I wonder whether the photographers intend to find an amusing shot, or its happy circumstance, or they just rattle off so many shots that one of them is bound to be funny.
This year’s finalists were a smiley fish, photo bombing giraffes, a bear waving hello, a violin playing Tern, a really unhappy turtle, parakeets keeping socially distanced, a bored gorilla, silly brown bears, a fox and rodent having a very intense debate, a puking penguin, a butt scratching baboon, smiley mongoose, an egret having a really bad hair day, a laughing seal, a sarcastic kingfisher, a boiling snow monkey, magical pelicans, a cute red squirrel, a racoon sticking put of a tree, and swinging langurs.
I think my favourites were the smiley fish 🐟 as it looked like it was having a great time and was bright and cheerful, and the photo bombing giraffe 🦒 that looked like it was trying to cheer up its more serious looking friend, and the rather displeased turtle 🐢
Behind the giggles the competition has a serious message to support wildlife conservation and is partnered by the Born Free Foundation. The winners will be announced on 22nd October.
One of my volunteering roles is as Public Relations Officer for the Essex Association of Change Ringers and I have been looking at our online presence recently. We have a website https://eacr.org.uk/ a Twitter account, Facebook page and an Instagram profile @essexbells. All of which need some work on to make them better at engaging with our members and our external audiences and stakeholders. The one thing we didn’t have yet was anything on YouTube.
Well that’s all changed now and I’m pleased to announce that the Essex Association’s YouTube channel is now live. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwQcGeDDYSzKVw-m4huwKZw The difficulty being, with no actual ringing meetings, competitions, dinners, socials or other events actually happening, other than online, there’s not a lot to post.
Never fear though. I’ve kicked off with a recorded training module based on the ART and Central Council of Church Bellringers recruitment and retention workshop, and it would be great to get some other training materials posted too.
The other thing I’ve been doing is recording a series of getting to know people interviews with ringers from across the Association. The first one is with the Master and we get to find out a bit more about his work for the Association, his memories of learning to ring and what he gets up to when he’s not ringing. It was really interesting to hear his story and what he enjoys about ringing.
I have 10 other interviews “in the can” ready to upload every couple of weeks or so and a couple more interviews lined up ready to record. I’m looking forward to finding more people to talk to and get their stories.
Its been a great little project to do and I’m not an expert at interviewing, nor at editing, but I think you’ll see over the coming months that my skills have improved a little bit and I am trying to make it look a bit more professional. 😜
I’ve always found it quite sad that although we spend time with people in a ringing room, we know so little about them really. We might get a sense of what they do for work or study and maybe where they may (or may not at the moment) be going for their holidays, but other than that, we probably don’t delve too deeply.
One of my interviewees flies light aircraft, another ski’s regularly, another has spent time with tribes people in Africa and another makes acrylic art. Everyone has something interesting about them and I hope that this series allows others to find that out and sparks different conversations and maybe inspire people to try something different.
On Wednesday evening a select few of us gathered on a video conference as a dress rehearsal for our #bellringing Association AGM which takes place on Saturday, again by video conference. The event is being hosted as a webinar so that only the active participants are visible but other means are available for members to be able to communicate. Having had the experience of a similar event the weekend before I was able to suggest some changes to our plans to avoid any pitfall this time around. Learning from that previous experience will hopefully mean it all goes smoothly.
Early(ish) Friday morning a different select few gathered on the virtual #bellringing platform and video conference to try to ring a quarter peal of Cambridge Surprise Minor. The ringing itself was rather good, very few hesitations. However the technology wasn’t going to play nicely. Before we’d barely started the conductor’s internet had thrown him out and he had to log back on. That happened twice. Things then went along reasonably well until everything just froze. None of the bells rang and the video conference just hung for a few seconds before springing back to life. By then of course it was too late and we had to stop. However, attempting these longer lengths of ringing really does help cement the method into your brain, so if nothing else, we’re a bit more experienced now.
Then, as I mentioned yesterday, I was going to bake some biscuits from a magazine that I’ve had kicking around for yonks. The pic above is the result.
Making the biscuits was simple enough and being the piggies that we are I doubled the qualities. Then came making royal icing from scratch. Something I’d never done before. Well, I got in a right mess. Icing sugar all over place, then the mixture was too stiff for the runouts so improvised which meant that you could no longer see the outline definition. In the end I just chucked it on, added a few sprinkly bits et voila! Something vaguely resembling royal iced butterfly biscuits. At least they’re edible. I learned something new. I also learned that I’m not going to make royal icing from scratch again. I’m sure you must be able to buy it ready made in a tub!
We’re somewhat creatures of habit in our house. Since our daughter attended Rainbows and Brownies then Guides when she was younger, I used to squeeze the food shopping in in between dropping her off and picking her up again every Thursday. She gave up Guides when the unit folded when she was about 12 or 13. She’s 23 now. But we still do the food shop on a Thursday. And what’s even more ridiculous is that my husband retired (early) 2 years ago so could do the food shop during the day and on any day of the week he wanted. Yet it still happens on a Thursday.
That means the shopping list has to be created on Wednesday evenings. We are currently loosely following a well known diet club food menu, although we don’t actually belong to the club. It helps us make healthier food choices and gives better variety to meal times. So I go through the recipe books and decide which dishes we’ll have in the coming week. He then goes back over them to check what he actually needs to buy and what’s already in stock and writes the list. Then we add on anything else that we need in addition to food items. I always end it “and something nice”!
Over the years I have collected many, many, many #baking magazines for inspiration and the “oh, that looks nice, I’ll try making that” only never to get around to it. This last week I have decided that I need to devote more time to #baking. I’ve put the magazines in order with the intention of making something each week until I’ve got through all the magazines.
In addition to the usual food shopping I have added some extra items to this weeks list in order to create some royal icing covered biscuits, magazine 1. My plan is to make them on my day off on Friday or at the latest on Saturday, depending on what else is going on.
I find #baking and cake decorating very therapeutic as I have to concentrate on what I’m doing. It helps me zone out of other stuff for a bit. And you get something (hopefully) edible at the end of it. So much the better.
I shall look forward to creating our little something for the weekend 😋
There’s so much clap trap out there about how we must be joyful and have happy and meaningful lives. There are courses designed to help you find your inner happiness and top tips on the best ways to find joy in every day life. Type “finding joy in life” into Google and it offers you at least 259,000,000 results. But what happens if you don’t know what makes you happy?
I’ve been told before that I must LOVE #bellringing because I do it all the time and I get involved with the organisation and running of things, and if I’m not actually ringing I’m at a meeting about ringing, or writing a report or article about ringing. So I must love it right, to be investing so much of my time and energy into it?
I like ringing, for sure. I like the challenge of making a bell ring in the right place and learning complex methods. I like the social aspect of meeting new people, or even the same people each week. I sometimes like the challenge of writing an article or report, and even sometimes attending meetings can be entertaining. I like listening to a good piece of ringing (and have judged my fair share of competitions). I have lots of books about ringing. I play at least twice most weeks on a virtual #bellringing platform with different groups if people. I follow lots of different people and towers and associations and the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers on social media. I enjoy a good ringers tea, or apres ringing pub session. I’ve gone on ringing holidays, I’ve travelled overseas and been ringing, I’ve travelled around the UK to ring in peals or quarters. I used to organise the Essex Ringing Course, I’ve been a Principal Officer of our Association and I’ve taught multiple people how to ring. I’ve been a student on courses, I’ve helped on courses. I’ve looked after ringing when the tower captain has been absent. I’ve managed international projects about ringing. I’ve been interviewed and filmed about ringing. I’ve been quoted on the front page of national broadsheets about ringing. I spend a LOT of time on ringing related stuff.
Does it make me happy? Do you know, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s too much like hard work having to get up on a cold, dark, miserable Sunday morning to ring for Service. Sometimes meetings are boring and go on and on unnecessarily. Sometimes other people wind me up (as I’m sure I do others). Sometimes I could quite happily tell it to do one. Go on, take a hike.
I had that opportunity once when I was 19 and moved away from my home area. I thought ‘great, this is my time to give it up. Nobody knows me here so they won’t know if I don’t turn up”. I’d moved up on the Saturday morning and in the afternoon I wandered into the town centre. Now, anyone who is a ringer is somehow automatically attuned to the sound of bells. You can hear them a mile off. When you hear bells on TV or radio you find yourself stopping what you’re doing to listen. When I went into the town centre I could hear bells. Instinctively I walked towards where they were coming from. They were ringing for a wedding and the bride had just come out of the church so I figured they probably wouldn’t ring for more than about 10 mins. So I hung around. When the ringers descended the tower and came outside I looked them straight in the eye and said “hello, I’m a ringer and I’ve just moved into the area”. Doh! what was I thinking? Of course, ringers being the friendly folk that they are, stopped for a chat, explained what night practice was on, and there you have it. Far from giving up, I’d just committed myself to a new tower and a bunch of strangers. The rest, they say, is history and it has become a way of life.
So, does #bellringing make me happy? I guess on the whole it must do. 😁
We are often told not to sweat the small stuff. Don’t get worked up over trivial things. And mostly that’s how I roll. I don’t very often get worked up over incidentals. People have written books on the subject to help us have a more stress free life. However, sometimes the small stuff is worth sweating over to make a difference to someone else.
I used to manage a team of over 250 staff who worked around the clock. They were the lowest paid staff in the organisation. I used to think that they couldn’t possibly have anything to worry about, they’d turn up to work, do their job then go home again. They didn’t have to worry about budgets and rosters and equipment and processes and management performance audits. That was until one of them came into my office one time and broke down in a hysterical fit of sobbing. Dear God, now what do I do?
I shut the door behind her, handed over the box of tissues I always kept on my desk then waited without saying anything. Once she’d gathered her composure she went on to tell me a whole raft of problems at home that had been building up over a period of months that had now all come to a head. Her father had been taken ill suddenly and passed away, her child was being expelled from school for antisocial behaviour, she’d found out that her partner had been having an affair and had just emptied their bank account and run off with the other person and because she was so low paid she would not be able to afford the rent and bills on her own. Quite understandably her world was collapsing around her and the only constant was coming to work. Jeez, and there’s me stressing over a bloody management report in my nice single person office, with a window a nice secure home and social life.
It hit me then that everyone has something going on in their life that maybe they don’t want the outside world to know about, or they try to keep private.
This particular person downloaded all her troubles. I didn’t necessarily have the answers, although made a couple of suggestions to deal with the immediate issues. At the end of a long talk she looked at me thanked me for listening and not judging her.
Sweating the small stuff could mean something simple like being kind and courteous to each other. Sweating those kinds of small things could make a real difference for someone.
I am a member of the #MSEBuddyNetwork at work, a group of staff who are here to listen and support colleagues. Whilst I was on leave last week I missed out on the session about Respect. Thankfully the slides and supporting documents are circulated afterwards so I was able to catch up on the conversation.
One of the supporting documents circulated was 30 Tips For Respect. A matrix of ideas to help put into focus what we should be thinking about with regards to respecting others. Tip 1 was entitled Start with You and went on to describe that you should reflect on how you see others and how others see you. This got me thinking about a piece of work I’d done during my Masters on What is it Like to be on the Receiving End of Me?
I tried to find the relevant documents that I’d collected and written at the time but I must have put them somewhere very safe and forgotten where.
Anyway, this was pulled in to very sharp focus during a conversation I had with a member of my staff. We have had to instigate shift patterns since the start of distancing restrictions as I have 66 staff crammed into a small space. In order to keep them socially distanced I can only have half of them in at any one time. Over time this has started to cause problems with people’s mental and physical health and some have been referred for support. The advice that they had been given contradicts the regulations of social distancing and therefore it has not been possible to act on some of that advice. The person I was speaking to was having a hard time understanding why she couldn’t revert to her previous hours and that it seemed that I, as the manager, didn’t seem to understand what people were thinking. We had a really good honest and frank chat about what I have been doing to try to get their issues and working arrangements sorted and she acknowledged that she felt better for having had the conversation with me. She then said “you need to tell everyone what you’ve just told me, it doesn’t matter that it’s still not resolved and you haven’t got all the answers, but people would feel better knowing that something was actually being escalated”.
I thanked her for her honesty and said that I would reflect on what she’d said but that I wasn’t going to rush straight in now. I would give the matter further thought but have said that if she feels others would feel better for knowing more about what I’ve been doing and escalating with senior managers and directors then I will do that.
It was a great example of listening to and respecting others’ needs and reflecting on my own behaviours and what its like to be on the receiving end of me.
As you know I was off work last week taking some annual leave and doing all sorts of random things which was thoroughly enjoyable. At 07:30 this morning I was back at my office desk.
The first thing to do was navigate logging back into my PC trying to remember the new password I’d set the day before I went on leave. Then opening the email inbox to see the 290 new emails received over last week. Didn’t think that was too bad actually. I can hear my number two in her office next door talking to someone so I’ll have to wait for her to update me on what’s been going on.
Then time to check the diary to see what I’ve got on this week. I’m interviewing for new staff this morning and have 3 candidates, all internal, to see. Then a conference call later on. The rest of the week is a patchwork of meetings, investigation interviews and video conference calls. Good job I’ve got my strong, home ground coffee with me.
Well, here we are at Sunday already. I’ve had a fantastic week off and feel that I’ve achieved quite a lot really and managed some down time as well. However, I do feel a little anxious about returning to the office tomorrow.
I know that in my diary for Monday morning is interviewing for new staff and I’ve done that so many times, so that’s not going to be a problem. I know that there can’t have been any disasters as I haven’t had any phone calls and I have every confidence in my number two. I know my email in box will have about 500 emails, most of which will be circular stuff that can quickly filtered out. I know that Monday will whizz by pretty quickly as I catch up with things.
I think my real anxiousness actually surrounds the things I still want to do at home and then not having the time during the day and having to rush things in the evenings, not spend quality time with C etc. I do wish sometimes that I could give up work and spend more time on the things I want to do.
However, go to work I must for now so I’ll try and make the best of my last day at home. Albeit housework and lunch preparations for the week ahead. Maybe I’ll get some time later to make a start on reading a new book. Ho hum. 😁
Not everything goes to plan first time around. Both #bellringing and #baking have their moments when you have to start over. Baking cakes is fraught with all sorts of danger from ingredients that aren’t quite right, to oven temperatures being a bit erratic, to mixtures coming out too wet or too dry. Icing might not do what you think it should and taste and final aesthetics may not be how you envisaged.
Bellringing often requires a start-stop. Learning new methods is hard work. A lot of homework theory is required before you even try it out on real bells. And of course, at the moment when using real bells isn’t an option for some, the cooperation of technology isn’t always available.
Yesterday I was very lucky to have been invited to participate in a quarter peal attempt on RingingRoom with some very illustrious ringers. That in itself was worrying enough, but if you don’t say yes to these things when they are offered you’ll never get asked again. The method was straight forward, Grandsire Caters, something which if we’d been ringing in the tower would have been second nature.
The trouble virtual #bellringing is that a lot of the visual clues that you would ordinarily get by virtue of the movement of the rope, the rhythm of the ringing and the faces of your fellow ringers, just aren’t there. Therefore ringing something that you are very familiar with gets more complicated.
In the tower, whilst ringing this particular method, I would barely be noticing what place I was in, counting my place would only happen in moments of doubt. However just to make sure, yesterday I counted every single place I was in. That’s not to say that the instruction from my brain to hand to keyboard necessarily struck the bell in exactly the right place, I did my share of clipping.
We had a false start to begin with when a couple of bells swapped position but that was very early on, so we started off again. We’d been ringing for quite a while the second time around and there had been a few technical lag issues and a few bells not quite in the right place but they seemed to get sorted out quickly enough. However, things came to a grinding halt about two courses from the end. Something wasn’t quite right so it had to be stopped.
Disappointing though that was, that’s the longest single piece of virtual #bellringing I’ve done, and only the second time I’ve rung on ten bells in RingingRoom, which does sound very different and your rope sight does require adjustment.
The plan was to have rung a quarter peal to mark the Central Council of Church Bellringers AGM taking place on Saturday and rung by Council members (+1). Not to be deterred, we have rescheduled it for later today to try, try again.
Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself 