In the run up to the Central Council weekend in September, we will be sharing regular updates on some of the attractions of the weekend’s events based on a series of themes:

• Science & Technology;
• Volunteering & Leadership;
• Bells & Engineering;
• History & Heritage;
• Recruitment & Promotion

To start, we are looking at the exhibits and talks on offer that we have grouped under Science & Technology.

Confirmed exhibitors so far include a Wombel training bell; Bagley Sensors;  a Matthew Higby Simulator; John Norris & Trevor Arnold Simulators; and Ian Wilson’s 3D printed model.

Graham John and members of the Technical & Taxonomy Workgroup will provide an update on activities since its inception and what it would like to achieve in future. This is a useful opportunity to raise any questions and discuss initiatives or ideas you may have for the Workgroup to pursue.

Graham John will also talk about Composition Library, a web service that has been 10 years in development. It provides ringers with access to a comprehensive database of over 20,000 methods and 30,000 compositions with powerful ways to search for methods, classify new methods, display their blue lines, properties, historical details, and find true compositions for them, even when they were not originally composed for the chosen method. This talk will provide a live demonstration of the service and will be of interest to anyone interested in ringing a wider range of methods, conducting or composition.

Simon Linford will talk about Project Pickled Egg – developing a new set of Core Surprise Major methods to replace the Standard 8. The purpose would be a set of core methods that would teach ringers how to ring Surprise Major in a progressive way, with each additional method building on what has come before, and clear reasoning for why it adds value.

Bill Hibbert talks on building a bell sound – the science and history of bell tuning, providing  an audio tour through the history of bellfounding in the UK and elsewhere including medieval, old-style, Simpson tuned / true-harmonic, bronze and steel bells, thick and thin bells, small bells and heavy ones.

 Are we to be told: “Oh ! never mind the fundamentals, – the nominals are all right, and that is all that is necessary”? Well, but here is all Europe (practically) telling us to “never mind the nominals if the fundamentals are in tune”.  (Canon Simpson, The Pall Mall Magazine, 1896)

Characters met with on the way include the Hemony brothers, William Dobson, Lord Grimthorpe, Canon Simpson and the Taylor family. The talk will include advice on what improvement is possible with poor-sounding peals of bells and an experiment on the audience.

Full details of all exhibitors and speakers will appear in the final version of the weekend programme, but the outline programme is already available and will give you a flavour of what’s on offer.  You can download it from the Council’s London 2019 page at https://cccbr.org.uk/about/annual-meetings/2019-meeting/.  We hope that this sample has given you something to look forward to.

Don’t forget to book your place at the weekend at https://events.cccbr.org.uk/product/annual-meeting-2019/

Next time we’ll take a closer look at the offerings under Volunteering and Leadership.