Yesterday was the Oxford DG handbell day in Reading, which logged an impressive 31 quarters in BellBoard involving 35 people. The next Scottish handbell day will be on 7th May, and we have 21 people signed up. Slightly smaller than the ODG day, but when you consider that the Scottish Association has about 240 members and the ODG has about 2400, it shows the high level of participation that we get at SACR events. With 21 people we will probably have 5 bands ringing in each session, with 5 sessions planned. This gives a maximum of 25 quarters, although some of the sessions will be designated as practices rather than quarters. This is getting back to the high numbers of people that we had for some of the early Scottish handbell days, and this time doesn't include any visitors from the Southern Branch.

Coming up even sooner is a "boys' handbell weekend". This has come about because Tina has organised a ladies' weekend at Inveraray, mainly for practising ringing the back bells (for those who don't know, Inveraray is a 42cwt 10). So I invited Jonathan, Peter, Nick Jones and Matt Durham (whose wife Jess is going to Inveraray) for a handbell weekend in Glasgow. Actually all of this should have happened in 2020 but was cancelled because of the covid lockdown.

The plan is to start on Saturday morning with a peal of Cambridge Royal, which we should be able to manage well. Then a quarter of spliced Cambridge, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Royal, and after that we will move on to practising Bristol and hopefully ringing a quarter or two. We can then decide what to try for a peal on Sunday morning: either spliced Cambridge, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, or Bristol.

As usual, planning the attempts prompted some thinking about compositions. For a peal of Cambridge Royal, I will call this old favourite:

5040 Cambridge Surprise Royal
CUG Collective

23456  M  W  H
--------------
53462  s  s
42365  s  ss -
34265  ss    -
23465     ss -
--------------
Repeat.

It's good for handbells as 5-6 only ring the 5-6 and 3-4 positions, and 3-4 only ring the 3-4 and coursing positions.

For a quarter of spliced CYN, we've rung this one before:

1,282 Spliced Surprise Royal (2–3 methods)
Donald F Morrison (no. 2348)

 23456   W  H   2m           3m           3m  
------------------------------------------------------       
 45236   -  -   YCYCY.CCYC.  NCYCY.NCYN.  YCCYY.R.
 24536      -   YCYYCYCCY.   NCYNCYNCY.   RCYRCYRCY.
 52436      -   YCCYYCYYC.   YNCYNCYNC.   YRCYRCYRC.
(32456)  s      CYCCY.(Y)    CYNCY.(Y)    CYRCYRCY.(Y)
------------------------------------------------------
Rounds two blows after the single.

Easier options are this one:

1280 Spliced Surprise Royal (3m)

M  B  W  H                      23456
-------------------------------------
-  x  -  -  CCCC.CCC.CCC.CCCC.  42356
         -  NNNNNNNNN.          34256
         -  YYYYYYYYY.          23456
-------------------------------------
x = 16
560 Cambridge; 360 Lincolnshire (N), Yorkshire; 2 com

or this one:

1282 Spliced Surprise Royal (3m)
Simon J. Gay

W  H               23456
------------------------
-  -  YYYYY.YYYY.  45236
   -  CCCCCCCCC.   24536
   -  NNNNNNNNN.   52436
s     YYYYY.(Y)   (32456)
------------------------
562 Yorkshire; 360 Cambridge, Lincolnshire (N); 3 com; atw.

If we decide to ring a peal of spliced CYN, I will call this composition in whole courses:

5040 Spliced Surprise Royal (3m)
Roger Bailey

M  W  H	              23456
---------------------------
      –	 CCCCCCCCC.   42356
–        NNNN.NNNNN   32654
–  s     CCCC.C.CCCC  52463
–     –  NNNN.NNNNN.  34265
   –     YYYYY.YYYY   63245
   –     CCCCC.CCCC   46235
   –  –  YYYYY.YYYY.  23465
---------------------------
2 part.
2160 Cambridge; 1440 Lincolnshire (N), Yorkshire; 13 com; atw.

I then started thinking about easy peal compositions of Bristol. I am leaning towards 8th place bobs, which make it easier to arrange a composition in whole courses with the pairs in fixed positions. I experimented with arranging the composition of Cambridge, shown above, for Bristol, which is not completely straightforward because of the place bell order and the order in which the calling positions appear in the course. This arrangement uses a similar set of courses and has the same positions for 3-4 and 5-6:

5040 Bristol Surprise Royal
Simon J Gay

V  O  I  23456
--------------
ss -  ss 34256
   -     42356
ss -  s  53426
s     s  23465
--------------
Repeat.

But it's possible to get a peal with the same positions for 3-4 and 5-6 in a simpler way:

5040 Bristol Surprise Royal

V  O  I  23456
--------------
s     s  53462
s  6     23465
--------------
Repeat.
6 = - - s - - s

This composition has appeared in the Ringing World Diary, but reversed into this form:

5040 Bristol Surprise Royal

V  O  I  23456
--------------
   6  s  53426
s     s  23465
--------------
Repeat.
6 = s - - s - -

I think I prefer starting with the calls at V and I to swap 5-6, so that the end of the peal has 5-6 settled in their home position.

When I picked up a recent Ringing World Diary to check that composition, I didn't find it but instead saw this one which is basically the same idea but with 4th place bobs and a little tweak in the calls affecting 2-3-4. We can decide which one to ring depending on the views of the band.

5040 Bristol Surprise Royal
Anthony R Carter

M  W  H  23456
--------------
   s  s  54326
s  s  5  23465
--------------
Repeat.
5 = - - s - - 

So those are the plans for the next few weeks, and I will report in due course.