Prospective Master Elect

Hello, I am Rhiannon Pugh and learnt to ring with my father Brian Jones at Presteigne. My Dad also took me to Lyonshall where Dennis Bowen helped me to progress prior to leaving for College in Wales during the late 1980’s. I returned to the area re-joining the Clifford & Kington District, now I ring and teach at Eye and Leominster towers.

My name is Sue Robinson & I live near Stanford Bridge in Worcestershire. I moved to this area approximately 9 years ago from Buckinghamshire and after a short stint in Buckeridge, Far Forest moved here to the Teme Valley.

After a very long absence from bellringing and being fortunate enough to start working part time I decided to re-enter the world of campanology. I am absolutely loving it and have rediscovered the passion and enthusiasm for bellringing I remember first appreciating in my early teens.

I have the privilege to be a listed Guild member for  35 years and I ring lots of doubles, call them and can ring up to major.

Until very recent I was the ‘Ladies Guild’ Ringing Master and stepped aside after 8 years in the post.

Recognised by a formal teaching qualification, I teacher learners at Eye and Leominster, following very successful recruitment through my efforts with social media platforms.

I have past experience of being on the Guild Committee both a District Representative and also as Guild Report Secretary for a few years. It was a very interesting time, Jane Mason was Guild Secretary at then and she was wonderful. Within the Leominster District, I have also held the position of Education Officer and District Master.

My first brush with the hobby started at the age of fourteen in a small village called Whitchurch nestled on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon. I was extremely fortunate to be taught by George Mudge & lucky enough to fall in with a very enthusiastic group which enabled me to progress very quickly. However as is often the case I went off to college to study Agriculture and immersed myself in other things which became detrimental to my bellringing, and I gave it up at the age of twenty.

A move to Wells in Somerset rekindled my interest once again through a work colleague called Brian Mountjoy and I continued to ring up until the time I started my family. A number of house moves later, my two boys grown up with children of their own and living in various parts of the country – here I am ringing at Bromyard & Worcester Cathedral on a regular basis and attending daytime practices at Rock and Stoke St Milborough. In addition, there is a smattering of Quarter Peals, the occasional peal, the privilege of becoming a College Youth member and recently taking on the role of Ringing Master for the Marches District Ladies Guild as well as being the education officer for the Hereford Guild.

I assist at the Cathedral sessions in the training centre which is open to all for an hour before the Monday night practice, here the activities range from handling coaching through to simple methods. At Bromyard we have a wide range of abilities within the band including a couple of novices and the practice sessions are organised to support all levels so the ringing on offer challenges everyone from rounds and call changes through to Yorkshire Royal.

On a personal level I would love to ring eight spliced with a level of confidence, I am enjoying the challenge of 10 & 12 bell ringing and always love returning to my 6 bell ringing roots!

The willingness  to go out and meet, encourage and enthuse lots of our members, to make efforts in bringing our Guild closure together with the hope to join in a ringing event as the Ringing Master but leave as a friend.  Ringing practices, I shall go with the aim to help even if that means I ring the tenor all the time, as long as someone gets something out of the event, I shall be very happy.

I have lots of experience with the Guild and its past Masters, using what I think are the good things they brought to the table and of course my own ideas.

Encourage our young ringers to join together from across the Guild, in events devised for them and hopefully draw new potential recruits in through expression of such a fun and interactive hobby.

Enthusiasm & resilience! And myself as an incredibly positive, self-motivated type of person.

I am usually cheerful, a glass half full person and a good facilitator.

I have 26 years of professional experience in a corporate role where my whole life was based around influencing people and implementing quality related improvements. I hope this experience will assist me to take our guild forward in a positive direction addressing the challenges that face us as custodians of our beloved hobby.

We need to build a Guild for the future by recruitment and I mean lots of recruitment. We also need to care of the members we have and create a simple challenge to improve those ringer’s  and bring the Guild together after the pandemic, so to involve all in securing our existence.

Recruitment, we need to look at other ways to recruit alternatives to assuming people from the church will take part, using social media we can reach out to so many more people. Such a route will allow a diverse group and we need to reach more women and keep them! We also need to promote how green our hobby is as that is quite important at the moment.

I’d like create more social event ideas for the whole Guild, a social get together it doesn’t have to be dinner it could even be a barbecue but more face to face interaction not just at the end of a rope, can form better relationships locally and across boundaries.

Education is so important I’d like to bring all the ringer’s who actually want to learn new methods toward a common achievable goal, encourage more long lengths of ringing to secure the efforts of education.

We are emerging from the covid pandemic and although restrictions have been removed, we are far from being back to normal. Whatever normal is, it still equates to an aging ringing population with elements of parochialism. Success, where we find it, currently stands mostly in isolation.

My aim would be to make the Guild better than the perceived “normal.”  Make it vibrant & living, more cohesive, open to change that brings improvement & enriches the ringing experience for everyone. If we can turn the Guild into a proactive force for bellringing, we will future proof it whilst protecting the traditions of its origins.

I would like to take the opportunity to wish my opponent for this role Rhiannon Pugh the absolute best of luck. I owe much of my current enjoyment of ringing to the encouragement given to me by Rhi and Mark during my time ringing at Leominster.