I've said before that one of the benefits of online ringing with the Five O'Clock Club has been picking up some new compositions, especially using non-standard calls. Today I learnt new compositions of Kent Royal and Maximus.

The original plan was to ring a quarter of Kent Maximus. We've rung...

This question came up at home this week because Tina is organising a peal of Yorkshire, which will be her first handbell peal as conductor. What she's looking for is a straightforward composition to call, perhaps with handbell-friendly features.

A straightforward and well-known composition is Pitstow's:

5088 Yorkshire Surprise Major...

I've been doing a bit of online ringing again. Last Friday I called a quarter of Lincolnshire Royal, using the standard simple composition W 3H sW and discovering that it makes 5-6 ring all the positions. Today we rang Cambridge, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire spliced, using a composition in whole courses...

This week I went a bit mad with Ringing Room quarters, and had five attempts. Only one was successful though, which was Zanussi on Friday evening. In the Five O'Clock Club I have been mainly signing up for 10- and 12-bell quarters, which tends to reduce the success rate, but...

Monday this week (22nd March) was the 120th anniversary of the first peal of Bristol Surprise Major. Ideally the occasion should have been marked with a 5120 of Bristol, but we can't ring in person at the moment and I didn't have the energy to try to arrange and...

I've just rung a quarter of 3-spliced surprise royal (Cambridge, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) which contained a "big bob" - that is, a 6ths place bob. This is a fairly common idea for surprise maximus (there it would be an 8ths place bob), especially in methods with Cambridge place bell order...

The Five o'Clock Handbell Club has gone into Christmas mode, with a range of seasonally-named methods on the menu for the next two weeks. I didn't sign up for any initially, but there are two attempts arranged for New Year's Eve Little Surprise Major on, you guessed it, 31st December...

Yesterday I noticed a little curiosity about symmetry for handbell pairs.

When ringing a method with a 2nd place lead end, we know that half way through the plain course our bells cross with each other and the second half of the course is the reverse of the first half...

This evening I rang a quarter of Grandsire Triples in Ringing Room - very satisfying, almost no trips, hardly any internet delays, good pace and rhythm for a time of 36 minutes.

Alban Forster called this composition:

1260 Grandsire Triples
Matthew Durham

1  3  4  6  234567
------------------
-           734265...

I've already reported on the Lincolnshire Maximus on 1st November, which I conducted from the tenors. The following Tuesday we rang Lincolnshire again, which I also conducted but from 5-6. I found it much more difficult. I think I was underprepared for the 3-4 course, and the way in which...