A few weeks ago, Bosun managed to get in contact with St Michaels Church about possible Bell Ringing. Lucky for us, they were very happy to accommodate us. We had nothing to with what you about to read apart from getting this to happen and supervision so a big thank you to everyone at St Michaels Church who accommodated Chieftains on Friday this evening.
Before I go into what happened, we have some new Scouts. A big Chieftain welcome to Anna, Freddie, Max, and Harris. You will all get organized into your Patrols next week.
Now let’s talk about what happened at the Church on Friday.
The Scouts and Leaders were taken into the main church where we were introduced to the people who would be taking the evening. They were all Church members in some regard that had given up their time.
The troop was divided into 3 groups with the Leaders all following a specific group.
The first station was up in the tower where the Scouts were given a rundown of the history of the bells (300 years old to my recollection), why they were rung, how they are rung and ultimately a chance to have a go themselves. You can find pictures of most of the Scouts having a go below.
The next station was handbells. This station aimed to mimic the kind of music you can out of the bells in the tower on a smaller a scale. The Scouts were taught rounds to begin with and they were slowly worked up to a kind of song. This was only done via learning through positioning in a line. You can find some pictures below:
The final station was a little bit of a break from bell ringing. The Scouts were given a history lesson about the Church with the main focus being on general facts and information behind the tomb of a family that used to live around here. If you ever visit the tomb, all of the children holding skulls never lived past their father. The hands are cut off the children due to Oliver Cromwell hating what praying hands stood for and there were rumors of him visiting. They were cut off the parents as well but they were re-attached since Cromwell never turned up but the church could never find the hands of the 2 children.
After the tour, Scouts were given an alphabet quiz to fill in about the Church.
Information about next week will follow soon. However, we will be doing an inspection for definite. We are not worried too much about our new Scouts but everyone else needs to be in best bib and tucker as the point system is now coming into effect.
Until next week,
Ellis
