Welcome everyone to the site! On this site you can find resources for Devon-style call change ringing. This is where you can find the official pages of the completely unofficial Devon Ringing League, which I invented a few years back, and the unofficial pages of the official Devon Association of Ringers Ringing Ladder. The tabs above give you links to these areas: the league tab for the DRL, and the ladder tab for Devon Association Ringing Ladder. I try to update this site at least once a month (during the summer at least), especially the league and ladder pages as this is where most of the action is. When I see, or come up with, new compositions I'll add them when I get the chance but they may take a bit more time, what with typing them up and then fiddling about to make them into pdfs...
Enjoy!
    James Kerslake

Comments, feedback and suggestions? Email me: webmaster@myconid.co.uk

Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since I last posted something here, but that's because I've been busy adding lots of results to the archive. Thanks to Scott Adams, I've been able to add results from competitions going back as far as 1986. Consequently the software has already calculated the tables and various other statistics so that all that information is also there.

I've got no real gossip or news to tell you. Although I've obviously done plenty of ringing since I last posted up here since that was just before the Kilkhampton/Stratton double header at the end of the year – That's right, it has been over two months! In that time I've been on a ringing trip between Christmas and New Year, and out practising for the big competitions.

The other excuse I'm going to give for being generally useless is that I'm currently (when I get time) developing the new software for bringing you the archived results, records and statistics. I've sort of beta tested the archive bit with one of the least computer literate people I know (Scott) and everything seems easy enough to use and now it's just a case of building the records and stats pages. It turns out that these aren't as easy as I thought they would be...

I'm going to apologise in advance for the length of this, because I've got a number of bases I want to cover.

Can it be that another season has nearly finished? Yes, this Saturday is the Stratton and Kilkhampton 2 tower 4 competition extravaganza which marks the end of the season. But what of the recent past, what have I been up to? Well, the week before The Meeting I had my annual Let's-have-a-ringing-trip-for-all-the-students-and-St-David's-ringers-and-see-how-many-towers-I-can-grab-myself tour, this year around Kingsbridge and Dartmouth. All the usual suspects turned up and so we dashed off in nearly-convoy to South Devon to sample the delights of some of the most awkward to get to towers in the county. The weather was reasonably good, considering it's November, and on the whole the ringing was of reasonable standard. Where did we ring, I hear you ask. We went to South Pool, Chivelstone, Kingsbridge, Sherford and St Saviours in Dartmouth. We finished off at the Sportsman's Arms on the main road between Dartmouth and Halwell and had some lovely food there, a recommended establishment if you're in the area.

The Meeting went well albeit a little slowly for no particular reason, but nevertheless decisions have been made and next year's big competitions are being held as follows: Novice at Holne, 8 Bell at Buckland in the Moor, North Qualifier at Shirwell, South Qualifier at Dunsford, Minor Final at Morthoe and Major Final at West Alvington. Our new chairman is Claude Nicholls and our new President-elect is John Cole. As I hinted at The Meeting dragged on a bit and I have an idea on how we can solve this to some extent. Every year the minutes of the the previous committee meetings and AGM are circulated along the the agenda, so how much extra work would it take to also circulate the various reports with this. Having circulated the reports we don't need to then have them read out at The Meeting and we can go through these items by saying something along the lines of "you should have received the report with you copy of the agenda are there any matters arising?" that way we can move on quickly and get on to other matters more effectively. Other ringing societies have this information sent out as their Annual Report, and sending out the information beforehand may increase attendance as people know that they aren't going to have to sit through these reports which can seem interminable...Just a thought.

So that was the past, what of the future?

Regular followers of the nonsense I put up here will know that a couple of years ago I upgraded how I run the site, from pencil-paper-and-perspiration to an online database, to make things easier to update. Having the database has meant that I can do the semi-regular pointless statistic without having to do much in the way of legwork (or penwork if you prefer), as I just have to ask the right question and the answer falls out which I then copy onto webpage. Obviously the trick is to ask the right question, which isn't always as easy as it seems. Anyway as a consequence I reckon I can make the archive better and give people more information, and so I've got a new project in mind, but first a little background:
Many people know how there a records dating back hundreds of years for nearly all method peals rung worldwide. The names of the ringers, conductors and composers are documented and so from these we can tell who the great method ringers are throughout the years. Also there are many books on the subject so it is comparatively easy to find out the history of method ringing as a pastime. I've read Tintinalogia (printed in the mid 18th century), Shipway's Campanalogia (printed in the early 19th century) and some of the Snowdon series (printed around the turn of the 20th century) and these books give insight into how ringing developed from round ringing into full change ringing.
Recently I had a conversation with Colin Adams about books of this type and I'd mentioned the fact that Steve Coleman has recently (1990s) written some excellent books on the subject of method ringing that are neither too complicated nor too patronising. In a couple of the books there are chapters dedicated to, and in high praise of, well struck call changes. Colin then told me he'd met Steve Coleman and said how Steve had told him how he thought it would be nice to find have a book on the historical aspects of call change ringing in Devon, as this is an area of ringing not very well known.
With this in mind, I'd like to compile a list of the ringers who were in the winning teams of the following competitions since the first year the respective competitions were held:

With the possible later additions of the South Devon 8 bell competition, the South Devon Interdeanery competition and the north Devon equivalents, if such competitions exist. Once the data is collected I hope to be able to make it both browsable and searchable, so you should be able to find out who was in the team that won the 1937 6 bell final or how many times a given ringer has won the North Devon qualifier.

Along with a record of the winning ringers, I'd like to back-date the archive of results for all the competitions that I can so that there is a place where we can answer all those niggling questions that we all occasionally have, such as "When was the Swimbridge Major Final?" or "Where was the 1978 Woodleigh Deanery competition held?". I believe that now is the time to do this, as if we leave it too much longer this knowledge will be gone!
I've already started this process, as Scott Adams has given me his results books going back as far as 1986. Obviously it's not a complete record as no one man (or woman) can keep the results of every competition, but it's a good start. I've also got the names of the ringers who won the first 8 bell and Major Finals, as I was up in North Tawton tower a couple of weeks ago, and Ian Avery has kindly sent the names of all the Kingsteignton teams that have won the eight bell.

The eagle-eyed will have noticed I've changed the look of the site slightly. This is in preparation for the new interface I'm having to design to make all this information accessible (when I'm not typing in results...), I'll be starting that process with this page and the news archive page. Hopefully it'll look something like this:

2 updates in one month?! When you're hot, you're hot!