2026 marks a remarkable milestone — the 140th anniversary of the Hereford Diocesan Guild of Bellringers.
This is a wonderful opportunity to honour our heritage, and to come together to ring our bells. Here are some planned events and ideas to help us celebrate this special year in style.
1. Anniversary Ringing
The actual anniversary of the Guild falls on Monday 2nd March 2026. It would be amazing to have general ringing, touches (perhaps even 140 changes in length!), quarter peals or peals recorded in as many of our towers as possible over the week.
Please add details of all your commemorative ringing throughout the year to Bellboard at https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/event.php?id=22351
If you’d like to ring a simple 140 changes of Plain Bob or Grandsire Doubles you can call a standard 120 and follow it by two bob leads.
There are a number of methods already named after people and places from within our Guild, you can visit https://complib.org/ to find what you need, or, if you would like some help to identify a suitable method please contact Andrew, pealrecorder@hdgb.org.
2. 140 Firsts
Throughout the year we want to keep a record of all the firsts achieved by our ringers and achieve at least 140 firsts. Everyone at any stage of their ringing journey can join in this challenge, please make sure the
event is recorded on BellBoard and linked to the event we have created.
A “first” can be anything, first time ringing call changes, first time ringing for Sunday service, first time ringing on 10, first QP, first in a new method, first peal and any other first you can think of. Congratulations Burghill on the first entry!
Latest on Bellboard here: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/event.php?id=22372
3. 140 New Recruits
This target is clearly ambitious, but we need something to aim for, and the new recruits will hopefully convert to becoming guild members in time. All of us can encourage people to come along and give bellringing a go, we all know the benefits are enormous, as a hobby it ticks so many boxes, and it is within the capabilities of most. Encouraging towers to open their doors to the public, offering guided tours, bell handling demonstrations, and ppportunities to try ringing is a fantastic way to engage communities and attract new recruits to the art.
4. Forthcoming Events
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- Saturday 9th May 2026 Guild Festival & Annual General Meeting – Hereford District
- Friday 12th June 2026 Guild Dinner
- Saturday 18th July 2026 Guild Competition Day, Bromyard District
- Saturday 3rd October 2026 – Tower Open Day
Thank you!
Many thanks to Ashley Smith who has designed the new logo we will be using throughout 2026, we hope you like it –
If you would like a copy of the logo to use on your documents/publicity for the coming year, you can download it from here, or please contact your district secretary or contact@hdgb.org.
Please share all our activities and photos with the Guild newsletter and website. Contact Fran Watkins, Guild Secretary guild_secretary@hdgb.org, Nicky Aubrey, Public Engagement Officer peo@hdgb.org or Nick Chapman, webmaster@hdgb.org
