Guild 8 Bell Striking Competition - 19th October 2019
St Andrew's, Kirton in Lindsey

I got a lift out to Kirton Lindsey for the Inter-Branch 8 Bell Striking Competition, which probably explains why I arrived early instead of sliding in at the last minute.

I wandered over to the Village Hall which was pretty full. I chatted to a few people while we waited for the rest of our team to turn up.

The ringing balcony at St Andrew's
View of the church from the balcony

The Central Branch were the first up at 5:00pm, so we wandered over in plenty of time. The bells were all up at backstroke so we pulled them over to handstroke in a completely random order just to confuse people.

We rang Rounds and Plain Hunt on eight for our 3 minutes practice, standing the bells bang on the 3 minute mark with some precision timing. After dinging the treble a couple of times we set off into the test piece. Since the Rounds are not marked as part of the test piece we had a decent spell of Rounds at the beginning to get the bells settled. Then off into Little Bob Major. We decided on 4 plain courses rather than a touch to keep things simple. It seemed to go pretty well, perhaps not a winning test piece but some respectable ringing nevertheless.

Inside the Village Hall

After standing the bells up, we went back over to the Village Hall where the ladies of West Lindsey Branch had produced enough food to feed everyone twice over. Copious amounts of coffee and a baked potato with assorted cold meats, sausage rolls, coleslaw, salad and some very impressive cakes. I did some website updates while the other teams rung and chatted to assorted bellringers until shortly after 7:00pm when Ian Till called the members to order. Sue Faull addressed the members about the availability of the 2020 Guild Calendar and Christmas cards for 2019.

The members also joined together to wish the Guild Master a speedy recovery from his illness.

The Henry Law James Shield
Sue Faull addresses the members

Then Ian introduced the judge. This was Robert Jordon, who is the Tower Captain at Hessle just on the other side of the Humber. Robert rings a lot of peals and is a bit of an advocate of good striking, so by his own admission he tends to be quite critical. This was borne out by his next statement that while he enjoyed listening to the bells it was his opinion that no team got to grips fully with striking the bells properly. However there was a clear winner.

We have had scores in the 100's in previous striking competitions, but I cannot recollect ever having scores in the 200's. Robert is obviously quite strict about what constitutes good striking. Anyway here are the results. (with some apologies for getting the Eastern Branch teams the wrong way round originally - Webmaster)

The Results for The Henry Law James Shield
Position
Team
Branch
Faults
1st
2
West Lindsey
55
2nd
3
Southern
70
3rd
1
Central
90
4th
6
Eastern South
120
5th
4
Eastern North
140
6th
5
Northern
233

So the West Lindsey Branch win for the third year running. Debbie Scarf went up and accepted the The Henry Law James Shield on behalf of the West Lindsey Branch.

Debbie Scarf receives the Shield on
behalf of the West Lindsey Branch
Debbie Scarf and the judge Robert Jordon
 

After thanking the judge for his efforts and thanking the West Lindsey Branch for hosting the competition and providing the tea, there being no other business, we made our way home.

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