In the summer of 2015, Jane, Paul, and Randy decided that we wanted to try a longer length ring, and even perhaps ring a quarter peal. To this end, we started meeting once a week during the week, away from our normal Saturday practice.

The first thing to remember is that Randy and Paul are fairly new change ringers. Paul had rung for a year in a tower, and has rung tunes with handbells, but just joined our group in 2014. Randy started learning change ringing with handbells in March of 2013, and had only ever pulled a rope in a tower a few times, and never for more than 5 minutes. Jane was our experienced ringer, and so was the conductor.

We started by just randomly calling bobs and singles, and learning what that did to the order of the bells. After messing up a few times, we were able to ring a touch of 180 with little trouble. And as the summer progressed, we were able to ring longer and longer touches. Towards the end, we approached the 720 mark (the full extent of 6 bells), but couldn’t quite get past that.

Finally, on August 9, after our normal rehearsal with the group, we decided to give it another go. And after half an hour, we got back to rounds (720 changes), and continued on for another 540 changes, for a full quarter peal on 6 bells of 1260 changes. It took us just under 45 minutes. The Bell Board entry is here.

Needless to say, we were thrilled!

We are working on another long length with 8 bells. Again, Jane, Paul, and Randy are ringing, and are joined by Ange at times, and LeeAnn at times. In fact, on August 26, we rang a long length on 8 bells, of 560 changes, which was a touch of bob major. It won’t be long before we ring a quarter on 8. More about that when it happens.