Offenham, St Mary & St Milburgh

I visited for the first time on Thursday 22^nd May 2009 for the "Two Hundred and Thirtyfifth Mid-week Outing" of the Four Shires Guild of Bell Ringers. There is a ground floor ring with access from the nave. There were only 6 of us at the appointed hour and I rang up the tenor. Eventually there were about 15 ringers and for my second opportunity I chose to ring bell #5 for Plain Bob Minor as this is the method that I am presently trying to master. It went reasonably well and I managed to get through several bobs before making my perennial mistake with a 5-6 dodge but nonetheless managed to get to the end. The bells were a pleasure to ring.

I joined the Four Shires Guild of Bell Ringers for their weekly practice on Saturday 13^th March. Unlike most towers we started at 19:00, 30 minutes earlier than is the custom. There were about a dozen ringers, less than when practice is at a tower with more bells, which gave me a good opportunity to practice. I managed a touch of Grandsire Doubles, a couple of touches of Stedman Doubles (unaffected) on the treble and another couple of plain courses of Stedman Doubles on bell #3. Another good Saturday night practice.

I been ringing here several times this year and was invited to participate in a Quarter Peal attempt at Plain Bob Doubles. On the day it was decided that we would go instead for Plain Bob Minor which unfortunately failed after about 20 minutes. We'd successfully got through the hard part, i.e. all the singles but for some reason it just fell apart. My second failure to get a Quarter Peal!

After failing to get a Quarter Peal two weeks ago I was asked again to help with another attempt. This time it was to be a Quarter Peal of St Martins, St Simons, Plain Bob & Grandsire Doubles with me on the Tenor. This time we were successful!