There has been a call for churches and ringers to celebrate Bell Sunday, to be held on 14th May, the Sunday before St Dunstan's Day, the patron saint of bell ringers. The idea is to both enthuse and educate the congregation about bells and to provide an opportunity for our churches to acknowledge and thank ringers for their contribution to the life of the community.
I think that it is a lovely idea. When we leave our Reedham ringing room on a Sunday, only a couple of us stay for the service and the others have to walk out through the north door because the west door is normally locked against the prevailing wind. Thus we are on view to those in the pews and whoever is leading the service. We are always thanked and in the early days were sometimes applauded for our efforts. I know that we are appreciated. I suspect that is not true for every band of ringers. Some are probably taken for granted and would welcome some recognition and a bit of cake or similar.
As for educating, something to focus publicity around is usually welcome. We will have rung for the king, and now we will ring for you sort of thing, together with an invitation to have a try at chiming, because as long as you can get up our stairs, you can probably manage to chime our bells.
As it happens, I was visiting a church this week and picked up some advertising. The church in question was suggesting that people might want to support them by offering to pay the electricity bill for a week – a sponsored Keep the (Flood) Lights On drive. The church in question is lit from 6pm (or dusk) to midnight every day of the year except Good Friday. The electricity costs £100 per month and for £20 you can sponsor the lights for a specific week. It is suggested that people might like to celebrate a birthday or some other significant event. It is not just aimed at the congregation because anyone driving up the A12 sees the glow from this imposing church from some distance away. For those that live locally, they know that they are nearly home. The sponsorship is publicised in the porch as a public thank you or you can remain anonymous. It is an innovative idea and it caught my attention because why not ask our communities to sponsor our bells?
We raised a fair few hundred pounds pre-lockdown by offering sponsored rings for individuals – a birthday here, an anniversary there and a ring for a local girl whose late dad had looked forward to the day when our village bells would ring for his little girl on her wedding day – so they did, although the wedding was held at a venue elsewhere and none of the guests could hear them. Such things are not only quite lucrative but also satisfying because the bells should be for the benefit of the community. It is time to resurrect our sponsored ring offer. Why should royalty get all the good stuff? We can ring for both prince and pauper, although we would prefer the pauper to have at least £20 to contribute towards the upkeep of our bells.
I pinched the form from the Keep the Lights on church and will copy the layout because Keep the Bells Ringing is even more important than floodlights and does no damage to the planet whatsoever.
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