News

In August some of us travelled to Aberdeen to join with 600 handbell ringers from around the world for the International Handbell Symposium. This happens every two years and the last one in the UK was in 2012 in Liverpool.

We joined with a group of other ringers from around the North of England. Much of the week was spent ringing 8 pieces of massed ringing music with conductors from each of the handbell Guilds represented. We also had a number of workshops relating to handbells or the culture of the countries represented. We rang a final concert which was live streamed across the world. This can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/live/xMRDALSfd5Y 

In March we travelled to Melbourne School, in Derbyshire, where we were made very welcome by the staff and well organised children. We rang some pieces for the whole school and then the older children had a chance to have a go.

In March we were pleased to be invited back to Bateman House Care Home to ring for them. It was a lovely occasion with a group from St Peter's School in Alton there as well. They had been singing for the residents and then joined us to have a go at handbells.

We then rang a few pieces on 12 bells and invited the residents to have a go as well.

After a busy Christmas we are now rehearsing a new repertoire for 2026, this will include some old favourites as well as some new pieces. Over the last couple of years we have been starting to ring from the stave music rather than our number notation and we have now decided to ring everything from stave music. This has been a challenge but has been embraced by the team and we look forward to our ringing in 2026.

We are always keen to share what we do and will be looking for opportunities during the year.

Our annual Christmas Concert was held in Alton Village Hall on Saturday December  6^th.

This year the event was part of the Alton Extravaganza event, with different activities taking place each evening throughout December. This meant that we attracted some different members in the audience, as well as those who traditionally attend each year. 

Once again, donations and the raffle proceeds were donated to the Douglas Macmillan Hospice.

We have been playing a variety of challenging pieces,  both non Christmas and Christmas music. This provided a varied programme, with short interludes of festive singing, accompanied by our very good friend Rowena. Many thanks to her for coming along and supporting us!

We are now playing from sheet music, which has meant a  steep learning curve for us all. Until recently all of our music has been transposed into numerical score, which many of our group have been playing from for many years.  We were justifiably proud of our achievements, playing a variety of pieces such as the rousing Highland Cathedral (one of our favourites) and gentler Golden Slumbers and Aura Lee.

Festive favourites included Ding Dong Merrily On High, Infant Holy, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, and a special compilation entitled Christmas Night. All were tricky arrangements, which sounded so effective. 

The atmosphere created by the appreciative audience, the  decorations and twinkling backdrop, the refreshments, and our uniform of black and red made this a perfect Christmas evening.