Australian and New Zealand Association of Bellringers

2024 Sydney Ringing School - A Participant's Perspective

The Sydney Ringing School, held in early October, was a very successful weekend, with lots of new experiences and some definite progress for the 10 relatively new ringers who participated. The new ringers included four ringers from Armidale, one form Goulburn, three from Darwin and two from Sydney. The group was split into two, with myself and fellow Darwin ringers joining with two from Armidale and one from Goulburn.

On Friday night, our group started at St Mary's Cathedral, a very grand building compared to our small cathedral in Darwin. The first challenge was the 100 steps up the tower, followed by a short traverse across the roof (with marvellous views of Sydney Harbour) before entering the ringing chamber. Compared with our tiny tower in Darwin, the ringing chamber is enormous, with plenty of seating and running water! After our initial nerves, we settled into ringing a number of different exercises, with the Cathedral's ringing master and Ringing School coordinator, Peter Harrison leading the session. There were several experienced ringers to help us out and ensure consistent ringing around us. The bells at the Cathedral were very nice to ring, despite being far heavier than our light Darwin bells. After ringing, we headed up to have a look at the very impressive bells and then off to the pub to join the other group of ringers for dinner.

Saturday morning we headed back to the Cathedral for another session, this time ringing with the bells muffled and using the simulator. This was followed by lunch in the crypt of St James's Church. During lunch, the NSW-ACT branch of ANZAB very kindly presented the Darwin ringers with a box of beautiful ringing books, which has significantly boosted our tower library. After lunch we headed to Christ Church St Laurence, near Central Station. The tower and helpers were very friendly and welcoming and we did some interesting exercises. This was followed by another visit to the pub after ringing before heading home, fairly exhausted after an intensive day.

Sunday morning was an early start for me to get across the harbour for an 8.15 am ring back at Christ Church St Laurence prior to the Sunday service. This was an wonderful experience with a very friendly band and we rang our first plain hunt for a Sunday service! After ringing, we had a quick coffee with the band before heading to St Andrew's Cathedral at Town Hall, which was an opportunity to ring amongst some very experienced ringers. Afterwards we headed back to the north shore and Naremburn for some more exercises. Again, a very friendly tower and some good learning. Monday morning we had our final session at Naremburn, with some excellent exercises, surrounded by experienced ringers.

We worked a lot on Plain Hunt over the weekend, focusing on exercises to improve our rope sight and timing and we all feel we made significant progress. The teachers gave us some tips to work on some bad habits we have picked up with our technique and bell handling, one of the consequences of not having any experienced ringers to correct us in Darwin, so plenty of homework for us to work on.

The weekend was of enormous benefit to us. We left Sydney with our brains buzzing and felt like we had crammed a year's worth of learning into a long weekend! We now have a number of new exercises and ideas to share with our tower back in Darwin. It was also wonderful to meet other regionally based ringers and hear their ringing journeys. Ringing at a wide range of different towers was also a novel experience for some of us new ringers and a good way to develop our skills. A huge thank you to the Sydney Ringing School Coordinators Peter Harrison and Richard Webster, a significant amount of work went into coordinating all the logistics and arranging all the helpers for the weekend. Thanks too, to all the volunteer helpers who so generously gave their time to ring with us and share their valuable ringing knowledge. We would love to see all the NSW ringers in Darwin at some point, though would recommend waiting until our cooler dry season between May and August!

St Mary's Cathedral on a Sunny Sydney Ringing School Day

Access to St Mary's Catheral across the roof

The spacious ringing chamber of St Mary's Cathedral

The magnificent bells of St Mary's Cathedral

Darwin Ringers with the gift of Ringing Books in the crypt of St James' Quuens Square

Jo Cruickshank
St Mary's Star of the Sea, Darwin.