A Fun Web Site for the Bellringers in North West Suffolk

 At the Teaching Centre, you will be taught by experienced ringers and will begin to learn on one of 8 special training bells, linked to computers. These recreate the experience of having highly skilled ringers working with you. It is like a flight simulator, and you can practise before you are ready to ring the tower bells.

It does not take long before trainee ringers are ready to ring the real bells. The Teaching Centre runs training courses for new ringers, and experienced ringers can learn how to become even better ringers or even teachers.

The following has been taken from the Teaching Centre leaflet which exlains in more detail what is available and how-:

It comprises eight dumbbells each of which simulate a tower bell of about six hundredweight.

 The dumbbells have large fly wheels and are weighted with railway bed plates. They have a unique stay mechanism which is easy to reset. The flywheel effect minimises the risk of injury.

 Each dumbbell is connected to Abel via a laptop and headphones.

 You can ring on your own with Abel. That is the same as having eight separate bands in one tower, all of them ringing to support you.

 Or you can ring the dumbbells as an open ring of bells using loud speakers, and no-one can hear you outside!

 The Teaching Centre is a sophisticated playground, where you can do anything from learning to handle a bell to ringing advanced methods on twelve or more bells. You can also ring as a subset of a band. For example, one to six ringers can ring on seven or more bells. Abel and the loud speakers do the rest for you

How does it work?

 The range of teaching and learning opportunities is enormous. 

The Teaching Centre allows maximum rope-time for improving your skills in a perfect ringing environment. 

Tutors spend 100% of their time teaching and not ringing. Students spend 100% of their time ringing and not waiting to ring. 

A digital movie camera enables students to be filmed whilst they are ringing. This gives the opportunity to watch yourself handle a bell and for your tutor to give instant feedback and coaching.

Bell Handling

 With an experienced teacher the dumbbells can be used to teach new recruits bell handling skills.  

You can learn quickly. There is no waiting for your turn at a practice night.  

Abel enables the pupil to hear immediately when their bell rings  — so there are none of the disadvantages of tied bell practices. 

The unique setting mechanism means there is no anxiety about breaking stays in the first stages of teaching. This helps the teacher and pupil work faster.

Listening Skills

The learning process: ‘feel your bell’, then ‘hear your bell’ and then ‘see other bells’ works best.

After learning to handle a bell, the next most important skill is ringing your bell accurately with others.Starting with rounds, you can ring with perfect ringers and hear accurately where your bell is placed. You can review your ringing and ‘self teach’. Working with your teacher you can set personal  goals and then practise until you achieve them.

Once you can ring rounds and call changes to a high standard it is easy to move on to change ringing.You can practise ringing your bell accurately to new methods too.You can learn to ring accurately at different speeds and learn how to manage odd-struck bells. 

If you would like the opportunity to attend a course with other ringers from Suffolk please contact the webmaster and when there is enough to take a small group a visit can be arranged.