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Our article about the new bells of St Milburga's is featured in this week's issue of Ringing World. You can download a pdf copy of the magazine at this link > https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/issue.php?no=5807 
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  The final day of St Milburga’s Bell Festival was a resounding success, with the bells being enjoyed by people of all generations from far and wide. In the afternoon, we welcomed Caring for God’s Acre, who explored the churchyard in search of slowworms and other mini-beasts with children from Bitterley school. The children were also given a brief introduction to bell-ringing, so we look forward to welcoming some of them as the next generation of ringers if they choose to take up this lifelong passion. In the evening, the festival closed with our Service for the Dedication of the Bells, led by the Bishop of Hereford, Richard Jackson, and Reverend Father Justin Parker. A variety of readings and a veritable feast of wonderful hymns and anthems were enjoyed by the congregation, and the bells were given the Bishop’s solemn blessing in the hope that they will ring on for centuries to come. Our photos and video clips of the Service can be viewed in our Google Photos album of the Festival here We would like to thank all of you who have supported our bell project, whether by helping to finance the bells themselves, by spreading the word, by coming to ring with us, by attending our events or by listening in and contemplating in your own way. We will continue to use the bells as a means of helping St Milburga’s church to grow and thrive into the future, so do keep an eye on everything that we get up to via our website www.stmilburga.co.uk and don’t hesitate to get in touch. We always love to hear from you. As part of St Milburga's Bell Festival, the first peal was rung on the new bells on Monday 13th June. The composition consisted of 5088 changes of Yorkshire Surprise Major, and was conducted by Matthew Higby. The full details of the band and the performance are as follows:  You can also view these details on the Bellboard website here: https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1524181 Many congratulations to the band on their successful peal attempt, which showcased the beauty of the bells in such a memorable way. Here are some clips of the peal. (The first one was recorded outside the church during the opening couple of minutes of the peal, and the second one was recorded about one hour into the performance from above the village, approximately half a mile away.)  The Bromfield Platinum Jubilee band To celebrate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, members of St Milburga Ringers participated in ringing at various churches within and near to our Benefice. Firstly, on Thursday 2nd June, five ringers participated in Rounds and Call Changes at Tugford... https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1520440 On Friday 3rd June, ten ringers convened at St Milburga's to participate in 45 minutes of Rounds, Call Changes and Grandsire Triples... https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1520456 Then, on Saturday 4th June, two separate bands were formed to perform concurrent quarter peals at Stanton Lacy (8) and Bromfield (6). The method rung at Stanton Lacy was Grandsire Triples... https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1520983 ... whilst at Bromfield, we rang 1270 of Grandsire Doubles and Plain Bob Doubles (the '70' being a nod to the seventy years of Her Majesty's reign... https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1520680 Congratulations to all participants on a great set of performances, and to HM Queen Elizabeth II on her incredible 70 years on the throne.  The Stanton Lacy Platinum Jubilee band
In readiness for our forthcoming bell festival, we have installed our new ropes today. A bit springy, but we're confident that they will calm down quickly enough. As our bells were cast in Italy, the sally colours of red, white and green were inspired by the colours of the Italian flag. We look forward to letting you come and have a go on them any time - just get in touch! The first ever time that the bells have been chimed by a clock in the approximately 750 year period of the church's existence. Filmed at 9:00am on Tuesday 21st December 2021. Many thanks to Neil Thomas and Andrew Barham of Matthew Higby & Company Ltd who came to do the work, and to Whites of Appleton who supplied the control unit for the chimes. We will be finishing off the project with new ropes and dumb bells in the New Year, and watch this space for details of a summer 2022 celebration to welcome in the new bells properly.  We mostly associate church bells with the call to worship, weddings and very special national celebrations such as the millennium or the ending of the Second World War. But they also have another historic function: to ring out warnings. Normally those warnings have been local: to warn of fire, floods or shipwrecks. But they were very much on standby to warn of possible invasions by Hitler, Napoleon or the Spanish Armada: times of real national crisis. Here at St Milburga's, we believe that today is a time of real national crisis and so on Saturday 30th October we will be ringing our bells to warn the people of Stoke Saint Milborough of the threat we face. The IPCC report has stated unequivocally that the extreme weather events which have swept the globe are the consequence of man-made climate change. The UN Secretary General has signalled ‘Code Red for Humanity’, which he would not do lightly. Our planet has given us warning after warning, through floods, wildfires, droughts, heat domes and hurricanes, that we have profoundly affected the balance of the planet and are making it increasingly hostile to mankind. There can no longer be any doubt that humanity is now in mortal danger… and on a global scale. Here in South Shropshire, extreme weather events have affected large areas in recent years, most notably flooding of the river Teme. As Christians we are deeply concerned with the millions around the world who are also being profoundly affected: the poor who have contributed the least to the problem. The nations of the Global South are already suffering the severest effects of drought, crop failures, hurricanes and cyclones. But the poor in this country will also be the first to suffer from rising food prices, heat exhaustion or the inability to insure their homes and businesses against floods. On Monday, in Glasgow, the UK is hosting the 26th International Conference to address the Climate Crisis. So far those conferences have failed to slow the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, allowing us to continue the path of self-destruction. The bells of St Milburga will be ringing out our warning on at 6pm Saturday 30th September to remind the delegates of the urgency of the dangers we now face. We need our politicians to take the courageous and, if necessary, selfless actions that times of extreme emergency require. Now the restrictions on ringing have been lifted, we are happily returning to open practices on Tuesday evenings from 7.30pm to 9pm and are ready, at last, to welcome visitors. However, due to limited space in the ringing room, we would ask you to contact us if you are thinking of coming and haven’t been part of the last few weeks’ ringing sessions. This way we can make sure that we don’t end up with more people than we can comfortably fit in the ringing room!
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