LOCKDOWN UPDATE

Following our get together at Lowes Farm Coffee Shop in July 2020 we arranged a pilot practice session at Byley Village Hall.  Due to the restrictions we had a rota as we were only allowed 6 people indoors.  This worked very well and we used the chimes instead of the bells.  We continued with this on a weekly basis until December but it was then curtailed due to a further lockdown.

Since we were all confined our resident arrangers produced 25 new pieces for the time when we could resume practising.

The next get together was in June 2021, again at the Coffee Shop, and we were able to arrange to re-commence our practices at Willowmere which happened on the 26th July.  

Luckily we were able to continue there and finished the year with a Christmas Celebration at Willowmere.  This was requested by the manager and involved the Rev. Liz Woode from St. Michael and All Angels Church and the bell ringers and was well received.  It involved prayers, readings and Christmas music on the bells, and singing carols with the help of a CD!  We even managed a new arrangement of "O Holy Night".

We are now looking forward to being able to take bookings for 2022

Although restrictions are easing, we still can't meet for practice so some of us met today at Ginger and Pickles tea room at Lowes Farm Shop, Byley.  It was good to catch up and we will repeat it if we can.

We celebrate the new decade with new outfits and photos and a video during a rehearsal.

What did we do last year?

In June we entertained  St. Helens Mothers' Union at their Strawberry Tea to which other Mothers' Union branches had been invited.

In October we visited another Mothers' Union branch in Holmes Chapel with our talk "Making Music with Handbells" and even persuaded some of their members to "have a go" which they did very well.

We had two outings in November, the first being to the Church Hulme Probus Ladies Group in Holmes Chapel and their members too were encouraged to join in!

Also in November we were invited to play at Hartford Wednesday Club who also enjoyed "having a go"

Our year finished with visits to Hartford Ladies Fellowship, the Lion Salt Works, Richmond Village and Sharston House Care Home.

Richmond Retirement Village

Richmond Retirement Village

Our first outing in 2019 was to this care home in Nantwich where we played a variety of pieces for the residents.  It is in a beautiful setting and they enjoyed it so much they have already asked us back later in the year!

New Photo Gallery

The previous gallery stopped working so now we have a new Gallery page that we are really pleased with, we hope you like it too.

We were busy in the run up to Christmas with visits to care homes and the Lion Salt Works for their Victorian weekend.  We were glad that the visit to the Salt Works was in better weather than last year so more people were around.

Lion Salt Works, Marston, Northwich

Two of the care homes visited were

Winsford Grange

and The Willows at Mobberley