Welcome to the April 2026 Newsletter.
Over the last week I’ve been reminded about what a welcoming community bellringers are part of. On a recent visit to London, myself and Annette requested a ring with the local team at St Bartholomew the Great Church in Smithfield. These are the oldest pre-reformation bells in the City of London (1495-1515) and the oldest bells of more than 4 pre-reformation bells by the founder Thomas Bullisdon in England. We could not have been made more welcome by the team and after a great hour of ringing we were asked to join the ringers and other church volunteers for a wine and nibbles event in the Cloisters, laid on by the clergy. It was lovely not only to be with such a welcoming group of ringers but to also appreciate that the ringers are very much seen as part of the group who are keeping the church alive.
According to the Met Office, it has been the wettest winter in Leicestershire since records began in 1836; this has been evident in the state of our local ropes with all natural fibre ones being much shorter than normal and very stiff. We had a rope at Somerby that started to jump the wheel and on investigation the top end had become so rigid we could do an impressive ‘Indian rope trick with about 5 feet of it.
We have a couple of social events coming up for your diaries; the LDG will be holding the half-yearly meeting in the Loughborough District. I do hope to see many of our members there for both the ringing and the social. Also the LDG@80 celebration plans are moving ahead – everybody should have had an email with details of the Ceilidh that Annette Tudor-Brown is organising for June the 6th in Oadby. Places are limited so please book soon. Details of the half yearly meeting, and the ceilidh can be found later on in this newsletter.
Congratulations to Jez Bowman (Chair of our Education and Recruitment Committee) who was the winner of the “Learning the Ropes Competition” at the ART conference in Loughborough this month, an excellent achievement that reflects all the hard work undertaken to promote ringers and ringing. See a video of the presentation in the report later on in this newsletter.
Nicky and Dave Carling have kindly taken up the challenge of running the ‘LDG@80 Ringing Focus month’ in October where we will try to get as many ‘firsts’ in things like methods, quarter peals, conducting etc which will be rolled up into an article for the Ringing World. Anyone who wants to should be able to pick a personal goal for this, get their achievement logged on bell board and entered into the article.
Enjoy your ringing in the better weather and I hope to see many of you at the Half Yearly Meeting on the 25th April.
Peter Brown
Guild President