Firsts in Charleston

Ringers from both Marietta and Atlanta recently participated in "Ring Around Charleston", an event held every other year in the beautiful South Carolina city. Lots of quarters were scheduled, and many were scored, including a first for Kathryn Tucker as conductor on Friday, Feb. 22 (Plain Bob Doubles). It was a nerve-wracking experience, but it was made much easier by the incredible support of Ron Warford on the fifth and Yvonne Cairns on the Treble - both are from Newcastle, UK. Doug McCoy from Charleston was the steady tenor, and Philadelphians Bruce and Eileen Butler (2 and 4) rounded out the fantastic group. It was quite a range of geographic talent!
Derek Wilsden also conducted his first quarter of Major, and Lyn Barnett of Atlanta successfully conducted her first quarter. More details on those accomplishments will be published as they become available.

Bob Doubles Quarter Peal Band
Back row (l to r): Ron Warford, Bruce Butler, Doug McCoy.
Front row: Yvonne Cairns, Kathryn Tucker, Eileen Butler.
Photo was taken at the evening banquet on Saturday, Feb. 23 - the clothing in the photo was not what we were wearing for the quarter peal!

New Minor Methods Initiative

The NoGa Ringing Masters are launching an initiative to accelerate improvement in the quality of ringing by NoGa ringers, both in method reliability and striking.
This is being approached by redirecting one hour of each tower's Saturday morning practice (9:30-10:30) for a program of achieving ringing excellence, initially in Plain and Treble Bob Minor methods, then leading on toward several Surprise Minor methods. The Program kicks off on February 2nd for the eight most advanced ringers active in the NoGa towers.
A quickly-felt trickle-down to all ringing by NoGa ringers will be better supported bands within which they can better progress. As ringers achieve a sufficient standard in methods and striking they will be inducted into the (open-ended) Program. Ringers not (yet) within the Program will be welcome at the 9:30 Saturday hour but generally as sit-in observers only.
Derek Wilsden

First Quarter Congrats

From l to r: Derek Wilsden, Kathryn Tucker, Cathy Brown, Charley Heilker, Alice Heilker and Mark Phillips.

Congratulations to Alice Heilker on her first quarter peal ever! She admitted she felt very jittery at the beginning, though none of us detected any hint of nervousness. Alice has worked very hard on her striking and it showed during this quarter. May it be the first of many! Details of the quarter peal are listed below:

MARIETTA, Georgia
29 December 2007
St. James Church
1260 Mixed Doubles (Stedman, Grandsire and Plain Bob)
1 Catherine P. Brown
2. Kathryn E. Tucker
3. Charley Heilker
4. Mark Phillips
5. Derek J. Wilsden
6. Alice Heilker
First quarter - 6. First multiple methods quarter - 4. Rung for the wedding of parishioners Heidi Cash and John Setchel.

"Happy Clapper"

St. James is now once again an 8-bell tower. Our own intrepid Derek Wilsden finally received the part needed to fix the #3 bell, and did all the necessary work to bring St. James back to normal, even-numbered bell glory!
Many thanks to Derek, Mary Platt and Cathy Brown for calling changes and conducting methods under "odd" circumstances. And thank you to all the ringers who steadfastly endeavored to ignore bell #3 while ringing!

St. James Bells on the Radio

The bells of St. James are featured in a 30-second spot on Atlanta's public radio station, WABE. When the producer of the show, David Barasoain, asked Kathryn Tucker why the bells were rung at Christmastime (and this was back in October!), she did her best to give a concise explanation. Another spot featuring St. James will air in February.
Copy and paste the following link into your browser and listen to the spot: http://www.pba.org/programming/programs/atlantasounds/1606/
Then find the "listen here" link on the "St. James in Marietta" paragraph on the page.

Practice continues at St. James

Though it will probably be weeks until the #3 bell will be back in service, practices and service ringing will continue at St. James. As we found out at our most recent practice, it is a challenge to ring methods without this bell, but not impossible. We hope that all North Georgia ringers (and any visitors who might come along!) will continue to support the ringing at St. James.

Derek Wilsden's expalanation for the incident: "The clapper was ejected downward on to wood and suffered no damage (the only bell that does not have concrete under it!). The problem was not the usual loss of the crown staple pin in this type event, but a surprising failure of the welding of one of the side lugs of the staple and then a fatigue failure of the ‘pin’ - which is a 5/8-nch bolt. We are in contact with Taylor, Eayre and Smith for repair options."

Cumberland Peal Band

On Tuesday, 27 November, three members of the Society of Royal Cumberland Youths from St. James' successfully rang a peal of Lincolnshire Surprise Major, along with five SRCY members from the UK. This was especially exciting for Cathy Brown, who had never rung Lincolnshire and also for Kathryn Tucker, who had rung one plain course over a year ago! But with six other very steady ringers (Derek Wilsden rang the treble), we managed to pull it off. We missed Mary Platt, another Cumberland - alas, she was a good girl and did not call in sick to work. Lyn Barnett, the eighth Cumberland in the North Georgia area (Matt Brown, Emily Heilker and the always-missed Bill Bresler are also a members of SRCY), rang a peal of Bob Royal down at St. Luke's later that afternoon. Congratulations to all!

Peal band (l to r): Kath Baldwin, Ian Campbell, Simon Davies, Alan Regin, Kathryn Tucker, Derek Wilsden and Roger Baldwin (conductor). Missing is Cathy Brown, who had to scoot right after the peal.