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March 2009 No. 345
The Stradbroke Monthly Ten Bell Appeal in Stradbroke?
Inside this issue: Local Churches
3, 4
Parish Pump!
6
Organisation News
9, 10, 12, 14
Letters to the Editor
14
Can you help?
14
Forthcoming Events
17, 18
News and Views
18, 20
Sports
23
Gardeners Notes
27
Village Diary
36
The bells at All Saints have been mostly silent over the last few years, as we have not had enough local ringers to keep them ringing. Some of you will have missed the sound of the bells and some of you will not. Over the next few weeks there will be several occasions when the bells are going to be rung for various reasons. The Suffolk Guild of Ringers has several events on and due to the fact The caption reads that Stradbroke is one of the “Stradbroke Church, Suffolk. The Two New Trebles of 10 few towers in the area with 10 6CWTS 1QR 6LBS & 6CWTS 2QRS 2LBS bells, we have had requests from Gillet & Johnston a number of visiting bands to Croydon 1952 come and ring. A couple of the occasions will involve continuous ringing - known as a Peal of the bells - over approximately 3 hours (as long as the ringers don't make any big mistakes). For those of you who don't like the bells, this won't usually occur very often, it's just that we have received two requests close together. So please could we ask for your understanding and patience. The Peals are booked for February 21st and March 14th. Whilst it is lovely that we have 10 bells in the village, we are very mindful that they are located in the centre of the village, are quite loud and are fairly difficult to ring well. So we have to find ways of getting new ringers to a certain standard before letting them loose on these bells and making too much of a din. Trevor is currently involved in the teaching of a number of new ringers in the local vicinity and we are planning to bring some of these people to Stradbroke during March to gain experience on the bells. Once they have confidence on these bells we are hoping they will join us on occasions, which will enable us to ring for certain celebrations once again. With so many churches in Suffolk, there aren't enough ringers to go around. This results in many of us travelling quite a distance, to a number of churches, in order to make up the numbers. The wedding season can be very hectic! We will be starting another round of training later this year, with the intention of once again having enough trained people to be able to ring regularly for church services. The training will take place initially at churches in other villages, where the bells are less of an intrusion on the near neighbours. If you think you might be interested in learning, watch out for details which will appear nearer the time. For those of you who do like the bells, we hope you enjoy the ringing. Trevor and Julie Hughes
Photo: www.suffolkchurches.co.uk