Annie Mitchener and Debbie Phipps from St Mary’s Church Lytchett Matravers attended the ART Module 1 training course at St Mary’s church in November with tutor Pip Penney in a very cold church (our contractors fault).

Debbie had not trained anyone before the course and the method of training using the ART training scheme is different from what Annie had done before so we started slowly with our very faithful mentor Alan Bentley on 9th December with two very keen learners Cathy Neyland and Gordon Patterson.

Under Alan’s guidance Annie and Debbie both passed Module 1 Teaching Bell Handling at the end of January.

We have all learnt things along the way both teachers and students and we are delighted to say that Cathy and Gordon both passed their 1st Modules as ringers at the end of January. The number of new learners soon escalated to 11 who are all heading for that stage and at present we are trying to ensure that everyone continues to make more progress and boosts our band.  Our next goal is to get some commitment to ring regularly on Sundays at least once a month!