thomascooper

This is the annual inter district striking competition, which was held at Canon Pyon in 2009

A warm and comfortable afternoon allowed the ringers to listen outside to the ringing whist engaging in conversation, look around inside Saint Lawrence’s Church and enjoy afternoon tea, in the church, with fellow ringers.

Six teams participated in the competition, representing five of the districts, with Church Stretton being allowed to enter two teams.

The test piece was 120 changes of Plain Bob Minor including any rounds rung after the touch.

The competition judge was our Master Mark Pugh who kindly took on the task at very short notice because, due to an accident, our judge was unable to attend.

In his introduction Mark commented that it was an excellent competition and because the ringing had been very good it had made his job more difficult. His comments, below, were offered as general constructive comments.

The competition commenced with the first team soon settling down after some rushed hand stroke leads but making very few actual mistakes. They were followed by a team which again rang at a fine speed with the occasional unclear dodges in 3-4 and the little bells tending to dictate the speed. Increased speed was noticed with the third band to ring, they were the fastest of the afternoon, and needed to be more careful with their handstroke leads. Good leading throughout was noticeable with the next band and when errors occurred these tended to be in clusters. The penultimate band demonstrated confident ringing with the final band having an error in the same place in both the (unjudged) plain course and their test piece but they quickly recovered and settled down.

The test piece was marked by recording a fault of any description in each change.

Hereford District came first in the competition with 18 faults. They were the first band to ring in the afternoon, they were a pleasure to listen to and their ringing provided a challenging start to the competition.

To hear part of the test piece of bob minor click on the team name

Results.

1 Hereford district (18)

2 Church Stretton district A (20)

3 Church Stretton district B (24)

4 Ledbury district (25)

5 Ross district (26)

6 Clifford & Kington district (40)

Our thanks to Rev Michael Cluet and the Canon Pyon ringers for providing excellent teas during the afternoon, The Rev Michael Cluett for taking the service and their organist.

Their warm welcome and hospitality made it an enjoyable competition for us all.

Members of the winning band were; 1.Ricky Shallcross.(C); 2. Richard Pullin; 3. Nicky Aubrey; 4.Dave Powell; 5. Kris Perruzza and 6. Andrew Mainwaring.

The competition in 2010 will be on Saturday October 9th at Morville. The test piece will be Grandsire Triples