STARTING WITH THE REALLY IMPORTANT BIT:

At the Guild AGM in Alresford on 2^nd of July The Guild Committee needs a whole new team of officers to be elected.

This incredible Committee has steered the Guild into a new era. The Plans are in place, the signposts show the way and the commitment to improve, educate and modernise this vibrant and active community is stronger now than ever before. SO, Please think seriously about helping us to keep the Guild and ringing moving forward. If you have been a secretary or treasurer for a school committee, if you can take minutes or type them up from a Dictaphone recording, if you like collecting data or think ringing needs to have a different voice in the Central Council, now is the time to say ‘do you know what? I could give it a try’. The posts becoming vacant are:

• Master
• Vice-Master
• Treasurer
• Secretary
• Librarian
• Peal recorder
• Report Editor
• Minutes Secretary
• CC reps (five of them)
• Child Protection Officer
• Independent Examiner
• BRF Trustees for the two dioceses

Other Noteworthy Items:

On a cold and sunny morning on 12^th of March The Executive Committee Meeting was held in St Barnabas Church Hall in Southampton. 24 members were present with 8 apologies.

We all stood whilst the names of those who have passed away since November were read out.

• Roy Grayson    (Purbrook)
• Roy Howard    (Freshwater)
• Tom Metcalfe    (Blackmoor)
• Ramon A Stone (life member, West Meon)
• David Yates    (Arreton)
• Martin Routh    (Former Tower Captain at Amport)
• Colin Nicholson     (Formerly of St Peter Port)

With no matters arising from the last minutes the reports and accounts were accepted.

Interesting and noteworthy was that;

• Our Hon. Librarian and Archivist Bruce Purvis had asked for a budget increase to buy volumes of Order and Disorder which contain ringing extracts from 18^th and 19^th century newspapers.
• The Belfry Stewardship Committee planned on visiting and inspecting Droxford.
• The Bell Restoration Fund gave a report on the Trustees’ Meeting; David Mattingley said there were grants outstanding to All Saints’, Basingstoke augmented from 9 to 10 and awaiting sign-off by the Belfry Stewardship Committee, Houghton where work had started, and Ecchinswell where fundraising was continuing. At Wherwell higher priority work in the church had been identified and so the outstanding grant would be reduced to zero and the church asked to reapply when they were in a position to proceed with the bell restoration. A new grant application had been received from Northington where the plan was now to augment from 3 to 6 at a cost of £17,000 of which £13,500 had already been raised. The Trustees recommended a grant of £2,000. The Trustees agreed with Hugh Routh who pointed out that work on three clappers which was part of the original project specification had not been done and we should not pay grants towards the same work twice.
• Greg Jordan was elected onto the Striking Competition Committee
• These fine folks will be presented with Life Membership certificates at the AGM, after completing 50 years of membership!   Congratulations to you all: John Croft (Winchester District Chairman), Alan Hoar of Odiham, Maureen Routh of Steep and  Ronald Tipper of Buriton.

The Master reviewed The Guild Action Plan and  suggested the setting up of 3 working groups:

• A small working group will be set up to consider the content, format and production costs of The Annual Guild Report. Discussions revolved around how many reports to print IE 1 per person or 1 per  tower, sending it out digitally and if it could be produced in a more cost effective way.
• Interestingly, A working group to consider the compilation, presentation and costs of books, listing performances rung between 2014 and 2018 commemorating the WWI fallen, to be presented to Winchester and Portsmouth Cathedrals, and that the working group be authorised to register interest with the Heritage Lottery Fund.

• Excitingly, A working group to consider the possibility of a centralised Ringing Training School for teaching new ringers.

The Committee were happy to support a funding request of £400 towards travel expenses of a joint team of young ringers from the Isle of Wight and Channel Islands Districts to represent the Guild in the competition at Epsom on Sat 2nd April 2016. The rest of the money would be found by the youngsters and their families by fund-raising. We wish them well.

After much discussion a rethink was agreed on the ‘welcome pack’ for new ringers. Whilst people though it (The ART Discover Ringing booklet and a contacts list) was a good idea, just who to give it to e.g. not many probationary members become ringers and how to get it to them was of concern.

The Communications Exec member gave a presentation on Social Media extolling its virtues and its pitfalls.

Future Dates worth noting are;

In the ‘Any Other Business’ section issues discussed were;-

• The arrangements for the Central Council (CCCBR) weekend at the end of May are well under way. There has been a good response to calls volunteers and Guild members are encouraged and welcome to attend the open meeting and Songs of Praise service both on Sunday afternoon.
• If a volunteer can be found the requests for Guild sweatshirt production can continue.
• If there was a form for making a bequest to the Guild. The answer was no it can be put into your Will.
• Ropley Church was expected to be rebuilt between 2016-2018.
• The Master promoted the Mid-Monthly Ringing Tours & the next one is on 13^th April.

We were all done by 12:00  Then a long and very fast quarter peal of Grandsire Doubles ensued.