Over the last few days, different teams of six ringers, ringing twelve bells have provided a feeling of Christmas at several venues, playing Christmas Carols and Christmas songs. The venues have included St Georges Hospital in Stafford. The Bulls Head in Alton, Brookfields Nursing Home in Derby, Hilderstone Hall Care Home, Denstone Farm Shop and Chatsworth. It is great to visit places at Christmas as they are all decorated with lights, baubles, imitation bells and of course, the centre piece of all decorations, the obligatory Christmas Tree. It is very rewarding playing at these venues to see so many happy smiling faces and hearing people singing along to the Carols. Wendy our Leader, works very hard getting teams of six together at such a busy time of the year for everyone. At all the events Wendy conducts and on some occasions plays as well. At the time of writing a...

Christmas concert

Alton Village Hall

Saturday 3 December 2022

After two early Christmas concerts and several 12 bell appearances, our third and final full team concert of the season was upon us – our annual fundraiser at Alton Village Hall for the Donna Louise Hospice for Children & Young People (now part of the Douglas Macmillan (Dougie Mac) hospice).

In 2021, because of Covid, we restricted our audience numbers to family and friends and changed our traditional pie-and-pea supper to bring-your-own food and drink, with donations instead of a fixed ticket price. There were also no guest musicians. This worked very well, taking the pressure off our organisation and preparation, and we still raised a goodly sum. We really liked this arrangement which made it a more social evening and decided that this year we would do the same but encouraging a bigger audience, and they came!

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