A few things we’re great at
We are delighted with the developing bands of young ringers, we value the dedication of the established bands, we acknowledge the work and enthusiasm of all our ringing teachers, and we are grateful for the support of the diocesan clergy in the work that we do for the Diocese. In the slideshow above and in the various tabs, you can see our Young Ringers as featured on national television.
ODG Young Ringers take a medal position at the RWNYC – Birmingham July 2025
I suspect many of you reading this will have, already, read the Ringing World 18th July edition which is dominated by accounts of the fantastic day for young ringers organised, annually, by the Ringing World and a local organisation. If you have read these articles then you will know the ODG young ringers scored 8.5 coming a very credible 3rd in the 8 bell method competition.
This year 6 teams entered the 8 bell method contest. A 50% increase from the 4 teams in London in 2024. The organisers ponder on how to encourage more teams to enter this category. The format of the contest continues to evolve. This year there were five categories, eight-bell method, six-bell method, eight-bell call changes, six-bell call-changes and basic call changes. The leader of the Yorkshire Tykes team likened this to the Football Leagues: Premier League, Championship, Division One, Division Two and Conference. She even said we have ‘promotion and relegation’ with some teams dropping out and others re-joining. It was great to see Bedfordshire enter the basic call changes, last year they came to London but didn’t enter the competition, now strong enough to compete, perhaps in the next few years they will, again, be the call change team to beat (they won in 4 consecutive years 2013 – 16 ringing method in 2016).
Back to the ODG, our focus is on ringing methods to the best of our ability. We are inching our score up closing the gap with Yorkshire Tykes and Winchester and Portsmouth remaining in 1st and 2nd place respectively.
It is always encouraging to chat to other leaders at events like this. We all have the same challenges. How do you get all your young ringers in the same place to practice? How do you ensure you have more ringers joining the squad as young ringers in your team become too old to ring. This year we say goodbye to Daniel Watson who has been a stalwart of the squad for five years.
Whilst the competition element provides a clear focus for the day there is so much more. This is a day about taking part regardless of which contest you enter. You enter based on the ability of your band, strive to do your best and have fun. This year Nathan, a new ringer in our squad, was given permission to play the organ St Martins.
We started our day with ringing on the 10 at St Paul, Jewellery Quarter and a mini ring. This was followed by handbells at St Martin in the Bullring and then the challenge of ringing on the 16 there. The practice at holding bells up at back stroke paid off. It was good to meet the Bucks and Berks team there and also to see Tom Sherwood ex ODG young ringer who was one of the many graduates from previous RWNYC’s providing support and guidance.
We then put our day bus passes to good use, first to ring at the 10 at St Mary Moseley, fun and games working out which side of the road we needed to stand, then on to our competition touch on the 8 at Edgbaston. We were all on the top deck in case we could see any of the cricket as we passed. Our final tower was the 8 at Harborne and then time for a quick game of cricket in the church yard before our final bus back to the results.
Food is high on the agenda for our monthly practices with copious quantities of cake, so it is not surprising we rounded off our day with pizza before all heading off on different trains to the various destinations across the guild from which our 14-strong squad come.
Monthly practices resume in September, please contact either Colin Lee or Jenny Page for details. There are also practices for young ringers run more locally throughout the guild. For details of these, do contact Colin Lee (for the northwest & central areas), Tony Crabtree (in the southwest of the guild) and Jenny Page (in the southeast).