See other pages for further information on Bellringing 
Read ‘B is for Bellringers’ article (November 2018)

The ringers at St Mary’s are heavily involved with the training of new ringers.   As volunteers, we commit to approximately 20 hours of one-2-one teaching for each learner until they are safe to ring on their own, before we can even start to teach them to ring with others in a band.  Three of us have full accreditation from the Association of Ringing Teachers (ART) for teaching beginners and Trisha Hawkins, Tower Captain, was awarded their 2018 prize for ‘Inspiring Leadership in Ringing’.  We constantly need to train new ringers to ensure that our bells can be rung out in Barnes, for weddings, community and national events as well as for services. 

We are currently aiming to collect a total of £20,000 for the following educational aids and facilities so that we can deliver quality teaching and ensure that new ringers are able to progress quickly and safely through the early stages of learning:

Part 1 (through grants and donations we have already raised money to cover these items)

• Installation of two dumb bells (for new-learner practice without the need for one of us to climb around underneath the bells to silence some by clamping or other means every time this facility is required).   There is no way to train a ringer other than on a bell, or simulated aid such as a dumb bell.   The local community would not thank us for hours of what would sound like ‘tolling’ unless we silence any bell we are teaching on.   A dumb bell will ring silently but can be linked via sensors and a computer to emulate the bell sound through speakers or headphones.
• Replacement of two laptops on which to use the new simulator software releases
• Sensor facilities for the two new dumb bells and modifications to include them in the existing simulator system
• Upgrading the tower audio system 
• Upgrading CCTV facilities displaying the bells at ground level

Part 2 (still to fund!)

• Installation of full ‘sound control‘ for the bell tower.  This will limit the sound of the bells outside the tower enabling us to offer ‘silent’ training time for advanced ringers without disturbing the neighbours.  It will also mean those of us who train (mostly over 70!), will not need to climb under the bells each time we need such a practice!   Extra practice time will enable ringers to progress towards the standard of our experienced Friday night band!

How to donate:

We hope all those who love hearing the bells in Barnes will support this initiative.    We invite you to donate:

• • online via our page on Wonderful.org (no fees charged).   Gift Aided can be added when donating.   Please note that in addition to what is shown here, we have already raised over £12,000 via a previous site which recently closed!
  • Cash or cheque (payable to ‘St Mary’s Barnes PCC’) – please put in a Gift Aid envelope clearly marked ‘BELLS’

If you would like to know more or have any queries, please email our Tower Captain 

If you would like to arrange some Dedicated Ringing to help with our fundraising, see the details below.

In support of St Mary’s fund raising efforts, the bell ringers offer to dedicate Sunday service ringing (and/or the Friday quarter peal attempt where requested) to special requests in return for a donation. This could be for a special event (anniversary, birthday, wedding, baptism, memory of a loved one etc).

A relevant announcement will be made in the pew sheet and the dedication will be included in the pre-ringing prayers. A commemorative card will be presented to the donor after the ringing has taken place.

For a successful Quarter Peal, the dedication will also be printed as a footnote in the Ringing World, in the Tower quarter peal book, and published on the Ringing World Bell Board site.

Please contact bells@stmarybarnes.org for further details – and remember to give plenty of notice to secure dates! An application form can be collected from the ringers in the tower, or can be downloaded here.