Welcome

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North-East Branch Annual Guild Report 2009

The Branch maintains a stable state with just over 100 members. We welcomed two new towers, Bickleigh and Cruwys Morchard, while Cullompton ceased to be an affiliated tower, although we still have unattached members from there. The pattern of branch activities was similar to previous years, with four Saturday afternoon events and a monthly 8-bell and advanced 6-bell practices at Huntsham. Tiverton St Peter, Bampton and Huntsham continue to offer weekly practice opportunities to all members as Branch Practice Towers. Four Saturday morning seminars were held covering method theory, fire safety and a meeting of tower captains.

The social side of the Branch was enhanced this year. In addition to the usual branch outing, dinner and the 6- and 8-bell striking competitions, we have added two mid-week outings catering primarily for our retired members. The formula of tower-pub lunch-tower has been most successful and we shall continue with these popular events in 2010.

   

The "main" outing was to Bath in May and, as wel l as enjoying some very interesting bells and Bath's wonderful cityscape, we were very pleased to meet up with Tom and Emma Longridge at Bathwick for lunch.

In May the Troyte Ringing Centre at Huntsham hosted a special event at which Bishop Bob met local ringers over tea and thanked them for their work.

   

This was also the first occasion that the full set of ringing display boards made their appearance. These have been commissioned by the Troyte Centre and the Branch to help promote ringing to the wider community and are being regularly used by towers for their publicity events.

The Branch again had a stall in the Churches Tent at the Mid Devon Show in July and is now planning for a more ambitious presence in 2010. The Troyte training programme was generally very successful attracting ringers from across the county as wel l as from the Branch. Mike and Pat Hatchett are also to be congratulated and thanked for their hard work in running three sessions per week on the practice bell at Bampton.

This year the Committee changed from Wednesday nights to mostly holding meetings immediately prior to our Saturday quarterlies and these have been made all the more pleasant by lunching together beforehand. We thank particularly Ken Wannell and John Kape who stood down after several years' service. As Chairman I would like to thank my fellow officers for their hard work on the Branch Committee.

 LESLIE BOYCE - Chairman