“It’s not failure if you enjoy the process”

This quote from Oprah Winfey popped into my timeline the afternoon in which a group of us had failed to score a quarter peal in the morning. We had met with the intention of going for a quarter peal of Yorkshire Surprise Major on the understanding that as it was one person’s first attempt at a quarter of a Surprise Major method, if it came a cropper, it would be no big deal. It also happened to be the conductor’s birthday so it would have been a nice thing to attempt as a compliment.

We had been virtually #bellringing for nearly 45 minutes and we were only two leads away from the end when the conductor’s technology failed, therefore bringing our attempt round to a premature end. Whenever I ring in a quarter peal, as I’m sure most people do, I ring with the absolute intent of scoring it, and although the one ringer was less experienced at ringing Surprise Major methods, they had been given advice on which bell to ring and what would happen and equipped themselves very well. We were all of the mind that we would go for it and see how far we got.

It does seem sometimes happen that if quarters or peals are lost there needs to be a post-mortem and an attempt at determining what or who was at fault. Most people feel quite down if they don’t score it, and if you were the person who went wrong and caused the pile up, you’d probably feel really bad for the rest of the band. It tends to be more irksome if ringing in a real tower and people had to travel a distance to ring with, what some might consider, nothing to show for it.

Disappointing though it was not to have scored the quarter to mark the conductor’s birthday, there was no bad feeling afterwards at all. Everyone was congratulated for getting that far, especially the person with less experience. There was a feeling of “well that was jolly good practice” and “it proved you can do it”. There were also calls for rearranging it soon so that we could score it and get that first quarter of Surprise Major in the bag.

It makes a real difference when you ring with people who are non-judgemental and who appreciate just ringing together for the pleasure of ringing and helping someone less experienced along the way. We decided not to resume ringing for the rest of the duration of the practice time but had a good chat about everything else instead. It was a pleasure just to have everyone’s company.

We may have failed to score the quarter but we enjoyed the attempt and the process of how we got to even attempt it.

Travelling all over the Country

Today was an epic day of activity for me on Ringing Room. This time of year we would ordinarily be #bellringing with a group of friends that we meet up with twice a year. Without being able to meet up for real we decided to try holding a virtual tower grab through the wonders of Ringing Room. On Saturday we had five towers to log in and out of that virtually had us travelling from Oxfordshire to Essex and back again. There are more towers on Sunday from Essex, Portsmouth and Nottingham. We may also try some quarter peals on Sunday morning as well.

So having spent an hour and a half in and out of various towers ringing all sorts of random methods, I then had a Cast of 1000 session for an hour and a half, where I was one of the students practicing spliced Cambridge, Yorkshire and Superlative Surprise Major, and some Lessness and Bristol Surprise Major.

Bearing in mind I’m nursing a stinking cold now as well, my brain was well and truly fried by the end of it. There was very little time between my Cast of 1000 ringing and the evening social Zoom event as part of the ringing weekend, so we cheated and C grabbed a chinese takeaway whilst I was ringing. Just about had enough time to eat it before logging back in to Zoom again.

There were nearly 20 of us on a Zoom chat, catching up as we missed out on the summer tour. We had a short business meeting as well just to think about plans for the year ahead, although its still unlikely that we’ll be able to have the summer tour this year either.

Its quite marvellous how we are all able to continue to ring and meet up with with people, albeit virtually.

We did a thing… again

The wonders of technology and the inspiration of the inventors of Ringing Room means that we get to ring bells from the comfort of our own homes on our computers.

Bank Holiday Monday gave us another opportunity to try for another family quarter peal on Ringing Room with representation from Essex, North Lincolnshire and Nottingham.

Timed to start early enough in the morning so we have time to do other things during the day, but late enough for either a bit of a lay in and a lazy start to the day, or to get something done beforehand for those with more enthusiasm for that sort of thing.

Although not #bellringing on tower bells, I’m still counting these virtual quarters within my records as they still require the same level of concentration, take the same length of time to complete, and for some, require the same level of learning. I know some people are not counting them in their personal records as they are not rung on tower bells.

Both the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers and The Ringing World are counting them as “distributed” and therefore recognising their legitimacy but acknowledging that they don’t require the same physical exertion.

This latest one brings my total for 2020 to 7 quarter peals. Not bad considering we’ve not been able to ring with others since March. We rang 4 tower bell quarters in the first 3 months then 3 Ringing Room quarters in the last couple of months.

My overall total is now 412 quarter peals. Considering how long I’ve been ringing you could argue that that’s not many but I think its a reasonable total when you consider opportunities. There was a whole period where I just didn’t ring any at all.

I actually enjoyed ringing the Ringing Room quarters and perhaps…. I could stretch to a peal. 🤔