we played for All Saints
Carol Service, both as the congregation entered the church and in the middle of
the service. The following day came our major performance at the Anchorage in
Shipley where we played all three octaves as part of a musical evening together
with the Shipley Male Voice Choir. This of course meant that when we reached
the sing-a-long pieces the vocals were so strong!

So what will the New Year bring?

In the last month we have said farewell to
Ann Parkinson and Ashleigh Holland both of whom have moved away. However Ann is
only going to Skipton so we hope she will still play with us occasionally. Ann
had rung with us since we first began playing our newly restored two octaves.
She often marked up music, conducted us and was a keen supporter of the project
to bring handbells into local schools. When Ashleigh moved to the area she was
already a tower bell ringer and soon joined both groups. One of her many
talents was the ability to ring both very high (small) and very low (heavy)
bells often at the same time – something most of us struggled with.

We wish them both well and hope that we will find new
recruits in the New Year to swell our numbers.

How time flies! I have realised that b the time articles are
submitted for the next issue of the magazine Christmas and the new year
celebrations will have come and gone! I will have plenty to report on then! The
highlight will of course be our appearance at the All Saints Carol Service.

In the meantime we have continued to be busy,

Only a few short weeks ago a new ringer called Diane joined
us. She had previously played handbells in the Philippines before she moved to
Yorkshirre and had found our details on the internet. She has been regularly
travelling all the way from Clayton to our practicesand has now joined us for
two performances – talk about being thrown in at the deep end!

On 12th October we took 2 octaves of bells to Baildon where
we played for the Parkinsons Group of which our Roger is a member. They made us
very welcome and many of them enjoyed playing with us at the end of our
performance.

Only two days later we were at Oxenhope as one of the many
turns in a fund raising musical evening. Because of all our equipment we
performed first but our space was needed straight afterwards so we had to pack
up in record time of less than 5 minutes. The other acts were varied including
young piano players, a choir and irish folk singers and we enjoyed sitting back
to watch them afterwards.

At the end of October we were at the West Yorkshire mini
rally to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the North East region of Handbell
Ringers at Sowerby Bridge. Because this was only a small rally we had more
opportunities than usual to ring both as part of the massed ringing and just as
our group which made it a very enjoyable day. We returned with plenty of tips
for improving our playing from experienced conductors and musical directors.

It has been a quiet month – a good one to prepare for the
Christmas rush!

Last week a group of us polished all the bells so they will
look shine through all our performances over the festive season.

This year saw the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the
Handbell Ringers of Great Britain AND the 40th anniversary of the first meeting
of the North East Region of HRGB so it has been quite a celebration.

We celebrated our regional birthday back at Grassington in
May with a packed rally attended by many groups including some that had never
been to a rally before.

There national celebrations will include a large regional
rally in Sheffield on the same day as those in other regions. Technology
permitting the rallies will all link up together and free food and cake will be
available.

Because not everyone can make it to this event there will
also be mini rallies in each part of our large region. Our Western one will be
at Sowerby Bridge which is conveniently not far from us.

The real stars of the birthday celebrations have been the
Jubilee Bears. Every region (or in our case part of a region) was given a bear
at the National Rally in April and the plan was for them to visit every band
during the next six months.

Our bear started its journey at Leeds in April and travelled
via all parts of our area to reach Ryburn, the hosts, at Sowerby Bridge in
October with photo opportunities at each stop!

Over the last month we seem to have travelled as far North
and as far South as ever before for a performance.

In August we performed for a group of over 70s in Holmfirth.
They provided us with a very welcome lunch and then 8 of us played a number of
pieces for them.

In September we were able to take all three octaves to entertain
the ladies of Hampsthwaite W I near Harrogate. We were concerned that due to
summer holidays the whole band had not practised together for some time but it
all was “alright on the night”.

Although both venues were geographically far apart the
performances were very similar. Both were in spacious, well equipped halls with
plenty of tables so we did not have to supply our own. Both groups provided us
with tasty food and drink (the way to a handbell ringer’s heart is through her stomach!). More importantly when we had finished playing our pieces we offered
the audience a chance to have a go and in both instances they were very
enthusiastic and almost too many of them wanted to have a go resulting in some
very creditable renditions of our pieces.

The journeys to both locations took us less time than we
anticipated and we even managed to dodge the rain showers as we unloaded and
reloaded the cars. However we have realised that Friday afternoons are
particularly busy on the roads of West Yorkshire and whichever route we tried
back from Holmfirth we met a queue of traffic – maybe we should stay at home on
Fridays in the future!

Normally we would now be starting to practice our Christmas
music, but this year we have bookings through October and November to prepare
for first. Our diaries are certainly getting busier and we are always on the
lookout for new recruits.

Don’t forget anyone who is interested is welcome to visit one
of our Monday or Wednesday evening rehearsals in the vestry to see what handbell
ringing is all about.