61 Members attended the 2016 AGM which was held in July at Alresford and our thanks go to Winchester District for hosting the event. The meeting saw an almost complete change of Guild Officers. Many thanks goes to the retiring principal officers especially Mike Bubb who served as Hon. Gen. Treasurer for 30 years. Thanks also to Maureen Routh for continuing as Honorary General Secretary until the November meeting. Knowledge of process and procedures, however, has still been retainedwith retiring Master Viv Nobbs taking on the role of PR officer and Tony Smith remaining as Minute Secretary.
As is traditional the Inter District 8-bell Striking Competition was held prior to the AGM and was hotly contested by four teams. First position went to Portsmouth who scored 89% for their Grandsire Triples.
John Croft (Winchester District Chairman), Alan Hoar (Odiham), Maureen Routh (Steep) and Ronald Tipper (Buriton) were conferred with life membership having completed 50 years ringing membership of the Guild. Mike Bubb (Guernsey) and Tony Smith (Hursley) were also elected to life membership in recognition of their exceptional services to the Guild. Congratulations to all.
It has been a very busy year for the Education Committee who have provided many varied and interesting courses including an extra ‘Ringing Up and Down in Peal’ course due to a large demand. They always need experienced ringers to support the events so please consider helping if you can. It is very rewarding helping learners.
As I become more involved with Guild activities I am increasingly aware of all of the work being carried out on the Guild Action Plan and good progress has been made by all of the working parties. Particular interest is the collation of information for the WW1 Commemorative Ringing Record and members are reminded when listing QPs or Peals in Bellboard rung in honour of any ringer/relative/parishioner who was involved in WW1 that the ‘comment sections’ contains the text W&P WW1. This enables the team to easily find and collate the data.
Our website continues to grow and is a fantastic resource for communication. Nearly all districts now have their own webmaster which adds to the sustainability of the site.
On a personal note I would like to thank Maureen Routh for an excellent handover and her guidance as I start my journey and build up knowledge as Hon. Gen. Secretary and also to Tony Smith for his invaluable wisdom and guidance on Guild matters and processes.
Heather Frazer