By Greg White & Sally Townsend, Ross District
“Greg, Can you arrange for the Wombel to be collected and assembled in the church in time for the AGM on Saturday?”.
“No problem 🙂” was followed just a few seconds later with “What is a Wombel? 🤔”
Internet Definition: A Wombel is a Saxilby Simulator dumb bell mounted on a frame to make it transportable between towers and other venues. The combined unit is known as a Wombel. This can be easily rung by both ringers and non-ringers. It has many uses such as recruitment, raising the profile of ringing and training and it can be used indoors or outdoors in fine weather. The Wombel is an impressive piece of equipment and comes with computer, speakers, extension cable and everything needed for its operation.
Greg and Peter attended training to learn how to assemble and disassemble the Wombel, and arrangements were made for collection the day before the AGM. Assembly in St Mary’s, Ross, on a borrowed piece of carpet to save the church floor, was a slow process 🫤, but eventually the Wombel was up and running. The church was looking ready to welcome the ringers; alongside the Wombel was a ringers book stall, ringing merchandise and a wonderful visual archive of HDGB. 🤩
Eight towers in the Ross District hosted bands for Call Changes and Beyond. There was an excellent morning of ringing with a wide range of methods being rung. The bright, sunny morning was matched by the atmosphere in the towers where excellent conducting and the enthusiasm of the bands was enjoyed by all. At Linton a more experienced group assembled, and spirits remained high despite the unfortunate mishap of a rope breaking, 😖 cutting the practice short. While disappointing, 🙄 the incident did little to dampen the camaraderie and good humour of the day, and it served as a reminder of the challenges that come with maintaining historic ringing equipment.
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The AGM was very well attended, with 78 people in total, so we were extremely pleased that our efforts paid-off.
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Interest in the Wombel was very good and there was a steady stream of people wanting to have a go 🙂 (see video below).
There were two teams of hand-bellringers which entertained us with some stunning tune and method ringing, information about ART courses and BRF; there was something for everyone and the atmosophere was fabulous 😃!