I wrote about ringing handbells at the SACR AGM a long time ago, back in 2015, and we have tried to keep doing it since then because the AGM is combined with the striking competition so everyone has a lot of time not up the tower. This year's AGM was on Saturday, and it was particularly good for handbell ringing. There were at least three sets available. When I came down the tower after my competition ringing, which was the very first piece, there was already a handbell band ringing at one end of the church hall. I installed myself in a little cubbyhole at the other end and rang with six or seven other people in various combinations.

We rang some Yorkshire Major, then three leads of Littleport Royal, then some Kent Royal. People were drifting in and out between touches. We then moved on to Grandsire Caters and rang a couple of plain courses followed by a bob course. After that, we were just getting to grips with St Clement's Major when the striking competition finished and we had to move on to the next item in the schedule.

There was a similar shifting set of people in the other group, mainly ringing plain hunting and Plain Bob. Probably about a dozen people were involved in handbell ringing altogether. We didn't manage to have the usual handbell day in May this year because the date clashed with the Coronation, so it was good to be able to get a variety of people ringing at the AGM.

The afternoon reawakened my interest in Grandsire on handbells. We had an unsuccessful peal attempt back in 2017, and I enjoyed a couple of online quarters during the lockdowns. I've added a peal of Grandsire Caters to the list of projects to organise during the rest of this year.