Ever since the start of Celebrating Community, the ringers have sought to engage much more pro-actively with the local community outside the church. For many years, we had held tower open days, which were always popular, but more recently we have been approaching community groups directly, to ask if they were interested in finding out more. We offered either to come to them and talk about ringing, or to welcome them for a tour of the tower. So far, this has resulted in 20 talks (ranging from a short after dinner speech to a two hour illustrated presentation) and 10 tower tours. In all, we probably reached around 750 people of all ages.
Tower tours had to be suspended while the tower was clad in scaffolding, but we are now fully back in business, and the evenings are light, which means visitors can enjoy the view from the roof. Of the 50 to 60 organisations we approached, most of those that expressed an interest have now received something, so the the level of activity has reduced. We suspect that there probably are still more groups who could be interested, so if you know of any, please pass the word on. If you would like to see what is on offer, and what ringing is all about, then please look at our tower website – there is a direct link from the home page of the Parish website.
John Harrison ( July 2006 )
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