Melton District

The Melton District meetings have been in the south of the district at Ashby Folville, Gaddesby and Great Dalby, all were well attended and we’ve welcomed plenty of visitors to these meetings.

The Melton District is alive with new recruits at the moment, a few of them have been inspired by the Ring for the King campaign but the majority are from people who are interested in ringing .

Since mid-January Martin Paling has been teaching 11 new recruits in the Upper Wreake, using ART’s ‘Learning the Ropes’ programme. He has used the bells at Kirby Bellars, Hoby, Saxelbye and Ab Kettleby, so the learners gain experience on different bells at different towers, it also shares around the area the monotonous sound of one bell ringing, so that no one village ‘suffers’ all of the time. This is important, particularly as Martin meets with most trainees at least once a week and often more regularly, to keep the momentum going. That regular practice is paying dividends, with some good progress being made.

We have 18 new recruits at Gaddesby and Saltby and another 3 towers in the District that might start to want to get bands together in the near future to start ringing in their villages again.

The challenge now is to find enough teachers to train the new recruits (in the past it has been the other way around) .

There have been several quarters rung at Twyford and we managed to get a team together to ring for the World Day of Prayer mid week at Somerby.

The Handbells Team at Kirby Bellars has continued to meet regularly. One new recruit has joined the Team this year; three more have attended and are showing interest in continuing to learn.

Congratulations to the Pickwell ringers who have progressed really well and now have a local team that is independent – they also have access to Somerby if there are more ringers than ropes at Pickwell.

Pete Brown