Bell ringing in unusual times
The COVID pandemic has brought many challenges to all of us, especially all the groups with in our churches and parish.
The bell ringers at St Laurence have been affected as much as any. In March 2020 our world of Sunday service ringing, weekly practices at our own tower and at other churches around Thanet, outings, meetings and wedding ringing all came to a sudden halt.
As well as ringing, where we let the community know something was happening at church or in the wider secular community, we missed the exercise of it, the camaraderie of fellow ringers, people to talk to who understand things like bobs, singles, course bells, touches, raising and lowering.
We then discovered Ringing Room an on line virtual ringing chamber where along with skype we could continue to meet up weekly on a Tuesday evening to “ring” bells. This was in itself challenging, there is the on line side, just getting everyone there, to be able to see them and hear them as well as each person being able to ring their bell.
Once this was accomplished we started with very basis stuff, rounds and plain hunt. Personally I found ringing way this was tricky, I am totally unable to ring (press a key) with one hand and conduct (pressing another key) with the other hand. However over time we have persevered, aided by lots of laughter and the odd beer (you certainly cannot have a beer in the tower) we can now ring methods with calls and our best achievement to date has been Stedman Doubles.
We all look forward to being back in the tower doing what we love most ringing real bells.
Below is a screen shot of what the virtual ringing room looks like
