I am pleased to report that this year (2007) your Ringing Centre has been the busiest yet. There were 38 events of a training nature held at Eckington during the year. These included two ringers coming for an evening of remedial bell handling, 4 Sunday afternoon conducting courses, 9 evening or Sunday afternoon Oxford Group sessions, 2 DDA training days held on Saturdays, 1 young Chesterfield ringers' fun Sunday afternoon, using most of our facilities, 6 tied handling practices, 1 Friday evening and Saturday morning for the Whirlow weekend, 10 Saturday morning plain methods sessions, 3 Whiting Society training days and 1 Central Council run Train the Trainer course. This is a very mixed range of events ranging from the very basic through to some fairly advanced activities. When I look back at the aims of the Centre I am pleased with what we have achieved in a relatively short space of time from a standing start.
I am glad to report that the equipment used at the centre is mainly in good order and this year we have added a half share (with the church) in a digital projector to use in training sessions. We have to thank theringers at Eckington for providing a loan for this projector, as there were insufficient funds in the Centre's accounts. This was first put to use on the DDA training day. We have of course also this year had the benefit of using our dumb bells both to provide a lighter 8 and to negate the need to "tie" a bell for some of the handling sessions. The equipment, which needs some attention, are the ropes, these are now in need of replacement and a full set has been placed on order. I think we need to consider building a fund for maintenance of the bells to assist the local tower with maintenance costs in the future as the use of the bells has at least doubled over the past few years as a consequence of becoming a Ringing Centre.
Whilst the Centre is now fairly busy I feel that we should be providing a more structured offering of courses. I therefore appeal to the membership for volunteers to give some time to the Centre to provide a team of people capable of offering regular training events in the form of a syllabus so that new ringers in particular can see where they can obtain training to a recognised level. If you feel that you could become involved in such a project I would be very pleased to hear from you.
One further benefit of having developed the Centre is that because of the capability of ringing the bells silently to the neighbours we have been able to offer the use of the bells to Beighton ringers whose own bells are unable to be rung due to re-ordering of their building. Over the last couple of months of the year and continuing into 2008 they have been able to maintain practices by using our "tied" bells.
Finally, during the year a group of local amateur filmmakers put together a DVD on life in and around Eckington. About one third of this hour long documentary was devoted to Ss Peter & Paul's Church of which a major part was devoted to the bells and their ringing. This featured some very good shots of the bells being rung, taken both in the belfry and also the ringing chamber. The sound of the bells ringing was recorded on one of our training events. If anyone is interested in obtaining a copy I would be glad to arrange this.
I look forward to another eventful year in 2008 with a number of bookings already secured.