Travel to exotic distant towers, meet exciting unusual people and ring with them! Or travel not quite so far with people you know,  discover the wide range of different bells and towers that exist – and have a good lunch of course!

To make the most of this activity you should be able to comfortably handle a bell in rounds and call changes (though there will be experienced ringers there to stand by you and help).  You will gain a great deal from the experience of ringing on unfamiliar bells, begin by just concentrating on your bell handling, listening and striking.

Try to do your very ‘best ringing’ on outings – we are guests in someone else’s tower so think of it as a performance, rather than a practice. Stick to ringing things you know – it’s not the best time to be experimental.

You will discover many towers with lovely bells that are enjoyable to ring. You will also come across bells that are less wonderful and some where you ring once, then want to run away. Maybe one of you has to ring kneeling down under a clock case, or facing the wall… perhaps the ropes are very long draught, you have to spend half an hour clearing discarded pews out of the tower…. or the ropes are very stretchy – all part of the experience!

Ringers can be very proud of their home towers and feel a bit hurt if others are less than enthusiastic, so try to still be polite to the local ringer who let you in. Complement them on their pretty sallies, nice rope mats or breathtaking view from the Churchyard!

Write about your experience for a newsletter, Facebook, blog or The Ringing World and tick off another challenge.

Take the chance to look around the various churches as well as the ringing chambers e.g. is there a church clock mechanism or perhaps an Ellacombe Chime?

Dove’s Guide is a very useful source of current information about rings of bells. There are on line and printed versions of the Guide available.  Some ringers like to keep a record of all the towers they visit and ring at; ring at 50 different towers and tick off another challenge.

Completed one of your 50 things?

If you’ve completed one of the 50 Ringing Things, tell us all about it via Facebook or write a blog!