The Staplehurst Bellringers hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and wish you all the best for the New Year.
The Christmas period is always a busy time for our ringers, and this year it started even earlier for us. On Tuesday 26th November, instead of our usual practice, 26 ringers, partners and friends enjoyed a Christmas meal together at the King’s Head. The food and service were excellent and we are very grateful to manager Mick and his staff who went that extra mile to make sure we had an evening to remember.
On Friday 13th December we managed (just) to get enough people to ring for a wedding – always difficult during a working day and even more so just before Christmas. Then on Saturday 14th some of our ringers joined those from other churches in the area for a special Bellringers’ Carol Service at East Farleigh, followed by mince pies and mulled wine. In addition to the normal Sunday Services we also rang for the Christingle Service on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Morning. By the time you read this, we will also have enjoyed our traditional New Year’s Party and will have “rung in” 2014.
Last year was a very successful one for our ringers and we aim to build on that success in 2014. To help keep that momentum going we always need to recruit more ringers. As you will see above there is a good social side to bell-ringing. We nearly always adjourn to The King’s Head for liquid refreshment after practice, and once a year we have a day’s outing ringing at churches in other parts of the country. Why not make it one of your New Year resolutions to come and visit us at our Tuesday practice and see what it’s all about. For more information contact our Tower Captain Sue Bassett on 01580 891917. In case anyone is wondering, I must stress that there is absolutely no requirement for ringers to attend the church services that they ring for (although if they wished to, they would be most welcome).
During January we will be ringing on our normal Tuesday practice evening, for the regular Sunday Services and hopefully for the Epiphany High Mass on Monday 6th January. At present we have no visiting bands coming to ring on our bells in the early part of 2014, but that may well change as we move towards Spring.