If quarter peal ringing can be seen as a measure of activity in our districts then it has to be apparent that the Peak district is currently in a healthy state since 30 of the district’s 34 towers with more than 4 bells saw quarters rung during the year, furthermore those quarters were spread fairly evenly through the district. The Central district had quarters rung at 18 of its 21 towers. Chesterfield district has 32 towers and this year saw quarters rung at 11 of them. The Southern district certainly has a healthy total, it has 25 towers and quarters were rung at 17 of them, but 68 of its 99 quarters were rung at just two of those towers, the rest were spread thinly. During the year quarter peals were rung to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of this association, in some cases by Sunday service bands, in some by bands representing districts. These still had not been published in the RW by the deadline for this report but although they will be included in next year’s analysis, they deserve mention in this here.
A great deal of this quarter peal activity in the Peak District and around the Derby area is generated by bands that meet on a regular basis, whether mid-week ringing by retired members during the day, or regular meetings in evenings during the month. Such bands can help to encourage some less experienced ringers by including them in quarter peal attempts from time to time. Bands like these can sometimes be fairly loose groupings and can become opportunities for to practice together, improving the ringing of its members. All that it takes is one or two committed ringers to start the ball rolling by arranging a few quarter peals. If people enjoy the ringing and the socialisation opportunities for improvement and development arise which have great benefits for the association and for ringing in our diocese.
I would encourage members to become involved in this type of activity if possible, the commitment need not be onerous and can result in improvements all round. For advice about getting involved I suggest that contacting either of the association’s leading quarter peal ringers would be a start.
This report is based upon performances published in the Ringing World between 03.02.06 and 26.01.07. Any quarters rung within the calendar year and not published within that period are not included; such quarters will normally be included in the report for the following year. Where figures are shown in parenthesis they refer to 2005.
The number of quarter peals recorded for the association during the period was 388 (388). There were actually 362(335) published quarters rung at association towers during the period but this figure includes 55 (42) rung by visiting bands and those 55 quarters play no further part in this report. The numbers rung in each district were:
| District | 2006 | 2005 |
| Central | 69 at 18 towers | 67 at 17 towers |
| Chesterfield | 25 at 11 towers | 20 ay 14 towers |
| Peak | 114 at 30 towers | 116 at 29 towers |
| Southern | 99 at 17 towers | 90 at 14 towers |
| Association Towers | 306 at 76 towers | 293 at 74 towers |
| At Other Towers | 30 at 30 towers | 51 at 44 towers |
| On Handbells | 51 at 12 venues | 44 at 11 venues |
| Total | 388at 118 venues | 388 at 129 venues |
In addition the Monday handbell band meeting at Belper had 28 (31) quarters recorded during the year
Ringers and Conductors
A total of 266 (271) ringers took part in successful performances recorded during this year. This included 14 (17) members who rang their first quarter peal. Congratulations to all of you and I look forward to seeing more quarters rung by each of you.
| Emma Dakin | Darley Dale | 2 April | Emma Henshaw | West Hallam | 13 Jan |
| Becky Danicic (HB) | Hilton | 15 Oct | Elizabeth Hill | Ashford | 7 Feb |
| Eliza Dawson | Horsley | 12 June | Valerie Pearce | Chesterfield | 10 Sep |
| Thirza J Eades | Wetton | 7 May | Eddie Oldfield | Youlgreave | 27 Dec 05 |
| Chris Ebbern | Aston-On-Trent | 18 Nov | Sarah Pickford | Brassington | 11 Nov |
| Richard Freemantle | Bakewell | 5 Mar | John Quarmby | Duffield | 12 Mar |
| Sue Hadfield | Stanton in Peak | 30 Mar | Stephanie Steele | Stanton in Peak | 13 Nov |
During the year 52 (57) conductors were recorded and 3 (3) need to be congratulated on conducting their first quarter peals, they were Keith Baines at Brailsford on 9 July, Alex Pykett (aged 12) at Ashford in the Water on 28 October, and on handbells Emma Humphrey at Tideswell on 23 March. There were also two jointly conducted quarters
The ringers who rang in 50 or more quarters, or who conducted 10 or more quarters were:
| Quarters rung | On tower bells | On handbells | Conducted | |
| Alec Humphrey | 115 (133) | 112 (130) | 3 (3) | 65 (73) |
| Geoff Goodall | 106(100) | 98 (98) | 7 (2) | 53 (49) |
| Eileen Goodall | 88 (94) | 87 (94) | ||
| Gill Hughes | 88 (83) | 63 (61) | 25 (22) | 12 (5) |
| John Cater | 63 (64) | 31 (27) | 32 (37) | 37 (40) |
| Pat Halls | 61 (57) | 59 (53) | 2 (4) | 11 (15) |
| James Franklin | 59 (61) | 59 (61) | 3 (2) | |
| Mike Willis | 58 (58) | 55 (56) | ||
| Peter Humphrey | 58 (51) | 53 (51) | 4 (0) | 14 (12) |
| Chris Willis | 55 (78) | 55 (76) | 0 (2) | |
| Linda Pelc | 50(44) | 50(44) | ||
| John Heaton | 44 (35) | 44 (35) | 26 (16) | |
| Len Goodall | 49 (57) | 45 (54) | 4 (3) | 18 (21) |
| Simon Humphrey | 12 (17) | 11 (17) | 1 (0) | 10 (12) |
Footnotes to some of the quarters reveal landmarks for some ringers, they include
100th quarter peal Chris Gilbert
700th quarter as conductor John Cater
1200th quarter Pat Halls
1200th quarter Alec Humphrey
100th together Geoff Goodall, Chris Willis & Alec Humphrey
300th together Mike Willis & Alec Humphrey
Methods Rung
As might be expected the most commonly rung method was Plain Bob, but this year saw a considerable decrease in the number of quarters of Grandsire. Cambridge and Yorkshire were the most popular treble dodging methods.
| On 5 bells or less | Minor | Triples | Major | On 9 bells or more | Total | |
| Stedman | 3(0) | 4(1) | 1(0) | 8(1) | ||
| Grandsire | 9(4) | 3(19) | 5(8) | 17(31) | ||
| Plain Bob | 41(57) | 44(34) | 8(5) | 11(10) | 1(0) | 105(106) |
| Other Plain Methods | 5(3) | 4435) | 0(7) | 11(13) | 0(1) | 60(59) |
| Cambridge/Yorkshire | 15(22) | 15(7) | 5(5) | 3534) | ||
| Kent/Oxford | 12(10) | 1(4) | 13(14) | |||
| Other treble dodging | 89(94) | 26(9) | 2(3) | 117(106) | ||
| Milti-method & spliced | 8(17) | 15(18) | 10(2) | 0(1) | 33(38) | |
| Total | 66(81) | 219(213) | 15(32) | 74(45) | 14(18) | 388(389) |