Naming an event “The Summer Festival” especially when it is in September, seems to be daring the weather to be not at all summery. But on 14^th September 2024, the day dawned bright and clear, and the weather remained mostly summery all day.

In the afternoon, ringing took place at the big 5 at Everdon and the 6 at Badby before moving on to the main event at Byfield. The Summer Festival is an 8 bell striking contest arranged between branches of the Guild for the Harry Wooding Memorial Trophy. Bands are free to choose the method, Triples or Major, with a minimum of 160 changes to be rung. There were 5 branch bands and a youth team, and the order of ringing had been arranged in advance.

Some of the bands found some of the bells at Byfield challenging, they needed to be kept on top of. Most bands elected to ring Grandsire Triples; as the judges commented, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon.

For the first time there was a youth band entered. In the spirit of encouraging youth; Andrew Alldrick was accompanied by his grandson, Zach Poulson. Zach rings with the Coventry Spires youth team, so this was an opportunity for him to give out the points, rather than receiving them.

The tea was held in the Village hall, a nice stroll across the park from the church. There was a stall of anniversary merchandise and colouring and crafts for the young at heart. And there was the customary Centenary Cake Cutting. Introduced this year was a display of work in recently completed projects. This aims to give the wider Guild sight of what grant money has been spent on. It might spark an idea or provide some thoughts on potential avenues to explore in a local project.

The meeting began with the judges presenting the results in an impressive display of team work, with Andrew Alldrick giving the general comments on each team’s performance before Mike Chester gave the scores in reverse order and Zach gave out the certificates to each tea. The Judges presented Chris Bulleid of Towcester Branch with the trophy as having given the judges’ pencils the least to do.

Team bands and photographs can be found here.

Zack Poulson, Mike Chester & Andrew Alldrick presenting the trophy to Chris Bulleid.

The remainder of the business meeting followed, the main part of which was a review of activity at the CCCBR meeting that took place last weekend.The 100 Club draw was also made during the meeting, congratulations to the winners:

1st: Murray Coleman
2nd: James O'Neill
3rd: Jackie Brandon

The day finished with evening ringing at Byfield.

Congratulation to all bands that took part, they all finished higher than the branches that did not enter at all. Thanks are due to the towers for allowing ringing and Daventry branch for putting on the abundant tea in Byfield’s lovely village hall. Thanks as well to the judges for giving up their afternoon to judge for us.