At Bingley we have established a tradition for an annual afternoon tea celebration.
Any excuse will do!
This year however it was rather special as 17 of us marked the retirement from the handbell team of Roger Pollard.
Roger is one of the founder members of our team. He is part of a group of us who were originally tower bell ringers and was instrumental in the restoration of our set of Shaws Handbells in 2010.
Over the years Roger has been our treasurer, our webmaster and of course our bell maintenance manager. He adjusts our bells and polishes them so they sparkle. Without Roger’s input we would struggle and his shoes will be very hard to fill.
Once again Lavinia’s of Bingley supplied us with a splendid meal of sandwiches, cakes and scones which we supplemented with tea, coffee and fizz.
As a token of our appreciation of Roger’s hard work Jane Lynch, our chair, presented him with a garden centre voucher and a card signed by us all. Both hers and Roger’s speeches were brief but emotional and as he departed he promised to return and to help us out if needed. He leaves our group in a healthy position. We have gained 4 new ringers since the pandemic and usually manage to ring all 3 octaves of bells at our weekly practices.
