Having just spent 5 weeks in Africa where I’ve had lots of time to relax and reflect, two things came to mind: one is the large amount of change that has been undertaken over the last few years and the second is the number of people who have helped design, drive, and implement those changes to help us focus on running an organisation which promotes and develops ringers and ringing.
Thank you so much to everyone who has been involved, and to those who are continuing to lead and develop ringing, at executive level, in Branches and in towers. Without you ringing would be a dying art.
There are vacancies on the executive and these need to be filled to enable us to continue to work for the benefit of all our members. The jobs are not onerous and you don’t need to be an expert ringer to take them on. We are looking for someone organised to be secretary, someone who is good at taking minutes and writing them up for the Assistant Secretary, someone with good IT skills for report editor, and a couple of people interested in finding out more about the CCCBR by being a rep, which is the link between the CCCBR and our members. Out of 1550 members there must be someone out there for each of these roles. Please?
The programme for the Guild AGM at Calne on 9th May is now available on the website. The 8 bell striking competition is in the morning at Bishop’s Cannings and there are ringing routes into Calne as well, so plenty on offer. Please do come along and mingle with ringers from other branches, do some ringing on the lovely 10 bells at Calne and have your vote on Guild business.
Congratulations to Sarah Carreck and Lynne Batsford from Pewsey who won the Award for Excellence in Recruitment and Retention in the ART 2026 Awards on 7th March. I understand that several people from our Guild were nominated for various awards and I was honoured to be Highly Commended in the Inspiring Leadership award. There are lots of people quietly doing work and initiatives to share their enthusiasm for ringing. Perhaps next year’s awards will have some more SDGR nominations. Locally we have had 3 nominations for Ringer of the Year and 4 for Young Ringer of the Year, which is good but I am sure there are more people who deserve recognition so perhaps we can increase the number of nominations next year. After all we need to give ourselves and each other a pat on the back from time to time.
Next up is Firsts Week from 5-12th April and this usually has lots of people doing innovative things with their bands, or as individuals. Good luck to everyone and please do let us know what you did for the first time by completing the on line form on the website, where you will be added to the Roll of Honour.
Happy Ringing!
Vicki
