We are very busy in the tower at the moment.  I hope the electronics for the simulator will arrive today and we are planning to get the sensors and electonics installed at the weekend.  The plan is to have it up and running by Offenham Wake (June 8th), so that we can have some demonstrations and 'have a go' sessions.  The Deputy Lord High Everything and I spent quite a lot of last weekend in the tower making sure that the frame painting was complete on the bits of frame that will have the sensors on (and the surrounding areas, we don't want to splash them with paint later!) and working out where to run the cable.  I also had a very interesting lesson on how the thing actually works, the Deputy is the expert in these matters, my understanding was very basic.  The job for today is to try and get hold of some motorbike tyres and start on the silencing system.
I am now in a bit of a panic.  I have spent the last 12 months wheedling and bullying people into a) believeing this is a good idea and b) helping me with the practicalities of making it happen.  And I have spent other people's money doing it.  What if it is a disaster?!!  What if nobody wants to use it?  I have my own plans for usuing the system, but unless I want to do what one person told me they do and go and ring quarters of suprise maximus on my own, I need a few other people to share my enthusiasm.  At the moment the excitement is a bit muted, but I hope that when the whole thing is up and running and people see what can be achieved then I will be able to spend my sleepless nigts planning ringing instead of worrying about it.

We had a good tied practice on Friday morning (most Fridays, 9am.  All welcome but check it is on first.).  I though I would blog about it as it really reminded me that when teaching your have to go back and reinforce correct technique at regular intervals.  It happened to be a one-to-one session so when I was thinking about what to write I suddenly came across a problem - how did I refer to the other person there?  I do not want to use names, even if most people can work it out , so what do I use? Beginner?  Well we don't really have beginners any more; most people are plain hunting on several bells, and are well on their way to ringing the treble to touches even if they are not quite there yet.  Learner?  Well yes, they are learners, but aren't most of us?  I can't remember the last time I tied up a rope after ringing and had not acquired some new fragment of knowlege or insight about something - striking, conducting or even bell maintenance.  So while on Friday morning I was the 'teacher' and the other person the 'learner' I suspect that I 'leant' almost as much as they did.  There seem to be many options - novice, inexperienced, less experienced, student, & level 2 amongst others were all rejected for a variety of reasons such as accuracy and ease of use, but one thing I considered in each case was how someone reading it would perceive it. 
Take the ITTS use of the word 'style'.  I forget the exact phrasing but it is something like 'beginners should have a good ringing style'.  It's a perfectly correct and reasonable word defined by the OED as a particular procedure by which something is done; a manner or way.  However this word caused many letters to The Ringing World, most naming excellent ringers (mostly past, maybe nobody wanted to offend any current ringers) who had a wide variety of odd actions.  Yet I doubt there is anybody in ringing who would not agree that new learners should be taught to have long backstokes with thier hands finishing low and central, and to pull the handstroke with both hands, releasing together and the 'free' hand moving onto the tail end as quickly and smoothly as possible.  So why were so many people upset enough to put pen to paper (or fingers on keyboards) and contact the Comic?  Maybe it is because the main use of the word 'style' today is the other definition - a distinctive appearance with the expamle 'for a glamorous style, hair was brushed out after setting'  Could it be that the substitution of a word like 'technique' for 'style' would have caused much less muttering in the ringing community as it would have seemed less frivolous?  Never mind, it was all publicity, and eveybody develops their own bad habits eventually.
Back to my own problem of how to refer to people in my blog.  I finally decided on 'learner' as it seemed the most accurate.   It is a teaching situation and therefore someone has to be the official learner, but I hope they learn as much as they teach me in these Friday morning sessions.

It has been suggested that I add a blog to the website so here it is.  I have no idea what I am going to write, but whatever I put I would like to stress that the views and comments are my own, and should not be associated with anybody at St Mary & St Milburgh Church nor any guild, association or organisation of which I am a member, nor any members of the Offenham band.
And I'd like to apologise in advance for my terrible spelling!  When I was 13 my English teacher told me that I should always keep a dictionary to hand so I could look up words I didn't know.  I could not make her understand that when I wrote a word down I thought I knew how to spell it.  Even when I wrote the same word three times on one page and spelled it three different ways I never thought about it, I just knew it was correct so it would never occur to me to look it up!  Unfortunately things haven't really improved in the intervening years (although I do check more carefully than I did), and it would seem that this blog page does not have a spell check.  Feel free to post corrections, may you relish it as much as Miss D seemed to!
It would seem this first entry has absolutely nothing about bells in it!  Well I am sure that will change.......